I get that, but as I see it, this way of thinking about it just makes a mediocre IP that’s coloring by numbers. It’s exactly how you say it is, and it’s what’s expected. A typical war story. But let’s look at it from a Tolkien perspective, to me that lens of looking at things gives you a sense of what’s important to keep, and what values to adhere to. It’s not orcs vs. humans, it’s evil vs. mankind. It’s not aliens vs. people, it’s non-human vs. mankind. That’s just my way of looking at it, and I expect others to enjoy the game differently, and that’s fair.

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TheCleric 4 days ago | parent [-]

So to make it less mediocre you’d make it more predictable?

	▲	nis0s 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		To me there’s so little in the way of things which unite us on the concept of humanity. Our conceptualization of evil and what it means is somewhat aligned, but more than that what I think unites us is our way of thinking about things which give us hope. The takeaway from a lot of Tolkien’s work, and that of others like him, has always been about the nature of fairy stories and what they entail. It’s the same with games about uniting as humanity to kill aliens, you exist in some liminal space between reality and fantasy to come to terms with what it means to be who you are, etc. That said, someone is free to make their game how they like, just as I am free to dislike its direction and make a comment on it. And so on, and so forth.