What does it say about the artistic decadence in anglo societies that they are still doing the whole "poor war criminals" theme in 2021, complete with made-up Iraqis supporting the war criminals lmao?
Like, even from a profit based angle, this is just pathetic to see.
Decline and decadence do not spare anything after all, including art. It's the ultimate price barbaric societies are fated to pay. Even artistically speaking, anglo societies are entering an even darker age.
A western-watcher would say that the collapse of western art is intrinsically related to their adherence to the most extreme forms of Christianity (that's what "western liberal values" ultimately are), where the world is divided between "saviors" (people with the same exact worldview of white american boomers) and "evil-doers" who are reduced to caricatures, no in between, no subtlety, no understanding of culture or history, no curiosity. Occasionally one of the "evil doers" is given "development" only to merely give emotional support to the "saviors", like western propaganda quoting some fascists in other countries to support american barbarism.
These are the same people who think they are culturally diverse societies but can't produce and are materially forbidden from producing anything that deviates from the most extreme forms of western imperialist "liberalism".
The obsession of anglo societies with atrocity porn in fiction is also a manifestation of such psychological rot. For example, some anglos praise games like "Last of Us" for its story, but it is yet another atrocity porn story with some makeup to make it seem deeper than what it actually is. It's bottom-tier art, complete with "white middle age man" saves girl from evil world. It's like a caricature of the worldview of white conservatives lmao, this is basically why they hate anything remotely "foreign". How can even self proclaimed "progressive" anglos praise such turd is beyond me.
A perfect encapsulation of how late-stage western imperialist decline is intrinsically related to their artistic decadence was given by western regimes literally concealing the Guernica in powell's presentation at the UN: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/02/guer-f08.html
The one scene in this game I really liked is
spoiler
when Jason and Salim find the alien caverns for the first time and just look out at the view and talk. Jason revealing that he didn't even know about 9/11 until a week after it happened and just joined up because he wanted to "be a part of something" really drives home the performative nature of the jingoistic oorah marine behavior he displays. Salim getting to talk more about his son was cute, and even if the whole "the last thing my son hears from me might be that I'm angry" conceit is trite it still got me.
Kinda says a lot about the game when normal development and characterization is the standout moment...