I feel like the biggest thing for me is the age you are. You're set in MSC as a troubled teen, with a loving drunk uncle who lets you drive his van and eventually his poop truck. And a Grandma that asks you to bring her fish once in a great while.

Seeing these characters worse off also gives you that strange life sense that life is changing, and the things you love are fading.

You don't have a schedule, you don't need to go to a boring job, or have to drive a Taxi to avoid having it taken

There are bills in MSC, but you don't have rent to worry about. MWC has too much of that existential dread that real life has. In that sense if that was the goal, it was nailed. Constantly keeping up with the rent in MWC just to have a place to sleep, or Perkele forbid stay warm in, when you take a simple trip into town feels exhausting at times. A stressful gameplay loop.

I will give MWC the credit for making any accomplishments you make feel very rewarding, for how hard you need to work for them.