I suppose that's the way the game works because there are games like DDLC that also close your game after the death of a character. i’m also not sure if that’s an ending or a but try to play all over again and make different choices since the beggining!
it definitely seems to be part of the game, rather than loading up saves I recommend pressing Start on the menu again and see if anything changes from there!
i can say it definitely worked for me, so hopefully it works for you guys too! the starting scenes are v similar but keep going and you should see some differences :)
np!! for now i haven't played much beyond getting closer to Saken, but do your best to avoid L and you should make progress! i'm at about 4 hours in so there are definitely more endings i haven't gotten to yet
