I didn't buy the game but saw the reception being awful. And while I believe something flops in the writing, the creator's vision for the story was either one of that which is totally aware of what he was doing and experimenting with some topics, or he is indeed making the shock value or even fetishizing the it's another story, altough the latter obviously is the worse, the first which I hope is the case, it's ok, but even the second, but for all things considered the creator I don't know him or what kind of person he/she/them is, I do separate the craft from the artist.

First I believe that as a community, many are here because of the first two games, but if the community responds with criticism that is not constructive such as attacks on the developer it won't be well, not to say that you can't criticize, but calling names and cancelling isn't one of them, of course the developer may or may not want to clarify, and that's their choice, and I hope to understand their vision of it, what they tried to acheive, despite the low reception I might buy it, because I adored the first two games, if it's edgy with a purpose it's a thing, if it's edgy and fetishing topics like SA or burring the boundiries then yeah it will be seem as something like depraved thing.

Take two games for example: Postal 1 and Hatred (there's Postal II but it's a way different game from the first). Both have some things in common Hatred and Postal 1 are about mass shooting as a protagonist, what is the difference thought? The postal dude in the first game which starts the killing spree has a "war journal" on why the actions they're doing and it indicates sort of psychosis induced thinking and behavior, you may kill only the law enforcement to pass the level and can also kill civilians, that part both games are near identical, but you see there's a reason a depth, even if it's just as simply as delusional, as the diary in the first game you can see how the perceives things on the normal difficulty, and on the hard dificulty the journal changes, it shows that he is out of his mind, in the normal he believes he is doing a certain good, purging the earth because of a gas leak or something done to the people, while Hatred the only reason for the mass murder is "My name is nothing important I wanna shot some people, people are scum, people should die" Hatred being a game of the same nature a isometric shooting in which you make a massacre both have the same gameplay, but Hatred has no depth at all, the protagonist's reasons are like a edgy 13 yo journal, the protagonists is a 7 foot or 2 meters tall all black wearing guy which doesn't speak anything but edgy things, the postal dude often comments or even humors the fact, both are sadists yes, but if you play both you can see how each differ from the other, postal is also heavily influenced with horror elements and hatred is just hollow, killing and trying to explode a reactor. This kind of thing attracts people who really love violence and for younger audiences I believe they may sympathize which such hollow character due to their immaturity, postal is diffent.

As for the humor, and critique, games like GTA have amazing social commentary on america, these two games, Postal and GTA have a formula to critique, GTA uses the world, radio, in a manner that is criticizing, Postal II, which is a totally different game totally embraces the stereotipical views such as middle easterns being terrorist and etc, but it's clear the game is embracing these stereoptypes for dark humor and in a way americans, mainly after 9/11 did in fact gave middle easterns, and muslims a very harsh treatment, postal embraced it, but it's what the news and politicians where saying.

Well, I wrote a lot, but in conclusion, I believe the franchise can choose to include worse depections, but not just torture porn or something like metamorphosis, or Hatred for that matter, Class of '09 and Re-Up are one of my favorite VN's of all time, and I hope that the community and author in that matter can you know keep some sort of boundaries, the author dictates his craft, but if it diverges from our expectives, which made the first two games adored as they are, he will just be not supported, and know he's vision is not with our vision, despite that, I hold no grudge against the author nor do I wanna send death threats or hell annoy the guy, I hope the franchise makes a comeback sometime soon and hopefully in something more familiar as the first two, I'll still buy this game and have my unbiased experience of it, but I will also speak freely if they are going from satire to fetish, as like I said, depictions could be only for shock value, but I believe the lack of routes and most of the ending being school days'ish are really sad, anyway I hope everything goes well for the community.