Not set in a fantasy world and was not expansive science fiction
Uh… I mean, it kinda is. The world of the game itself is pretty wild. Monsters of a kind exist, and there is some sort of fog between the continents that csn literally make you stop existing without sci-fi tech to protect you. And it’s growing.
Actually talking to the corpo lady on the boat, doing the church quests, as well as having a high Encyclopedia skill gives you tons of exposition about the world itself, and it is gnarly.
It’s real. You can die at the beginning of the game attempting to grab your tie. You’re playing as a 40 something burnout cop who has recently done so much alcohol and drugs that you have complete and total amnesia and your heart can explode at any moment. At one point even sitting in a chair could kill you. lol
It’s really worth playing. The voice acting is stellar, and it really is the best “role-playing” game, in the sense that you are fully immersed in role-playing a character. The mental gameplay mechanics are GOAT, and one-of-a-kind.
Quite frankly I had such a high Inland Empire on my playthrough that the only things I’m sure are real are the things Kim or my good friend Horrific Necktie backed me up on.
I will always back you up bratan! You and I are bratannoi – brothers. Brothers fight. But when they’re done fighting, you know what they do? They party. They fucking party!
They aren’t continents; calling them continents implies a planet, but the planet is long gone, broken apart into isolas (containing both land, including full continents, and sea) floating in the Pale, which is very much not fog.
The Pale isn’t… anything, really. A literal lack of being. Not matter, or energy, but space-time broken down into pure entropy where direction and time lose all meaning.
Part of the idea behind the “world” is the idea that we normalize our reality and it’s almost equally absurd and distressing, we have just as much craziness in our existence that we’re just used to the same way. “Oh, we’re floating on a spherical rock in an endless dark void? And the climate is changing and we may all go extinct? Cool, what’s for breakfast.”
It’s used as a metaphor for how we just plow through our own narratives in life without stopping to think about how weird and fascinating and disturbing our own reality is, and it could be radically different and we would get used to that as well.
The game gives the player so many options for what you want to dive deeply into. Some players might get lost in the backstory and politics, some might dive into the characters, some like myself might get lost down the surreal/sci-fi elements. It’s very easy to play an entire playthrough and miss entire bodies of work within the work.
And if you’re like half the people commenting here, you might boot the game up and immediately say “I ain’t reading all that” and go fire up Call of Duty.
And if you’re like half the people commenting here, you might boot the game up and immediately say “I ain’t reading all that” and go fire up Call of Duty.
Fr. Some dude up in here basically implied DE isn’t a good game or a proper RPG, but they are so vague about their complaints it doesn’t even sound like they ever actually played the game, they just want to be contrarian.
You summed up why I never engage in media/gaming conversations online, but I had to step into this one because the game was legitimately art and needs to be recognized and preserved before like, the Turmp administration declares it terrorist propaganda or something. (Don’t scroll down where people are saying it was an artistic game as a derogatory slam.)
Uh… I mean, it kinda is. The world of the game itself is pretty wild. Monsters of a kind exist, and there is some sort of fog between the continents that csn literally make you stop existing without sci-fi tech to protect you. And it’s growing.
Actually talking to the corpo lady on the boat, doing the church quests, as well as having a high Encyclopedia skill gives you tons of exposition about the world itself, and it is gnarly.
I was surprised that the church sequence doesn’t kill you. I only got shot once in the Whirling-In-Rags.
The dancing for Egghead can kill you if your health is low enough/your physical stats are 1-2.
I died from sitting on a slightly uncomfortable chair that one time.
It was very uncomfortable.
Apparently that chair is a common soft lock people hit.
The “union” leader is what makes me uncomfortable.
As someone who has never played the game before, I really can’t tell if you’re making all of this up. It sounds fascinating.
It’s real. You can die at the beginning of the game attempting to grab your tie. You’re playing as a 40 something burnout cop who has recently done so much alcohol and drugs that you have complete and total amnesia and your heart can explode at any moment. At one point even sitting in a chair could kill you. lol
I mean, only because you picked some build that gave you 1 HP.
one of the three presets do!
Sure, but your first time through it’s easy to not understand the mechanics.
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You can die due to having too low morale, too.
Or killing yourself as an intimidation tactic during an interrogation, regardless of your stats.
Practically all versions of the detective are susceptible to self-inflicted demise in one shape or another.
It’s really worth playing. The voice acting is stellar, and it really is the best “role-playing” game, in the sense that you are fully immersed in role-playing a character. The mental gameplay mechanics are GOAT, and one-of-a-kind.
For me it is how real every character in the game feels, they’re all weird and ridiculous but feel like real people 100%
HARDCORE
Quite frankly I had such a high Inland Empire on my playthrough that the only things I’m sure are real are the things Kim or my good friend Horrific Necktie backed me up on.
I will always back you up bratan! You and I are bratannoi – brothers. Brothers fight. But when they’re done fighting, you know what they do? They party. They fucking party!
The pale is incredibly interesting as a concept.
Entropy.
But filled with memories of things that happened before and maybe in the future too.
The pale driver gives you evenore context.
They aren’t continents; calling them continents implies a planet, but the planet is long gone, broken apart into isolas (containing both land, including full continents, and sea) floating in the Pale, which is very much not fog.
The Pale isn’t… anything, really. A literal lack of being. Not matter, or energy, but space-time broken down into pure entropy where direction and time lose all meaning.
Part of the idea behind the “world” is the idea that we normalize our reality and it’s almost equally absurd and distressing, we have just as much craziness in our existence that we’re just used to the same way. “Oh, we’re floating on a spherical rock in an endless dark void? And the climate is changing and we may all go extinct? Cool, what’s for breakfast.”
It’s used as a metaphor for how we just plow through our own narratives in life without stopping to think about how weird and fascinating and disturbing our own reality is, and it could be radically different and we would get used to that as well.
The game gives the player so many options for what you want to dive deeply into. Some players might get lost in the backstory and politics, some might dive into the characters, some like myself might get lost down the surreal/sci-fi elements. It’s very easy to play an entire playthrough and miss entire bodies of work within the work.
And if you’re like half the people commenting here, you might boot the game up and immediately say “I ain’t reading all that” and go fire up Call of Duty.
Fr. Some dude up in here basically implied DE isn’t a good game or a proper RPG, but they are so vague about their complaints it doesn’t even sound like they ever actually played the game, they just want to be contrarian.
You summed up why I never engage in media/gaming conversations online, but I had to step into this one because the game was legitimately art and needs to be recognized and preserved before like, the Turmp administration declares it terrorist propaganda or something. (Don’t scroll down where people are saying it was an artistic game as a derogatory slam.)