Well. That went downhill fast at the end. This cointains spoilers.

[Private Hidehead]

This is just the narrative stuff and such that I ramble down right now when the memory is still fresh of recent events, I have a long list of other issues, involving glitches, straight up game breaking bugs and whatnot:

Some people said in these Forums that the bad stuff came towards the end including the woke stuff. Yeah it did.

There was a little here and there throughout the entire game before but nothing that straight up in your face obvious. So yeah.

I am not sure I will finish this game. I am at besiege now which is also insanely boring.

90% of the main missions were some random stealth missions I can play actual proper stealth games for instead that are focussed on that and do it much better. I wouldn't play some medieval knight game for this.

Only one of the stealth missions was somewhat fun, which was I think the first one in von Bergows fort.


After the first map in the game the story and everything that surrounds it went downhill. Characters stopped making sense entirely, contradictions happened, completely irrelevant blah blah dialogue I just started skipping because it got extremely uninsteresting.

The two worst offenders that stuck to my mind are probably Rosa Rethard and Erik in terms of contradictions. Mind you there are MORE, these are just the two that were recent and thus stuck in my mind a lot better. There are other inconsistencies that break immersion and character that involve others, like Zizka, the Wet Devil and others.

First Erik: Erik you don't see much of in the game. He gets mad I killed his daddy.

Throughout the entire game it was said that Istvan Toth was like a father for him. There are multiple dialogue sequences where that is EXPLICITLY stated.
Only two dialogues completely destroy this and make them gay lovers instead.

This is not even about the fact that they are gay, it's that it literally completely contradicts everything that was said and it feels extremely forced. Not to mention it was OBVIOUSLY implemented as a means of representing an absolute minority of the world population, to score points and check boxes.

Here are the two dialogue parts:
1. Henry talking to Istvan Toth in the von Bergow Stealth mission: There is an option where you can say something a long the lines "or he loves you" but at that time and considering the dialogue leading up to that one would assume this is just poorly written and it means loving like a son loves his father.

2. Duel against Erik: There is a dialogue option, a skillcheck, where Henry then explicitly calls Erik and Istvan Lovers. Like what? How would you know? When did you figure out? Are you saying this guy banged some kid whose parents he slaughtered basically his adoptive son?

This is absolutely idiotic and completely destroys these two characters, the little of which that was there in the first place. It just straight up makes no sense.

Next up, Rosa Rethard:

Rosa Rethard is an absolute brat right from the start. Then towards the later stages of this tumor she is mad should you not have brought her book from Maleshov to her when you were freeing your royal friends arse solo, in an enemy Fort, surrounded by enemies. Yeah sorry that Henry didn't have time to look for your stupid book ♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Then later she becomes more warm and she thanks Henry all the time and is very friendly.
It looks like the game wants you to romance her, even though I personally didn't choose to at any point really. Then there is a dialogue option where you ask her if shes a little mad because of Maleshov where you faked that you are going to burn the tower to get von Bergow to comply. You explain to her and she understands and thanks you.
Then she is completely friendly to you once more all the time.
Then you take her on a mission to her home and have to carry her over the water and such and the two characters are clearly flirting somewhat or at least you are supposed to. I dropped that btch intentionally in the water and she walked for herself after that.
Then later on she is friendly to you and cries then she says she will miss you.

Fast forward in the game you rescue her father and stuff like that and she thanks you once more and thoroughly so. In the italian court.

Then you end up in the Jobst place right before you become besieged, you moved the silver there.
She leaves you there for good, you can talk to her and her father once more. Her father consistent in the context thanks you again and is friendly.

She however is now again mad at you and hopes to see neither you nor your people again, because of what happened at maleshov, which the dialogue explicitly tells you.

After you rescued her and her daddy multiple times, protected her home and what not.

This gotta be the worst character in the game by a long shot. I don't know what the person smoked that wrote it, but I want that stuff.

Another thing:

Kubyenka, as claimed in a cutscene DIED for me.
Low and behold look at that, hes back to the living. Maybe I skipped some scene accidentally that explains it, but I don't think so. They said he is dead as well as the pole, which I saw dying. Pretty much the only character I felt bad for because the pole was funny. But no Kubyenka was back with me and I shall recruit him for the upcomping siege.

This cardhouse of characters and story fell apart so hard at the end it's unfathomable.
Like they wrote it with NovelAI or something.

What I find most infuriating about the game is the practice of having mutliple 10 hours of gameplay and story that are absolutely fine and feel just as good as the last game and then it starts disassembling itself rapidly.
Because after such long gameplay you cannot refund the game and you have to work through another 50 hours of gameplay.

I swear to god if I have to do one more stealth mission to finish this I will quit it right before the end. Unironically.