Why would they make a sequel about managing the city

[Turahk]

Like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Carmen basically read Berserk and is bringing the Eclipse to the city to turn it into Falconia. Why does Angela want to oppose Carmen?

If you're a citizen you can't open a window at night or a billion Sweepers will swarm into your apartment to liquidize you, 90% of the population seem to be mercenaries with 3 digit body counts, cannibal quizine is almost normal, every week a new gang of psychos emerges. murder's probably legal, your TV probably harvests YOU for energy and tortures you everyday beofre wiping your memories and if a steamroller drives over your kid all you can do is go insane. Oh mobsters/psychos seem to be the actual goverment as the Head apparently doesn't do anything. I guess living in a Nest is nice tho, untill you realize you just signed a contract to work in a time loop hell forever. And that's just what I remember at this moment.

Iirc the only positive thing ever said about the City is that Roland found a nice sandwich chain somewhere. Really sounds like a waste of time to try and save anyone there.

[AritheReaper]

...Because Carmen's methods are doing more harm than they are helping the situation? Like, yeah, The City is ♥♥♥♥, but if the place turns into a distortion ruled mess it's practically the same thing as The Ruins. Hell, even if it were just distortions like the Blue Reverb Gang, people that distort don't exactly have positive mindsets. The City needs to change, but dropping a monster nuke on it isn't gonna help make life better.

[Sieg]

also, to be fair, the City is stated to be founded on intrinsically harmful systems but you ARE exaggerating.

Sweepers canonically, explicitly never enter homes - they sweep the streets and kill homeless people or those locked out of their homes, but even with an open window the Sweepers will pass you by if your indoors.

Cannibalism is only prevalent in the Backstreets of District 23, 1/50th of the City. Roland says that eating humans is illegal, but its so rampant in D23 that W-Corp cant really enforce otherwise so they just said "♥♥♥♥ it" - even then Roland says its an open secret, like drug dealing, that nobody draws attention to lest Wing law enforcement or a Claw actually decide its a big enough deal to take care of

90% of the game's cast are armed killers, but that's only because the Library Invitation only cares about places where emotions and the Light are particularly intense, like people who immerse themselves in life-or-death fights.

The Backstreets suck and have awful life expectancy, and a lot of major corporations within the nests use unethical means and sacrifice their employees, but like..... somebody's gotta live long enough to run McDonalds, yeah? Things like the Pianist or the Musicians of Bremen are exceptional events worth focusing on in the game, not general day-to-day affairs.

[Turahk]

Originally posted by Sieg:

also, to be fair, the City is stated to be founded on intrinsically harmful systems but you ARE exaggerating.

The Backstreets suck and have awful life expectancy, and a lot of major corporations within the nests use unethical means and sacrifice their employees, but like..... somebody's gotta live long enough to run McDonalds, yeah? Things like the Pianist or the Musicians of Bremen are exceptional events worth focusing on in the game, not general day-to-day affairs.

Maybe I am a bit but the game keeps insisting that what happend to Carmen's lab in the Outskirts/in L corp/Library(I'm not sure which one?) is normal stuff coz let me quote Angela from the very last cutscene: "Tragedy and suffering not unlike what we went through would keep happening on a daily basis in the City".

In the Smiling Faces story, we see that the (some of? all?)Backstreets have very tall buildings that look like they're skyscrapers. I'm guessing that's an amartment complex- Corps sit in their Nests after all - but it's still huge. With no law except "Don't make robots with AI" this honestly looks like something out of Judge Dredd where cities are so big, people dropping like flies doesn't faze anyone as that doesn't even put a dent in the population.

[Araders]

Originally posted by Turahk:

Originally posted by Sieg:

also, to be fair, the City is stated to be founded on intrinsically harmful systems but you ARE exaggerating.

The Backstreets suck and have awful life expectancy, and a lot of major corporations within the nests use unethical means and sacrifice their employees, but like..... somebody's gotta live long enough to run McDonalds, yeah? Things like the Pianist or the Musicians of Bremen are exceptional events worth focusing on in the game, not general day-to-day affairs.

