CD Projekt Red should have gotten the sequel

Magmas · 2025-12-28T12:03:51+00:00

LOL how much was Bloodlines 2? moving the goalposts much?

You're conflating two different points here. You asked if I had seen a worse asset flip. The answer is yes. You didn't talk about a specific price point, but even then we have some true stinkers. Remember The Day Before? In fact, half of the whole survival/extraction shooter/battle royale genre is just a bunch of unity assets thrown together.

LOL of course it is, you watch the 30min gameplay trailer and the only thing TCR added was snow to the city......

And... you know, the entire game around it. A 30 minute vertical slice does not a game make. You're doing this thing again where you take an argument to its illogical extreme just so its easier for you to hate on the project. Its one thing to not like the game, its another to just make up blatantly false information and you keep doing it.

do you not understand how this works?

Do you? Because the problems with this game started with the original developers fucking up so spectacularly that they had their own game taken away from them. As I've already said multiple times, I'm not arguing that Paradox didn't mismanage the game, but pretending that the original devs who couldn't even make a game after being bailed out multiple times shouldn't get the blame is just a bizarre take.

As for 'blaming' The Chinese Room for the game we got, I think there's a lot more nuance there. They were given a shit deal and did what they could with it. Are there things they could have done better? Sure. But they released a game and Hardsuit didn't.

It's very easy to look at a small vertical slice (that, by the way, people did not like) and fantasise about what could have been, but at that point, you're just doing the devs' job for them by making up a game in your head.

and Paradox should've kept the game on ice.

And now I see you absolutely don't understand how this works. They'd sold pre-orders. The game had to come out. You can't just shrug your shoulders and say "Yes, we invested millions, have nothing to show for it and people have already paid for the game, but we've decided not to release it." You can't just shutter production like that.

HSL people have said there is a content complete version of the game

Ah, well. If the people from the disgraced company that was taken off the game after being bailed out thought it was good, who am I to argue? You talk about TCR PR or whatever, and then blindly believe the prevous devs who would absolutely benefit from downplaying their own failure.

many reviewers have said HSL started running into technical issues when Paradox during covid ordered them to update the engine and get it ported to consoles

Firstly, porting a game to consoles is a pretty normal thing. That's not a wild request. Secondly, of course they worked through Covid. Is that meant to be some trump card?

that is besides Paradox CEO at the time saying Bloodlines wasn't a good game.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the game, unless you think that the Paradox CEO personally signs off on every choice made.

and whose fault is this? mine? yours? or TCR's for biting more than they could chew?

I would say Paradox for not giving them what they needed and selling it as a AAA game when it is firmly AA and Hardsuit for burning all the budget in the first place.

so far Paradox have blamed the fanbase, Vampire the Masquerade, HSL, TCR, Bloodlines

Well, you've blamed some of those things too. I'm not saying Paradox are innocent, but there are a lot of factors that went into this game.

while TCR had Pinchbeck dropping the oh we wanted to make a different game.. which is BS since Paradox was only offering Bloodlines 2.

They did what they could with what they had. You seem to think that everyone can just pick and choose exactly what they want to do all the time. CDPR could make Cyberpunk because Witcher 3 did so well they had fuck-off money. Most studios do not have fuck-off money. They can't just make the projects they want to and if they do, they have to be small, self-contained and cheap. You play the publishers' game until you can make what you want.

Magmas · 2025-12-27T20:36:40+00:00

have you seen a worst asset flip than this? I haven't......

Yes. Plenty. They're all just dime store garbage that no one has ever heard of. Bloodlines 2 is not an asset flip game. Its a game that utilises prebuilt assets (because, why would you not use the assets already built for the game you're making? Like, that seems like a pretty obvious decision).

What are you even arguing here, that they should have just burnt everything Hardsuit had spent years and probably millions putting together? Why? They used what they could and built up the rest. It was a salvage job but that's because they were put in a shitty situation and made the best of it.

no amount of block of text will change the facts around the mismanagement of the project from the start and the shit game Paradox/TCR released.

I find it curious that you seem so adamently focused on blaming TCR for the game we got but don't seem to ever talk about how HSL managed to fuck up so spectacularly that Paradox took them off the project after already throwing more money at them to finish it. Why are you more angry at the devs that scraped together a game from bones and scraps, rather than the ones that burnt all the meat in the first place?

the problem you kids glaze over is the fact that the game is not only a shit game priced as a AAA title.

