CDPR couldn't even stick the landing with this over-hyped, over-promised, and under-cooked/under-delivered game. I excused the bugs. I excused the cut content pre-release and even the dissipation of third person combat and third person cover system. I (mistakenly) excuse'd the jarring shift in marketing as it pertained to the game's official classification, from "open-world RPG" to "open world action-adventure game." But after finally reaching the ending to this severe let-down, I have come to the conclusion that my tolerance to bovine defecation has reached its limit.
This is atrocious writing on any level no matter how you slice it. Film? It's bad writing. Novels or literature? It doesn't even come close to reaching anywhere remotely near the cusp of nuance or prose of either the former or the latter. I have found better writing on the walls of bathrooms.
Why would you make six or seven endings that all basically amount to death? It's bad enough that CDPR has seemingly not learned a shred from The Witcher 3, as all of the abilities I acquired during gameplay were just passive stat bonuses. But to go from the absolute brilliance of The Witcher 3 to whatever unholy orgy of misery that is comprised of these "various" endings is just astonishing.
As disappointed as I was with the combat, the progression system, the nonexistent role-playing mechanics, absurdly basic NPC AI, I still found myself enjoying the game immeasurably. There are kernels of brilliance everywhere, and I had fun slicing people up with Satori despite the process consisting of nothing but mashing the right trigger button. But how do you pull a Mass Effect 3 this hard? This game is like watching a Coen brothers film. No matter who you root for, you're gravely mistaken in doing so, as they have a more miserable and shorter lifespan than a Game of Thrones character.
The nihilism that saturates every facet of this game's narrative and subsequent endings is practically suffocating, and I am honest to God sick of this disgustingly-rising trend that has permeated video-game stories since at least 2012. I didn't enjoy RDR 2 for that precise reason, and I didn't enjoy Mass Effect 3 especially for that reason. The former became a tedious slog in Chapter 5, as the game malformed into this twisted, overly-depressing Consumption Simulator™ rather than the fun wild west romp I was expecting to enjoy upon purchase.
These video-game writers seem to equate the maudlin with "depth" and the saccharine to inherently "immature, akin to a Disney production." Both forms of logic are heinously fallacious. Something that is so heavy-handed in its tragic atmosphere doesn't necessarily equate to writing that could be considered deep, well-written, or poignant. Just as saccharine endings aren't necessarily diabetes-inducing or full of pandering. Not only do I vehemently disagree with RDR 2 having an appropriate ending, I'd argue that games like RDR 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 take themselves entirely too seriously.
Speaking purely from an RPG standpoint alone makes these solemn seven endings a collective farce. What happened to choice with impact? Impact is not found among what are essentially a bunch of homogenized flavors of "It's all pointless, where is your God now?" Variety is the spice of life (and of RPGs) but CDPR chose to dump a whole bottle of red hot sauce on the dish.
With these endings, my disappointment has come full circle. I was kind of looking forward to a repeat play-through or postgame despite my many misgivings involving the gameplay at its core, but now my mind is made up. What were you thinking CDPR?
If you can't provide the player with a playable product, interesting gameplay, fun combat, varied sidequests, deep RPG mechanics, optimized graphics and performance, or even promises touted before the game dropped, then you sure as hell better provide them with reaffirmation. Congratulations, you failed four out of those five promises. You know which ones I'm talking about.