Maybe I am a bit but the game keeps insisting that what happend to Carmen's lab in the Outskirts/in L corp/Library(I'm not sure which one?) is normal stuff coz let me quote Angela from the very last cutscene: "Tragedy and suffering not unlike what we went through would keep happening on a daily basis in the City".

In the Smiling Faces story, we see that the (some of? all?)Backstreets have very tall buildings that look like they're skyscrapers. I'm guessing that's an amartment complex- Corps sit in their Nests after all - but it's still huge. With no law except "Don't make robots with AI" this honestly looks like something out of Judge Dredd where cities are so big, people dropping like flies doesn't faze anyone as that doesn't even put a dent in the population.

But this does not cancel the fact that most people in the city are destined to live not so much severe and dangerous life how much is just meaningless.

[Skye]

You know we're also forgetting there's a lot more that goes into a district than just there being fixers.

We know there are other real world equivalents, literally stuff like insurance fraud or credit card scamming that also exists

Lots of people in the backstreets work a job and pay syndicates for protection, or they'd steal or whatever shady job they want to work in order to pay to stay safe

There are also lots of food shops, apparently HamHamPangPang is a new sandwich shop that showed up all over the city recently and it's really brightened the lives of people in the backstreets apparently because it's good food that isn't made with questionable materials

There are also workshops for producing weapons or armor or other gear, too. We're biased in the game to see usually just exclusively powerful combatants or fighters because we need to gather the light, it wouldn't be interesting if we summoned some equivalent of a car salesman who can't fight and effortlessly turned him into a book and it just gave a story about how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the backstreets are and he's just doing what he has to do to survive or something

And the sequel could probably be about improving the lives of the citizens or making things better by switching or replacing those intrinsically harmful systems mentioned before

[Om3ga-Z3ro]

Wait, the next game is gonna be a City management? I thought they were gonna make some sort of Etrian Oddesey type game where you manage Fixers to travel within the ruins of L Corp and hunt down abnormalities.

[Skye]

That's LC: B

[none]

Originally posted by Om3ga-Z3ro:

Wait, the next game is gonna be a City management? I thought they were gonna make some sort of Etrian Oddesey type game where you manage Fixers to travel within the ruins of L Corp and hunt down abnormalities.

there're 2 sequel game

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by Om3ga-Z3ro:

Wait, the next game is gonna be a City management? I thought they were gonna make some sort of Etrian Oddesey type game where you manage Fixers to travel within the ruins of L Corp and hunt down abnormalities.

Like others said, there's 2.

Branch is slated for 2021-2022 so you're probably not wrong about it being the next game, though.

[Screen Lady]

To clear up some confusion, like this person said LC: B is very likely to come first before "LC: 2" which doesn't seem to have a definite secure title yet.

Originally posted by Leviathan:

Originally posted by Om3ga-Z3ro:

Wait, the next game is gonna be a City management? I thought they were gonna make some sort of Etrian Oddesey type game where you manage Fixers to travel within the ruins of L Corp and hunt down abnormalities.

Like others said, there's 2.

Branch is slated for 2021-2022 so you're probably not wrong about it being the next game, though.

[CarThief]

To be fair, as scummy as backstreet/city life would be there, it's still a living, to do what Carmen or Adam would've done would be akin to releasing literal monsters onto the city.

People would be destroyed by them. They would be consumed by them from within, as it would be a very invasive and overwhelming process turning them likely into mindless Distortions/Abnormalities rather then granting them full E.G.O, and considering the blue boi band, it wouldn't be pretty for the world (and they still had their minds intact!).
(Would they even be themselves? Or would they just be overtaken by what is within? Is it really freedom if done Adam's/Carmen's way?)

What the plan by A/Angela is meant to be was to release the abnormalities (chaotic, but fair to them - and in a world of E.G.O they'd think twice about causing trouble), and give all people E.G.O so they could stand up for themselves, even against The Head.
Free to pursue whatever they seek in life, though i'd imagine it'd go poorly if their pursuit interfered with other E.G.O users, so it generally prompts people to go their own ways without messing with one another - a kind of freedom, peace and way of living the city never saw before.