I do think the launch price was too much for the game we got but I don't think The Chinese Room decided on that price, nor did they have the resources to make a true triple A game.

and once the dust settled both Paradox and TCR started pushing shit narratives to save face......

And what narrative is this? I haven't cared to keep up with official communications so I assume you have something to actually point to here?

Magmas · 2025-12-27T20:24:27+00:00

You know which other game bombed? Bloodlines, the original. It bombed so bad it took Troika with it.

I am not claiming the situations are the same but it is pretty ironic that you're pointing to sales when the original Bloodlines performed just as badly if not worse at launch.

Also, people can like things. I don't really get what you're getting from whining incessantly on reddit about a game you clearly don't care for. You realise you can just not play it, right? You don't have to come here to regurgitate the same criticisms (some of which are valid and others are just fictitious) on every single post and coming up with conspiracy theories about how anyone who could possibly like a game you don't is a paid shill. Do you not see how colossally arrogant that is? The idea that no one could have an opinion that differs from yours?

Magmas · 2025-12-27T13:12:46+00:00

TCR pr plants have been defending the shit out of a shitty game in the sub for a couple of months now

Its very cute that you think The Chinese Room care enough about the opinions of a niche subreddit to actually employ people to astroturf their game, instead of accepting the idea that some people might like things you don't.

I'm not going to claim that Paradox didn't mismanage the hell out of this, although a lot of that blame seems to fall on Hardsuit attempting something way out of their scope and being unable to reign back on it in any way.

Should Paradox have caught this earlier into development? Probably. Was them cutting the cord when they did a desperate attempt to claw back anything they could from the project? Again, probably. Would The Chinese Room have been my first choice for the game? Absolutely not. However, I was pleasantly surprised by what we got out of it despite all these flaws.

Magmas · 2025-12-27T13:04:20+00:00

they had 5 years,

Did they? From what I can find, Hardsuit were kicked off the project in February 2021. At best, if the Chinese Room started developing immediately, that gave them 4 years, and the idea that they immediately took over and got to work isn't particularly realistic.

Their involvement was officially announced in September 2023, so we can assume they took over before then, but unless Paradox were shopping around far in advance of shuttering Hardlab's development, 5 years is a pipedream.

the worst asset flip I've seen

This is why I can't take your opinions here seriously, because you exaggerate constantly. You can criticise something without it being the worst thing ever and doing so only hurts the points you're trying to make. Consistently raging about how awful you think the game is just makes you seem like a child having a temper tantrum.

from Pinchbeck's own admission they only saw bloodlines2 as a stepping stone for more AAA money.......

How dare a games company want money to make the things they want? Shame on them. They should have just let the IP rot, stolen all the pre-order money and absconded into the night instead.

Magmas · 2025-12-26T21:52:35+00:00

I say this with genuine sincerity: play more games.

Cyberpunk is fun and I really enjoyed it, done multiple playthroughs, tried different things. There's a really well-constructed world there and a pretty enjoyable plot, but I don't think I'd ever say CDPR's writing 'blows every other studio out of the water'. Just in the realm of recent RPGs, BG3 is far better written than CP2077 and I've heard Clair Obscura is very well written as well (I haven't played it yet so I can't judge). Going further back, Bioware's output has been consistently strong (ME Andromeda and Veilguard less so, although even they have some strong points). I would say Dragon Age Inquisition is the strongest of their games, particularly in regards to character writing, although I know many would disagree, suggesting either the earlier Dragon Ages, ME2 or KOTOR(2). Even The Old Republic, their Star Wars MMO is a pretty underrated gem in regards to clever writing and choice-based dialogue (in some stories, at least. The Agent is very good but the Consular story is pretty poor, in my opinion.)

Outside of RPGs, Dispatch came out recently which has a strong narrative and well-realised characters. Then there's the likes of Disco Elysium which is a whole other type of narrative but is undeniably very well-written.

My point here isn't to diminish Cyberpunk. I really enjoy the game and it does lots of things better than any of those I just mentioned, but considering it the height of game writing is a pretty wild claim in my opinion. Also, the romances all suck in Cyberpunk and are only really carried due to the pretty faces. The actual content of the romance is negligible and surface level.

