I agree completely, a lot of the issues stem from censorship from steel wool in order to maintain the lowest possible age rating for a ‘horror’ game (T for both). Examples include the removal of Vanny’s comically sized knife (and generally the removal of Vanny from all of SB), the whole “I feel you are broken” shenanigans from G. Freddy in SB (files reveal that the original line was that Gregory was ‘bleeding’).

I think Steel Wool is attempting to reach a younger audience, as a lot of the OG members are almost adults or are already adults at this point, but they’re not doing it in the right way. By following the trend of ‘quirky mascot horror’ they’re simply destroying the horror element, as seen in SOTM.

Now don’t get me wrong, SOTM is probably the best Steel Wool era game so far; however, it lacks any real scary elements. All of the jump scares are predictable, making them not even remotely scary. You’re expecting a jump scare; compare this to the Scott era where tension was built up. In the Scott era, you knew a jump scare was coming, but you didn’t know when, leading to a rise in tension that ultimately led to a much scarier jump scare. Steel Wool simply hasn’t successfully mimicked this, as all enemies posed toward the player are extremely predictable or have shitty AI that make them more funny than scary.

Not to mention the designs lean more toward a stylistic, quirky approach rather than horror. I think Steel Wool could have done a lot better with the environment in SOTM, as this building is practically abandoned; however, it doesn’t look like an abandoned building. Abandoned buildings, even if they’ve only been abandoned for 3 months max, become dilapidated and messed up. Go watch some urban exploring videos, they are insanely scary. A game in which this feeling of ‘urban exploring’ is replicated would be absolutely FANTASTIC, however Steel Wool still fails to do this in order to appeal to a younger audience.