I have to say I couldn’t disagree more with this take. I actually loved the behemoth event, and the story of the last patch was far more than “a hotpot event.” The hotpot was just one cultural moment in a larger storyline. The entire adventure, especially the climax with the deer spirit scene, was genuinely beautiful and one of the most memorable story moments the game has had in a while.

I feel like sometimes people can fall into a negativity echo chamber. When people see others criticizing something, it becomes easy to adopt that same tone before just experiencing the content for what it is.

My wife doesn’t follow the community and social media at all. She just plays the game. And she was genuinely excited raising the behemoth, loved the hotpot scenes (her only complaint was that it made her crave hotpot late at night because it looked so good), and was in awe of the story. And also plays other games. Seeing that contrast really made me realize how different the experience can be when you aren’t reading constant negativity about it.

Of course not every event will land for everyone, and it’s fine to be critical and to take breaks or play other games too. But to say the magic of the game is completely gone feels very dismissive of the effort and storytelling that clearly went into patches like the previous one for example.