really enjoying the game despite having to do a bunch of shit to get it running properly since the PC port is dogshit

but as im playing it, a few questions keep coming up in my head.

firstly, i dont really know what type of ruler Emily was, there are little pieces of lore that kind of hint that she was a benevolent ruler who spared people who wronged her but prior to finding any of this out all i hear is her constantly talking about how she should have tortured and killed anyone who questioned her or detracted. granted this is in response to a coup, its giving “i was nice why didnt she give me any pussy” vibes

secondly, she keeps talking about elites and aristocrats with contempt, which is good, but also that’s literally you emily. so it kinda takes me out of the game because she’ll make a comment about the delusions of the rich and ruling class and its impossible not to think “what about you tho”

i guess in general i just hate media where you’re forced to side with royalty. its always some bullshit like this. even when the royalty isnt the main character the story will be about some lowly poor who was noticed by a royal and got swept away into that lifestyle and now they get to be rich. it makes me feel like im consuming propaganda thats meant to pacify me thru escapism

  • Esoteir [he/him]
    ·
    4 days ago

    idk i never finished the first game but wasnt that one even more incoherent lmao, like if i recall wasn't the first game literally about working with loyalists to restore the Just and Benevolent crown, while chastising you for killing people the entire time

    it's also honestly just a problem with the vast majority of steampunk in general, people create these settings in vaguely victorian colonial era settings with monarchies because 1800 had monarchy and then don't critically engage with the fact there's a fuckin colonial monarchy in their setting, instead having the rich fuck mcgee protagonist wearing a copper cog monocle run around blasting the evil guy fawkes analogues flash gordon style for the queen. easily one of the least self aware aesthetics of all time lmao

    • godlessworm [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 days ago

      agreed, i usually avoid steampunk stuff because it's just so cringe. i always get too caught up with looking at shit thinking "there's no way that needs a gear right there"

    • combat_brandonism [they/them]
      ·
      4 days ago

      and then don't critically engage with the fact there's a fuckin colonial monarchy in their setting

      Arcanum stays winning comfy-cool

      (I last played this game when I was 12 so I have no idea if the politics were good but I vaguely remember some anticolonial themes)

  • robotElder2 [he/him, it/its]
    ·
    4 days ago

    And Sokolov is just your kindly grandpa figure now. Pay no attention to how in the first game he was aremoved who kidnapped homeless people and deliberately infected them with plauge to experiment on them. Corvo just didn't tell his daughter about that apparently, and now he's a family man.

    • godlessworm [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 days ago

      damn i didn't even remember much from the first game tbh, i played it back in like 2012 so my political views weren't as refined back then and i didn't really view things through a marxist lens. that's hilarious though. its so absurd how the people making these games don't think about this stuff as odd. propaganda machine is powerful i guess.

  • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]
    ·
    4 days ago

    it's tangential but while we're talking about dishonored. i feel like after the first game every game for a while had to have like a weird dreamy sequence with floating terrain and shit. that felt really influential. was dishonored the first game of this era to do that in that style or can anyone think of very similar examples that predate it?

    • miz [any, any]
      ·
      4 days ago

      reminds me of the interdimensional sequences in half-life a little bit

    • GrosMichel [none/use name]
      ·
      4 days ago

      Might be multiple developers realized that having fully-developed/realistic stages is costly and doing abstract/dream stages is cheaper and easier to design and produce since they're less burned by having the spaces make sense realistically and fewer background things to make/render.

    • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
      ·
      3 days ago

      All immersive sims have to have at least one bizarre abstract sequence. Always been like that, I don't make the rules.

  • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
    ·
    4 days ago

    I remember later on that she gets called out for being a sheltered, privileged little shit by one of her companions and just sort of goes "damn I do kind of suck huh" in response. Like overall the writing is vaguely class conscious but in a very "lib thinking about the 19th century" way, and the "good" ending is just liberal reforms to the state.

  • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    4 days ago

    the main character the story will be about some lowly poor who was noticed by a royal and got swept away into that lifestyle and now they get to be rich

    Which is literally the backstory of Corvo. We get both in Dishonored 2!

    Played through this game last year, its absolutely amazing! You're completely right about the politics especially with Emily talking about "the elites." It really doesn't make any sense. It didn't bother me as much in this game as some others, but i get it.

    I think some of the incidental dialouge from Emily changes based on your playstyle. It's been a minute do i can't recall which ones change and which don't as regards the "i should of tortured mire people talk"

  • graymess [none/use name]
    ·
    3 days ago

    Protagonists siding with royalty by default is a big reason why I haven't enjoyed much fantasy media lately. I could see myself playing the hell out of Metaphor Resomethingorother, but I'm so put off by the royal quest of the central storyline that I'll probably end up skipping it.