The Rippleman

"It baits its victims by promising fame on Kimera, knowing that they will eventually slip under the glare of the limelight. Then, it offers them a deal to remove all criticism."

The Rippleman is the main antagonist and Simulacrum of Simulacra 2. Its name is first revealed in a synced webcam recording of Maya, Arya, Rex, and Mina trying to get rid of the Rippleman, before Maya 's inevitable demise at its hands.

In-Game
It acts through Kimera, mostly on influencers. When an influencer loses a lot of followers, it offers them a "card", this also happens with the player when they finish reading Arya's post about Maya's death. After this, The Rippleman will offer a deal at the expense of a life, be it the person's or another one's. It refers to itself as "We", hinting to the fact the victims it kills become a part of it. Before your conversation with the Rippleman, you can accuse one of the three (Arya, Mina or Rex) that they took the deal. The others may agree on this, and that person will, out of spite for the others, take the deal, killing themselves. This leads to them leaving the chat and the video of them showing up with them panicking and having their face torn open.

The Rippleman will begin to chat with the player after one of the three takes the deal. They will take on that person's personality. They will give the player a chance to reshape reality to Detective Murilo, and the player can tell him that the person who took the deal killed Maya, or tell him the truth that Maya herself took the deal and that was the reason she died. The Rippleman can ask the player to be their new host after reshaping reality.

If you reshape reality by convincing Murilo one of them did it, his team will apprehend the rest of the surviving friends and interrogate them.

In Mina's ending, The Rippleman will say that "only the self can submit to them", thus revealing it was Maya herself that took the deal.

Killing Method
The Rippleman tethers to a victim through TRM, a Kimera boosting service (Described in the In-Game section of "TRM"). Once the victim has taken a deal, sometimes even at the expense of others, as it is suspected in Simulacra 2. Once it has tethered to a victim, strange occurrences regarding electronics will happen to this person. After a long period of this happening, The Rippleman will (presumably) materialize in front of this person, and after a short delay, the victim's face will burst open, with skin flaps resembling shredded paper. The player, in Simulacra 2, will watch this entire process through Maya's phone.

Endings
The game has a total of 7 endings (If you count the individual ones), 6 of which are bad, and 2 are for each character, while only 1 is the good one. Here you'll find a guide to getting the endings in Simulacra 2.

Mina
Mina's bad endings can be achieved by either not getting the K-Remote app from Ruben, choosing too many "Stormy cloud" dialogue options with her or others, or both.

This applies to every other ending, the crucial thing that differs is in the end where you choose who to accuse of taking the deal.

Shortly after, the player will tell Detective Murilo to "Send the team for ... (in this case) Mina"

Then, the screen will start breaking and a video of Mina going up the stairs, only to have her face torn apart by The Rippleman, who you will have a chat with after the video. There, you can tell Detective Murilo the truth, ergo that it was Maya who took the deal, or reshape reality saying that Mina took it. Telling the truth will result in D.O.O.P. being disbanded, and Detective Murilo being arrested.

Reshaping reality, on the other end, will result in the remaining 2 kids being apprehended and being interrogated by the police. Detective Murilo and his military team will still get there too late for Mina, though.

Arya
Arya's bad endings can be achieved with the same pre-requisites as Mina's or Rex's, the only things that change is the video, the "Send the team for ... Arya", the dialogue with Detective Murilo and The Rippleman, and the final interrogation if you choose to tell the truth.

The video will instead show Arya doing her makeup, panicking after hearing The Rippleman 's "growl", and, as Mina or Rex, having her face torn open.

The interrogation video, instead, simply shows Mina and Rex being interrogated instead of Arya and Rex/Mina and Arya.

Rex
Rex's bad endings can be achieved with the same pre-requisites as Arya's or Mina's, and the only things that change are the same that change with Arya or Mina.

The video will show Rex getting something to drink, trying to fight off The Rippleman and as well as the others, getting his face torn open.

The interrogation video, on the other hand, just shows Arya and Mina being interrogated, as opposed to Arya or Mina's endings.

Good Ending
The good ending can be achieved by getting the K-Remote app from Ruben, choosing enough "Sunny" dialogue options with the kids, and standing up against Detective Murilo, letting the 3 kids' plan go into action.

Then, the 3 kids will call with Arya's phone, and after being able to finish the call, the screen cracks and cuts to a dialogue with The Rippleman, who will try to stop the player from deleting the 3 Kimera accounts, in which it fails.

The screen will then cut to a video of the 3 friends taking a "New Beginnings" photo.

The end video with Detective Murilo thanking the player starts, and the credits roll.

Trivia

 * It is actually revealed that no one but Maya took the deal before her death.
 * The friends point at each other on taking the deal. It is up to the protagonist to decide who they think took the deal with The Rippleman.
 * The Rippleman and TRM are essentially the same thing. TRM stands for Tailored Reputation Management. Not "The Rippleman"
 * The Rippleman was originally going to look like a human, according to developers.