A playfully clever treatise on the predominant psychological mechanization of The Player’s approach to games in the 21st century as primarily dictated via AAA structural and ideological hegemony. What an interesting central subject to take on in a game functioning around a core experimental question of how far someone will go to see a story with even the slightest illusion of choice through to the end.

Prompts a few crucial questions: Does narrative choice necessarily always equal autonomy for The Player in games? Is “autonomy” ever a feasible goal in a product fundamentally bound to and by the static (if sometimes imperfect) code of its very base ability to exist? Bound by the (oft unfortunate) limits of its writers? How much emotional and intellectual manipulation can you stand during the course of any title? We know that so many of the AAA ilk attempt to obscure observation or discussion of these ever-tenuous dynamics in their games with various self-indulgent sentiments, but this game laughs in the face of all of these efforts.

I respect this game a lot, and I’d like to think it truly respects me and all the rest of its audience, too.