When you begin this game, the very first thing that you read are some words that say: "You have been assigned to a being called the batter. The batter has an important mission. Be sure that it's accomplished. We will let you out in Zone 0. Good luck. For more information, find the one called the Judge." Once you read past all that information, you (as the batter) enter the mentioned Zone 0, which contains an odd, incorrectly colored landscape, white water, and, once you've walked forward a little, a cat. At first, it appears normal, but upon the cat's beginning speech, you can clearly tell that it is far from a normal cat at all.

This cat, which you later find is called the Judge, begins his greetings with: "There cannot be any other living creature in Zone 0, so I must assume that you are only a mere figment of my imagination. Nevertheless, I will introduce myself. I am the Judge, and I am aching to know your name, dear illusory interlocutor." The batter replies in stating who he is, and shamelessly announces that he has been assigned to a "sacred mission." To which the Judge counters, "It is a pleasure. However, it is not the puppet I was addressing, but the puppeteer controlling it. What's your name dear puppeteer?" The batter responds for you, saying whatever username you've so wished to enter, along with mentioning that you cannot speak to them. But the batter also brings up that you can, however, see and hear everything. The Judge continues, "Even though you too are but an inexistent apparition in my eyes, let it be said that I am delighted to meet you as well, dear whoever-you-are." The batter mentions that we are in need of the Judge's services, and after some more dialogue, we follow the Judge to the second story in Zone 0.

After some dialogue, the Judge asks, "Might you in fact be a creature of flesh and blood?" to which the batter responds, "I think so, yes." After more speech, the Judge mentions, "This is relatively bizarre, I must say, for you are the first living being I was given a chance to encounter in this lieu." Once he continues, he mentions that there are other zones, which apparently hold much more hostile creatures than the emptiness of Zone 0. The Judge then continues into asking if the batter would like to receive some basic training before entering these lands, due to assuming that his sacred mission will lead him there. Depending on whether you say yes or no will determine whether you take more time to practice to prepare yourself (this will be irrelevant to the theory). Afterwards, the Judge says he has one last thing to show you, zipping up into the third story and disappearing. You eventually will learn how to solve codes and puzzles throughout the game, as the first one the Judge brings to you shows you how to complete them.

Afterwards, you go through the zones, fight specters, gain add-ons, defeat possessed Elsen, kill the three guardians, have some kind of warp into a children's drawing, assist the guardians you thought you killed, fight the queen, kill a little boy named Hugo, fight the Judge (or side with the Judge against batter), one or the other gets killed, and depending on who won, determines the ending.

Now, that might sound very simple, but there's so much backstory that simply playing the game and not paying attention is a huge mistake. So therefore, I'm going to give my interpretation, and hopefully gain some new insight along the way.