Prototype 2's ending think Mercer is dead?

[Skorm034]

So I just finished playing Prototype 2 again and re-watched the ending. It annoyed me just as much the third time as it did the second and first. I still find it hard to believe that Heller could beat Mercer, after years with the virus, Mercer logically should be near god-like in power.

But then I remembered how smart Mercer was said to be in the first game and he's absorbed the brains of quite a few scientists in the time he's had control of the virus, so his intelligence would be greater then anyone else on earth and there was no real logic in fighting Heller one on one when it wasn't a guaranteed victory. Then I saw the achievement again, "Murder your Maker?" and after questioning why the '?' was there again, I decided to ask the people of this forum.

Do you think that Alex Mercer is really dead?

 

[wintercoat]

The virus pretending to be Alex Mercer let Heller win. It was looking for a new...host if you will. That's the entire reason it was making Evolved. The Mercer personality was becoming unstable due to the number of consciousnesses it absorbed, so it sought out potential replacements and infected them in order to pit them against one another, eventually having the winner fight and absorb it. Heller was the best bet, as he had something he believed worth fighting for, and was the most likely to work towards evolving in order to kill Mercer. That's why Mercer groomed him so thoroughly in the beginning, something he didn't do with the other Evolved. Sooner or later, Heller will start to go loopy, at which point the process would repeat, with Heller making more evolved, targeting likely specimens to "kill" him.

Basically, the entire plot of Prototype 2 is the Mercer virus shedding its skin.