lol what. The storytelling was amazing. If anything, yeah there are some problems with the mission mechanics, but the character story of Arthur and his overcoming his near-lifelong grooming to be a killer when he’s actually a good man, his struggle between his loyalty to helping others while being a contradiction of a man as he robs and kills, his past chasing him down no matter how far he runs a metaphor for he, himself, running from who he is—whether that is a good man or a bad man—and having his transgression ultimately kill him while he sacrifices himself for a brother and his chosen family, even though it’s all in vain and ultimately not enough because he was dying as is, the weight of his sins dragging him to an early death?
Not to mention the overarching theme of statism, anarchism, freedom. The Pinkertons an excellent chosen villain, the arm of the wealthy while these outlaws try to make a free life for themselves, so-called civilization killing the world around them while they are the ones treated as if they’re crazy? Dutch revealing himself over time to not be a freedom fighter but another greedy piece of shit who used the people around him as cannon fodder for his own ends? Trying to string the gang along as long as possible? His actions speaking louder than his words but he had somehow gotten them all to ignore his actions—and their own—in favor of the lies coming out of his mouth? Or were they lies at all? Were they his true beliefs and he was just led astray as he got older and let the power go to his head? Power corrupting.
The missions are too rigid, the motivation for the each being a little repetitive, but you really can’t knock the storytelling.
Yeah, the difference is it’s expanding exponentially, and will continue to do so.
The real thing that ruined the internet, though, is the walled garden approach. The monetization. They took what was wild and free, creative and equal, and turned into something…gross. Generative AI is just the next step of that. It’s the continuation of a trend. And the acceleration of it. That’s a problem, even if the scaremongering around AI may be a bit overblown.
And while that also may be the case, it also might—this time—not be unfounded. Capitalism has strengthened its stranglehold on everything. Every new leap in tech has worked us harder, increasing profits, while we increase productivity. And that increase in profits, led to richer guys, which means they’re more powerful, and their grip gets tighter. It’s not just the tech that’s happening in a vacuum. At what point is the stranglehold too tight, the demand of people to produce too great, the power and control of business too great? Why not now. Because it’s already unwieldy and inhumane. Where once there were creative artists trying to get their work out there, we now have everyone flooding those spaces with AI generated bullshit.
Again, it’s not just the new tech. It’s this tech’s ability to make things worse than they’ve already been getting, to worsen the massive imbalance between a space for people and a space for business. It’s all business. And we’re now way in the margins. This will make that worse.