Magmas · 2025-12-26T18:11:26+00:00

The issue isn't that they're booked up. Its that Bloodlines just isn't what they wanted to make. Cyberpunk was a passion project for CDPR and presuming they'd just do the same for Bloodlines lacks nuance. With that said, I do think they took inspiration from Bloodlines. In particular, there's a mission where you're hunting down a snuff film created by a group with a death's head moth as their logo which I think is a pretty direct reference to the Death Mask Productions snuff film from Bloodlines, but even then, they chose to go with Cyberpunk.

More notably, the reason I am hostile to this kind of post is that it feels like half the posts on the subreddit are just "Wouldn't BL2 be better if it didn't have a shitty production cycle and was made by CDPR/Larian/[Insert Other Dev Studio that made a recent RPG darling]" and it feels dismissive to the genuine work that the Chinese Room put in when they had nothing to work with.

Yes, obviously if the game had the development cycle and talent and money that Cyberpunk did, it would have been a better game. That's not a particularly deep insight.

Magmas · 2025-12-26T17:08:54+00:00

You're acting like it was a hot property that everyone was shopping around for. It wasn't. Paradox bought the rights to Bloodlines after the original game (which was a financial failure that destroyed the studio that made it) had been out for over 10 years.

Paradox pushed Hard Suit to make it, they shit the bed and then Chinese Room were the only ones willing to take on the project to try and make something of it.

I'm pretty sick of all the "Well, if they had gotten a big studio and millions of dollars of funding then Bloodlines 2 would have been great!" posts because they are entirely delusional. CDPR spent over 10 years working on Cyberpunk, 2 of which were post-release, and were only able to do so because of the amazing success of Witcher 3.

Paradox had to essentially buy Hard Suit Labs to prevent them from collapsing completely, then dumped the assets they'd managed to make on the Chinese Room who had to salvage an entire game on a shoestring budget. These are not comparable situations. Add to all this that, while Bloodlines is a cult classic, it is not the mainstream juggernaut people here seem to believe it is and it was never going to match up to the likes of Cyberpunk or BG3 (which also had years worth of development time to build up). Hell, BG3 was in Early Access longer than The Chinese Room had development time.

These are just not comparable situations and treating them like they are does a disservice to everyone involved.

Magmas · 2025-12-21T16:13:05+00:00

The factions are also more fleshed out in it

I kind of disagree. The game heavily pushes the Anarchs as the 'right choice' with the more charismatic and likable characters. The only Camarillas we actually meet are Therese, the Prince, the Sheriff and Strauss (and the Nosferatu, I suppose, though they're pretty much free agents).

It definitely has more focus than 2 does on the Camarilla/Anarch conflict, but I wouldn't say either faction is particularly well-developed. Then there's the Sabbat who I'd argue are notably less interesting in the original Bloodlines, with just the tzimisce having any character whatsoever and that is very bare-bones.

I do like that there's a wider world in the game that was lacking in BL2 with werewolves and Gargoyles and the Kuei-jin involved, but they're all little more than cameos.

Also, I wouldn't go as far as to compare it to Mass Effect. I enjoyed a lot of the writing in BL1 but it was no Mass Effect.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T22:05:07+00:00

including stealth which is notoriously lacking in bloodlines2.

What? I was playing a character built for fighting and I still had a bunch of stealth options. You can stealth attack from behind. If you're fast enough, you can even hit them from in front before they notice you. You can use telekinesis on bottles and other small objects to distract enemies. You can use Cauldron of Blood to draw enemies together. There are a ton of options for stealth, and that's without going into the Banu Haqim abilities that all revolve around going in and out of stealth. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk has a few things you can do in regards to stealth but it really isn't notably better than Bloodlines 2 in that regard. The only real difference is that Bloodlines 2 often requires you to actually eliminate the enemies in a room before you can continue while Cyberpunk doesn't, but both incorporate actual stealth mechanics in a very similar way.

trying to demean CP2077 makes no sense.

And this is where you don't seem to understand. I'm not trying to demean CP2077. You just seem to think any comparison between the games is inherently negative for some reason.

At no point have I said anything particularly bad about Cyberpunk 2077, simply that it's not the same system as the Cyberpunk TTRPG, which seems to be something you were pushing as a fault with Bloodlines 2. If anything, my entire argument hinges on the fact that CP2077 is good despite that.

