AAAAAA

I finished the game yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful; It set up so much for a future game (before the game was stolen from its developers); so it was kind of a bittersweet ending knowing that there was so much more of the world we were supposed to see.

Anyway.

After the beautiful end credits, I was taken back to the menu and noticed collage mode. I had seen it before but thought it would just be some art by the developers so I was very surprised when I was shown a blank canvas and the model of Harry.

Actual rant begins:

Essentially, collage mode is for the user to make fake screenshots or fake scenarios with the characters from the game, kind of like a dollhouse. For example, you can make your own dialogue, situations with different characters, there are multiple poses the models can do, a good quarter of them are for Harry and Kim to kiss, hug, etc etc. Collage mode was not included by the original developers, but by the company that took over the game.

That’s why I really don’t like it. Disco Elysium is such a *real* game, all the characters in it feel so real, like people you could actually meet. Collage mode just kind of breaks the immersion for me, it reminds me that this is just a game and the characters are not real by turning them into these dolls you can mess around with.

This man here, though, looks evil. I remember looking at him and going “thank God we got our Arthur Morgan and not this bloke, he looks as sleazy as Micah”

But THEN I was like

Wouldn’t that make the redemption more impactful? In fact, he’d be great in comparison to Micah as they both look physically evil, but one is trying to redeem themselves and the other is unashamedly not. With Arthur, despite all the bad he says he does, he doesn’t *look* bad and therefore we side with him almost from the start. Even in low-honour I can’t bring myself to dislike him.

With this version, our bias would assume him to be bad from the get-go, so we’d understand how others in-game would perceive him this way too, so it’s more of a surprise when we learn he likes journaling, or is smitten and cares about Mary-Linton, or when that nun sees good in him. We would grow to like him over the course of the story as he redeems himself.

I don’t think he fits the exact character of present Arthur though, seeing as Arthur tries to portray himself as the muscle with no brain, and this man is quite slim and just has a menacing look. And I *do* enjoy Arthur’s redemption and his relationships and his overall character, Roger Clark did a very good job and I can’t imagine him voicing the man above.

If Red Dead 3 is ever produced in our lifetime, I would love for it to explore this type of character because it does intrigue me.