Fully agree with this, the game would have been a lot better without the tedious gameplay dragging it down. It should have been very few combat encounters + puzzles and mostly walking sections to absorb the atmosphere, just like SOMA did it.

hmm yea, i wrote this jab like a year before i even posted this so i dont necessarily follow the gameplay/narrative demarcation that underlies this discussion anymore, but im sympathetic to your thrust yea. ultimately i just don't find the moment-to-moment stuff in this entry the compelling. i also have grown more detached from this brand of narrative as a ground for thinking over time as well so there's that. i still find the rest of the quadrilogy really interesting tho

The gameplay tells just as much of the story as the cutscenes do, down to the most minute detail