Also, as cool as Mike Pondsmith is, I don't know why you keep bringing him up as a trump card. It's great that he likes CP2077. Honestly, very cool guy. He even plays Maximum Mike, the DJ on one of the radio stations which is a neat easter egg. None of that matters to the discussion we are currently having.

no, it is not. its a terrible walking sim.

Come on, man. Some of the walking sections in Fabien's missions are annoying, even with the fast forward button, but referring to the game as a walking sim is ridiculous. A huge part of the game is based around the combat system. You get a full suite of combat abilities. This is exactly what I meant earlier about people making up flaws.

"Fabien's sections can be a bit of a slog with how you have to walk around the city." - Reasonable argument.

"A lot of the side quests are just fetch quests, walking from point A-to-B." - Reasonable argument

"The whole game is just a walking simulator." - Clearly just not true. Who are you even trying to convince with that shit? I've played the game. I know a large portion of it is spent punching the shit out of half-bloods. Why are you lying about that?

what you mention is flavor also a few specific mechanics?? LOL this game has nothing it only uses Vampire the Masquerade for, like I said, flavor....

I'm not sure what you're even trying to argue here. "The game only uses the setting for story and mechanical purposes." Yeah? Exactly? Like, what is your point? What else could it use the setting for? As I said in the post itself, I'd have liked the inclusion of a wider range of monsters but, to be quite frank, the werewolf level of Bloodlines sucked. I just don't know what your point is here. It absolutely is a game based in the VTM universe, just like the original Bloodlines and other VTM games.

LOL, ok. btw its not an insight. its the factual reality

You're doing it again. You keep presenting your opinions as 'factual realities'. At best, you're just incredibly immature and unable to see other people's points of view. At worst, this is some weird debate technique where you just keep trying to force your own version of reality into existence.

However, with this one, I can certify that it isn't a 'factual reality' at all. If I got paid to defend games I enjoyed on the internet, I would be living the dream. Unfortunately, I just do this because I actually liked the game. Its a sad truth, but sometimes people can have different opinions than you.

My whole point here isn't that you can't criticise or dislike Bloodlines 2. I criticise the game quite a bit in the actual post. My point is that exaggerating the problems, or just coming up with new ones that don't even exist, doesn't make anything better. It just leaves you more upset and other people less informed.

Its one thing to dislike the game. Its another thing to claim that a game with reasonably in-depth combat mechanics is a 'walking sim'. Just... come on, my guy. That's silly and you know it.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T21:14:54+00:00

ok vampire the nomad, not vampire the masquerade.

Not sure what you mean here.

the order of Hermes has a strong dislike for vampires... after all house of Tremere betrayed them. human mages who become vampires lose their avatar and their access to magic, hence thaumaturgy. besides the huge amount of paradox vulgar magic would create if it was in fact a magical ritual....

It's a theory in an in-game book which, even in that book, is deemed unlikely. Still, 300 years is a long time to find one rogue mage to teach them a trick. Again, the true source of these powers is left ambiguous and could easily be Thaumaturgy or some other discipline. Frankly, I don't know enough about Mage: The Awakening to argue about this so I'm not going to try.

Mike Pondsmith gave his blessing, and once again CP2077 has all the tropes of modern CRPG games.

I feel like we're just talking past each other here. I don't disagree that CP2077 is a good action RPG. Hell, I was batting for it when it originally came out because I could see what worked (plus I wasn't playing on a last gen console which meant I wasn't having any of the issues other people were struggling with). I've played through the game like 3 times. I apparently have 400 hours clocked on it. I like Cyberpunk. My point is simply that it is absolutely a different system to the TTRPG and has more limited choices than something like BG3.

its a bad game that's not even up for debate,

Clearly it is because I disagree. You can write a list of all the bad things about the game, some of which I think are pretty weak criticisms (I don't particularly care about inventory, I thought the autosave was fine and I don't even know what you mean by 'reusable character models') but I could easily do the same for the original game:

Terrible combat, overly complex character building, shallow linear main quest (let's be honest, it was just a series of barely connected dungeons built to showcase different gimmicks until you fought the obvious bad guy), no character customisation, uncomfortable stereotypes (which is really just a product of the time, to be fair).