And like the other guy said, yeah it's quite possible it just makes things worse. Perhaps that was her reasoning for doing it her way rather then Carmen's way? That's the best i could think of, the ending is still a bit hard to interpret at times. And the details can be sketchy at times too. But hurrying the process like Carmen intended would likely backfire from what A planned.
Perhaps all the grief broke her judgement, or made her desperate, or she plain turned evil? Hard to say... For all the saintly praise she was given in the story, it's a odd twist.

Well, i'm curious how the other games will turn out. A city management/simulation seems a smidge dull, but they probably got some tricks.
And that dungeon crawler game they had ideas for seems like it'd be good fun, especially if a bit roguelike/roguelite-esque (kinda like Lobotomy Corp), where one can fail, learn, and try again.

Edit: Hm... Weird thought... Wonder if this "paradise" being spoken of by WN would be what A sought to achieve? Freedom from all constraints to do whatever you want? Would the abnormality be based on A in some manner? Much like how they say One Sin is quite related to his methods, one grave sin (the eons of suffering in Lobotomy Corp - especially towards Angela), for a thousand good deeds (utter freedom via E.G.O)?

Ah, unrelated, but couldn't help having my mind wander there.

[Wanderer312]

I think WhiteNight has bigger parallels with Carmen than anyone else, Notice the similarities with WN and Carmen's design(both have red-white color scheme both have big red eyes)
Both are weirdly charismatic individuals that one way or another managed to gather twelve individuals that are deeply devoted to them. Also Angela wore WN's EGO and Angela in a way is deeply related to Carmen.
I think One Sin represents Ayin then anyone else like you said one big sin to deliver thousands of good deeds and One sin saves Hokma at the end of the Religion realization and that is cause of Hokma's undying faith(that's why he comes back if he dies before WN shows up).Also both One Sin and Ayin are silent watchers while WN and Carmen never shut up.(Carmen is the voice of distortion after all.)

[Turahk]

Originally posted by Wanderer312:

I think WhiteNight has bigger parallels with Carmen than anyone else, Notice the similarities with WN and Carmen's design(both have red-white color scheme both have big red eyes)
Both are weirdly charismatic individuals that one way or another managed to gather twelve individuals that are deeply devoted to them. Also Angela wore WN's EGO and Angela in a way is deeply related to Carmen.
I think One Sin represents Ayin then anyone else like you said one big sin to deliver thousands of good deeds and One sin saves Hokma at the end of the Religion realization and that is cause of Hokma's undying faith(that's why he comes back if he dies before WN shows up).Also both One Sin and Ayin are silent watchers while WN and Carmen never shut up.(Carmen is the voice of distortion after all.)

Huh, that's a really good observation.

[Mastema]

Originally posted by Wanderer312:

I think WhiteNight has bigger parallels with Carmen than anyone else, Notice the similarities with WN and Carmen's design(both have red-white color scheme both have big red eyes)
Both are weirdly charismatic individuals that one way or another managed to gather twelve individuals that are deeply devoted to them. Also Angela wore WN's EGO and Angela in a way is deeply related to Carmen.
I think One Sin represents Ayin then anyone else like you said one big sin to deliver thousands of good deeds and One sin saves Hokma at the end of the Religion realization and that is cause of Hokma's undying faith(that's why he comes back if he dies before WN shows up).Also both One Sin and Ayin are silent watchers while WN and Carmen never shut up.(Carmen is the voice of distortion after all.)

Who exactly are you referring to by "12 individuals" for Carmen? From what i remember, Carmen only managed to gather about 10 people, that is if we're going by the whole ideal of her team back in the Outskirts Laboratory unless i'm missing somebody out or completely misunderstanding your reference. Binah of course doesn't count in that version since y'know what happened...

With those 10 people of course being : Malkuth (Elijah), Yesod (Gabriel), Hod (Michelle), Netzach (Giovanni), Tiphereth A and B (Lisa and Enoch), Gebura (Kali), Chesed (Daniel), Hokma (Benjamin) and Ayin.

[Wanderer312]

Binah and Angela definitely count, they got roped into Carmen's plan one way or another(WN doesn't have the nicest method of getting apostles as well) even after her attempted suicide she wasn't dead and her plan was completed (or at least what A interpreted). We don't know if Carmen is actively malicious or just has a twisted sense of worldview. We'll get more into her psyche in the next game probably.