#discusssion

Content wise, this chapter was a little lacking. I loved the different art-styles and I do think the direction the story went was good and had a lot of potential, but there weren’t enough loose ends tied up. I wanted to see Sal’s face, I wanted to see more answers regarding mysteries set up in the previous chapters–I know I wasn’t alone in that. But we don’t know if this is truly the end. Leaving Sal’s face a mystery allows the community to be creative and I’m sure that Steve will answer any questions we have if he doesn’t intend to continue the game. It sucks that it wasn’t covered in the final chapter of the game, though maybe that’s because there’s still more to it. The epilogue gives a little closure, but it also leaves a lot open to a possibly continuation. I’m not gonna hope for a sequel, but I feel that even Steve can recognize that there’s still more to be covered. 

However, my real concern is that there are people who are saying this chapter expressed themes that were racist, misogynistic, homophobic. I honestly don’t agree with that.

I’m just gonna say that a human being is a human being, you shouldn’t exclude them from a fate that anyone could suffer just because they’re a LGBT+, not white, etc. That doesn’t help representation, no one in life is excluded from death or tragedy just because they look or feel a certain way. Yes, sometimes people may experience things that are exclusive to them (due to homophobia, racism, transphobia, etc.) but this chapter of the game didn’t have any focus on those issues. It dealt with the cult and stopping the cult. Having an diverse cast in a horror game dealing with death, ghosts, and tragedy means that these characters who have given us representation will likely suffer too. 

If the cast wasn’t diverse, people would’ve complained and said it lacked representation (regardless if the characters died or not). Now you get a diverse range of characters and you guys are calling the fact that some of them were killed off in a game that expressed dark themes since the beginning homophobic/racist? You don’t see representation in horror games often and I don’t feel that LGBT+ or minorities should be excluded from them.

The biggest flaws with this chapter were story-based–it felt unfinished and the conclusion given the characters wasn’t satisfactory considering there was still a lot about them to be explored. That didn’t make it a bad chapter, though.