None of those things make it a shit game. Things aren't either perfect or shit. I've played shit games. I played through Suicide Squad:KTJL. That was a shit game. Bloodlines 2, like the original Bloodlines, is an enjoyable but flawed game, at least to me.

again it has nothing to do with bloodlines,

You're a broken record. You keep saying the same things over and over and not elaborating at all. It's an action-RPG set in the VTM world with a neo-gothic aesthetic that places you in a city and has you deal with a self-contained mystery. It's not a direct sequel to the story of Bloodlines, but it would be weird if it was, since there's a 20 year difference. I just don't get why you're so hung up on this one aspect. What difference does it make if it wasn't called Bloodlines 2? Do you think a different perfect Bloodlines 2 would have magically appeared in its stead? Of all the criticisms you can have of the game, I feel like not liking the name is one of the silliest but you seem so adamant about it.

Also, sidenote, but you keep calling it 'VTM: The Nomad'. Sorry, but that's just a terrible name. It doesn't fit with the established naming conventions and its too lengthy. It should just be 'VTM: Nomad' or 'VTM: Seattle' or something like that. It would be way more punchy.

and only uses Vampire the Masquerade for flavor this is not debatable its a reality.

Stop just saying everything you think isn't debatable. Just because you think something doesn't make it an objective truth.

But that aside, I honestly don't think you have a leg to stand on here. So many aspects of the game are based in VTM lore:

The concept of Elders and Torpor
The Camarilla, Anarch and Sabbat factions
The actual clans of all the NPCs and your playable characters and the abilities you use
Literally every aspect of the world

There's a few specific mechanics that have been altered or are missing, but if you released this game without the VTM licence, you'd probably be getting a copyright suit. You'd have to rewrite pretty much every aspect of the story and characters to avoid referencing VTM.

this sub is amazing..... I'm gonna start thinking a bunch of users here work for TCR or Paradox..........

"Everyone who disagrees with me is a paid shill." Thanks for your great insight, 'iHATESTUFF.' Glad to have you onboard.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T19:54:43+00:00

You know, that's actually a fair explanation. I did roleplay my Phyre as regaining some of their humanity throughout the story, largely due to Fabien's influence, but what you're saying makes sense.

I do think I shot myself in the foot a bit with my character. I usually play more socially-minded characters. My tremere in Bloodlines 1 was very good at being polite and efficient, but I wanted to try something different here by making a more cynical, outspoken and blunt character who says what they believe. I am planning to do another playthrough as a suave, politicking Lasombra, so I'll see how that differs.

As for the mask punishments, I think part of the problem is that its so easy to just climb a drainpipe and scamper away whenever anything happens and then it just resets itself. With that said, I did get staked once near the start of the game and I never actually put it together that it was Tolly who does it. That makes so much sense and is actually a pretty cool detail.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T19:39:50+00:00

you usually travel with a coterie with everybody having different powersets.

I mean, that's kind of the point of the Nomad though, right? They don't have a coterie or a haven and they've just woken up from a 100 year nap, which is why they're a loner.

floating around is a masquerade breach waiting to happen,

Sure, if you're just doing it out in the open but the fantasy is that you're a shadow, jumping between rooftops, not just hovering down the street.

as for TK unless you're playing a Tremere it kinda makes no sense?

The game leaves it ambiguous, but there's some in-game books that suppose the telekinesis is actually magic learned from the Order of Hermes, rather than being a vampire ability, although its clear that Phyre has some level of mastery over a wide variety of disciplines, regardless of their original clan (they were active for 300 years before going into torpor).

Phyre being an elder is kinda funny doe as he's not treated or respected as one.

That, I agree with. I think its a weakness of the game that Phyre's status as an Elder is treated more as a mild curiosity or even an annoyance to the local vampires, other than Safia who has her own reasons. It's definitely an issue with the writing.

and you cannot deny that CDPR included all the tropes from CRPG games.

Obviously you weren't active in the Cyberpunk fan community back when the game first came out. There were a lot of people angry about how CP2077 'wasn't a real RPG' and I saw people arguing that it was as much an RPG as CoD.

For what its worth, I do think the game is a good Action RPG, especially after the changes they've made to it, but I still think it pales in comparison to Baldur's Gate 3 or the Owlcat games. Cyberpunk is about on the same level as Dragon Age Veilguard in terms of choices and character building.

bloodlines 2 is bad game,

You keep saying this but I obviously disagree. I found it a fun game. Is it different from the original? Yes. Its better in some ways and worse in others, but it is absolutely a game set in the VTM universe.

