Oh absolutely. I found myself wishing it was balanced like a FromSoft game while maintaining its improved visual quality/detail and art direction.

(Hard agree on the naming convention, I genuinely don't understand the logic.)

Possibly unpopular opinion, but I kind of liked the original! It has it's problems, and it was very much a FromSoft clone, but the visuals were good and it kept me entertained. (Same for the second, although I haven't yet finished it.)

So, Carol freaking out and being on the wrong side of the moral argument is less about the morality of the specific situation and more about questioning whether the juice worth the squeeze. And it's all predicated on whether the collective's existence is itself moral (which has been fun to debate).

By which I mean: resource production/distribution (especially thru capitalism) are wildly destructive/inequitable compared to the collective's behavior. But the collective's equity/efficiency, while perfectly reasonable in this context, costs humanity its humanity.

That's what I thought was interesting—even though Carol is the protagonist, she comes across as unreasonable... because, as you said, she IS unreasonable. The tension (for me) was how the situation contrasted the morality of human resource use/allocation in lived reality vs. Carol's new reality.

The juxtaposition of Carol's horror with a collective shrug is what makes it interesting, IMO. Vince Gilligan basically asked: "What if Soylent Green except almost everybody sees it as perfectly reasonable and nbd."

In "The Worldbuilding Workshop," Trent Hergenrader & @steveslota.bsky.social explore worldbuilding as an educational tool that cultivates critical thinking and empathy through simulation and play: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255333... @thergenrader.bsky.social @wrldbuildingwrkshp.bsky.social

@thergenrader.bsky.social and I can't wait for you to read what we've put together—the content feels more important and relevant with every day that passes.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026238469...