I have finally managed to play the game. So far it feels like… Well, it is not a disaster level dislike like the one I keep for Back for Blood, which was really “how to redo L4D2 by taking everything that made it fun and engaging and replacing those elements with the generic, too complicated, hard to understand stuff”, but I can’t say it is very far from that. When the customizable characters were announced, I was sceptical, but OK, maybe the character interaction, probably the greatest single feature in VTs, could have been solved. However, not only the voiceovers so far have been so generic and plain and empty, but the excuse (or lack) of a story is as bad as that. I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve given this a bit more chance because I hope I am missing something obvious. (Of course, superficial and incomplete game instructions were the one VT trademark I could have done without.)
From what’s been going around, they’re planning on doing ‘episodic storytelling’, so expect FOMO on your stories.
TBH, I don’t see myself playing this even to the 10% of my VT2 hours, but we will see.
I am getting similar vibes to what I had when VT first came out, no real clue of a plot of any kind, since they had just started with everything, and much of the interactions were flying right over my head beyond name drops of places I knew of from the lore.
I do like the variety I do get with DT interactions mostly from longevity perspective as now there are more “personalities” to go along with it. I do like that even within the classes themselves you have vastly different personalities which interact differently even within the same classes, such as how the Psykers talk to one another. It does also help that I am not constantly getting called a mayfly. Both are ways to go, don’t get me wrong, I personally just prefer the variety I can toy with.
But it would be perfect for me if the customisation was there as now it is very, very, very limited and everyone ends up looking identical or with minuscule differences here and there.
To me it really feels like something that’s there just to add more monetization options later on. They feel so artificial and lifeless, the “characters” don’t feel like they’re actual people with personalities but rather have their identity consisting of a relatively single-note gimmick and randomly spouting quite shallow and bland voicelines.