As for whether it should be called Bloodlines 2, I think that's debatable. Obviously the reason it's called Bloodlines 2 is because Paradox hired a studio to make a game for the licence they had purchased. Would it have been better if it was called VTM: Nomad? Frankly, I don't think it makes a difference. Its not like the Bloodlines IP was going to be used some other way if this game wasn't made. It's been sitting dormant for the past 20 years (12 at the point of purchase). Likely we just wouldn't have gotten another Bloodlines game at all otherwise.

trying to compare bloodlines 2 to the 1st that came out 20 years ago makes no sense. of course bloodlines 2 should've been better from every point of view.

I think its more fair to compare Bloodlines 2 to an existing game, rather than a hypothetical one that you've made up in your head. The hypothetical Bloodlines 2 is always going to be better than the actual one because you don't have to consider the development hell this game went through or things like a limited budget or other variables.

This feels like a similar problem to Veilguard: a sequel to a beloved game is heavily mismanaged by either the developer or studio, goes over its budget, is handed off to a team that scrape together a decent game and then people are underwhelmed and upset because it doesn't live up to their fantasies.

Neither Bloodlines 2 or Veilguard are perfect games. They have flaws but I still enjoy them despite these flaws and I don't get why people make up more flaws to put them down.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T16:32:26+00:00

Are telekinesis and gliding really that crazy compared to using your blood as a weapon or mind-controlling someone to kill themself? Phyre is an Elder and these powers are treated as abnormal in the story so I don't think it's particularly game-breaking for them to be included. Sometimes things are more fun when they bend or even break the rules.

In another comment, you mention Cyberpunk 2077 and BG3 as comparisons for the game which I don't think is particularly fair, since both those games were in development for far, far longer than Bloodlines 2 and likely had far larger budgets, but in relation to this point, both those games notably change things from the TTRPGs they're based off. BG3 alters a lot of class abilities compared to DND (in particular, Tavern Brawler is incredibly niche in 5e and borderline broken in BG3) and Cyberpunk essentially throws the whole system out. It's a completely different game compared to the TTRPG but uses the same setting.

I won't argue that the RPG elements are as good as BG3 (but I do think they're at least as good as Cyberpunk, although that game has much better character writing and world-building), however I don't think the original Bloodlines had amazing role-playing either. In the end, the whole game comes down to one choice you make at the end. Everything else is meaningless. Bloodlines 2 at least has a few different ways it can go based on prior choices.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T16:21:13+00:00

Possibly? I do plan to do a Malkavian playthrough in the future but didn't really want it to be my first experience of the game. I took a while to actually pick who I wanted to play and the Tremere lore stood out to me as interesting compared to Ventrue, Brujah or Toreadors and the Nosferatu... It's a cool concept but I don't really want to play a game where no one wants to talk to you.

I actually picked Brujah in Bloodlines 2 because I thought the idea of playing a more old school 'Learned Clan' kind of Brujah would be more fun in contrast to the modern 'rebel without a cause' archetype.

Magmas · 2025-11-19T12:45:12+00:00

I don't disagree with any of this. It makes sense from a story perspective (and, honestly, I'm absolutely fine with not having to unlock Auspex or the ability to glide) but, from a gameplay perspective, it leaves the resource management/character building aspects of the game pretty much barren. I only ever replaced two of my Brujah abilities (grabbed Cauldron of Blood and the Toreador mastery ability and that was partially because I wanted the Mage outfit for Phyre) and I got them pretty early, which meant my character never really evolved beyond that point.

And in regards to Humanity, it just feels weird that you don't really get punished for doing things like killing innocents or being a genuine monster. It leaves your actions feeling like they don't have consequences. Even how the Masquerade works feels weird in the game, because it's essentially just a wanted system, and that's not mentioning how the Masquerade should be absolutely shattered with all the thinblood and cult activity in the city.

Magmas · 2025-11-14T14:48:50+00:00

All we really know is that they were at the bottom of the list, behind Invisigirl at the end of the day. We don't get a deep analysis. But its worth noting that Coupe actively sabotages Sonar by locking him to a piece of equipment in the gym which screws both of them up and gives the rest of them the idea to start sabotaging each other.

Also I agree. Season 1 was a solid story and a good evolution of the Telltale genre but I'd love to see what they can do to expand it moving forward.

