The hooded figure walking around has some serious significance in the story.
He appears in three forms.
The First is coat covered in bloody hands. The second is something that resembles the scales of a fish or dark stones. The third is a antiquated world map. Each of these forms stands next to the main characters at the very end.
Now on a replay of the game, I noticed that the figure with the world map appears right before the second in command officer radios HQ telling them of the captain's incompetence. I think this is supposed to mean that the world is arriving on the ship whereas it was previously isolated from any contact with the outside world.
The game is trying to make a commentary about the problems of humanity and the world. This is also evident when at one point there is a globe trapped in icy chains. It's important to note that this occurs right after the prison scene where you see the world through the perspective of your enemies. The end of this scene has you entering the mind of the guy who is hitting the pan on the floor. You then see the world being formed as we know it today. The events on the North Wind are perhaps meant to mirror the problems of the real world.
The most central theme of the game is the inability of people to understand each other and consequently close their mind to others. You can see this almost everywhere, from the story of Danko, to the infighting between the Captain, the executive officer, the security officer, and the engineer, to the way that each enemy is literally locked inside their mind with a prison of their own doing. Every problem in the game arises from the close mindedness of each character, their inability to understand and accept what others think.
As the Captain says "And so the thin layer of human knowledge cracked under the weight of nature."
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