Just got done with the new up date today. I really love what I'm seeing and where it has been going this far. Again I went with the orphan background and was really pleased in the ways she stood out. Mainly the talking to Theo and being reminded of Spencer. It was such a bittersweet moment for me.
I can also see the ways were the backgrounds stick out again and differentiate. As I said I only played the one so I don't know what is there. But I could definitely see the interactions with Astrid and Nico going a bit different with the military background. But what I imagine is the real star of this update is the wastelander background. I have decided I have to do a character in that background just so I can see their reunion with Theo. I'm also interested to see if the soul trial goes differently with a character having that background.
One of the most unexpected but most appreciated, at least on my part, was how some of the choices were reworded. There are two that stick out in my mind, which is kind of hazy being I restarted and played it over two days. The first being the choice of praise on the orphan's acceptance letter. The words "lone wolf" were replace with something else though I don't remember what. When I read that before the update my first thoughts were that it was confusing as to what was meant by that and why would the military, whom I would think would believe success comes more from their soldiers working together than not, would praise being a lone wolf as a stand out trait. The other being the decision when the S-class destroys the ground and the MC and others need to climb up and over the broken terrain to escape. The choices to "use your strength/gadgets to save yourself" being changed to "use your strength/gadgets to save yourself and others but not taking risks." Honestly, the best part of this one is that any MC that would choose it sounds like less of a prick now. At least that's how it feels to me even if it is essentially the same choice. It adds nuance that would have been easy not to. I always appreciate some good nuance.
But just how complex one's character in this can be is a real draw for me. In fact I knew it was a real win in that department when the first thing you have to choose is whether to save a woman and her child whom are more real because they are right in front of you. Or abandon them to complete your mission ideally helping to save hundreds of lives whom you'll never meet and therefor will always be kind of nebulous. That in and of itself was amazingly written and made me feel kind helpless no matter what I choose. I mean that in the most complimentary way. The worse thing one can say about a writer's work is that it made you feel nothing. But then you went the extra mile and allowed us to tell a character who seems to genuinely care just how conflicted you are about the decision. Honestly telling Will that I left a mother and child to die horribly so I could complete my mission was the right thing to do and I would do it again. But also it would haunt me and I would have to find a way to live with the weight of that decision. It was very cathartic and made for a character so much more complex than I was hoping for. I imagine it would have been very easy not to include that making the work load less. But I can not describe how much little things like that improve the experience.
Thanks for making this and I can't wait for more to come.