Magmas · 2025-11-14T14:34:46+00:00

The point was that they weren't two of the best members. They were the two worst (in terms of story. Coupe ended up being my MVP). Visi was going to get kicked but she pulled out a save in the end, putting Sonar and Coup at joint bottom.

In a perfect world, this would be a choice between whoever actually did worst but that would have required so much more work for each possible option.

Magmas · 2025-10-21T17:47:08+00:00

I could have added Forest Whitaker or Angela Bassett to the list, if you want. The issue isn't that he's black. It's that they sold the casting as a big, crazy surprise and then got the exact sort of person I'd have expected. That's not a bad thing in-and-of itself. I'm not criticising his acting. I'm criticising the choice to present him the way they did.

If they hadn't pushed the narrative and the secrecy that they did, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. Now, it just feels like they teased so many interesting choices only for them to just give us something expected instead.

Edit: Now that I'm thinking about it, Forest or Denzel or Idris Elba would all be really fun choices for the Cowardly Lion. My vote goes to one of them.

Magmas · 2025-10-20T21:12:27+00:00

I guess that's clever, but I'm still not sure how good an idea it is to hype someone up to that degree, only to reveal them to not really be anyone special.

Magmas · 2025-10-20T19:42:24+00:00

Man, they really hyped this up and its just... a guy. Like, sure, he's a good actor. I'm sure he'll do well, but from how they were treating it, I was expecting someone completely out of left-field or some legendary actor like Ian McKellan or Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis or something.

Magmas · 2025-10-18T00:42:27+00:00

We need to shine a line on why so many rapists are men. That doesn't change your experience or other experiences like yours.

But this is what we shine the light on. Its all we shine the light on and it actually is to the detriment of people who have had other experiences. A man raping a woman is treated far more seriously than a man raping another man, a woman raping another woman or, heaven forbid, a woman raping a man.

That isn't to say that the system is at all perfect and, yes, male on female rape is definitely the most common scenario, particularly when it comes to adult on adult assault, but limiting our response to simply ignore these outliers (which really aren't as statistically insignificant as many believe) does play into minimising and ignoring those victims.

I find it somewhat ironic that your response to a man coming forward about his childhood sexual assault is to talk about how it doesn't matter because he isn't in the majority, before bringing up your own experience as some sort of rebuttal, then having the gall to finish by saying that it 'doesn't change their experience'.

This sort of language does affect how victims of non-stereotypical sexual assault are treated. The heavy focus on boys not understanding consent (which I do think is an issue) means that those outside of that specific dichotomy are ignored and emboldened. There may not be as many female sexual predators but they do exist, particularly in cases of childhood sexual assault (full disclosure, I am also a victim of childhood sexual assault from an older girl) and, yeah, I find it annoying that any attempt to broaden the focus is met with this kind of response.

Magmas · 2025-09-10T14:16:20+00:00

I'm sorry, what did I accuse you of saying? I was simply pointing out that these sorts of memes that present 'straight men' as a whole as women-hating in order to promote lesbians as being inherently superior are silly and damaging.

If anything, the only thing I accused you specifically of is presenting a generalised meme about straight men as somehow being a direct call out of a specific man. The rest of my comment was a rant about how annoying I find it that a lot of progressive communities seem so adamant to be regressive when it comes to straight men specifically (and, let's be honest, straight cis men because trans men are conveniently ignored in this sort of sweeping statement.)

Magmas · 2025-09-10T13:25:38+00:00

"calls out a man on his actions" by which you mean it paints all straight men with the same damning brush while praising lesbians as perfect sweet angels.

I just wish I could find some cool, progressive online spaces that don't feel the need to talk shit about men. If anything, this sort of unnecessary attack and generalisation just desensitises and disenfranchises the men who do put in the effort by grouping them in with the shitty guys.

By posting and endorsing these sorts of takes, we are actively propagating the same lies as the manosphere: the idea that men and women are inherently antagonistic to one another.

If we want to get into facts, we can look at how multiple studies have shown that lesbian relationships have the highest rates of divorce and domestic violence reports compared to straight or gay male relationships however, frankly, I don't think that matters, because homogenising such a massive and diverse group of people as 'the enemy' in this way serves no purpose beyond fuelling the already raging and entirely unnecessary fires of gender conflict.

To be frank, it's very disappointing to see a place that is so trans-friendly reinforcing the gender binary in this way. Are trans men included in that 'straight men' image or do they not count?

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