Havatra

I don’t watch porn myself, but I support the proper production and consumption of it. Sex work imho should be legal in general, and the workers should be provided workplace safeties like health insurance and minimum pay.

Not sure how easy it is to switch from it being illegal to the aforementioned, especially during wartime, but my fingers are crossed for success and progression either way.

How about battery saving settings? Or data saver? (I constantly use battery saver, and it’s pretty aggressive with restricting processes)

If we’re looking beyond the scope of potential spies and saboteurs, there are plenty of families, friends, and even just normal people who travel abroad. Being abroad opens them up to seeing things from a perspective outside the one that is controlled and even enforced within Russia.

Furthermore, ordinary people’s view of EU (and other countries outside Russia) is part of many pieces of this conflict’s puzzle: Money leaving Russia, people seeing good things in EU in contrast to their own country, and Kremlin being less able to make statements like “this country is showing hostility” or “See? EU only cares about itself”.

And ultimately, we do not want to unnecessarily sour the international relations more than necessary, as it’s required in a lot of ways for talks about resolutions both during and after the war. Kremlin might not care about this, given the things they do, but they’re not looking very far ahead. If they did, they wouldn’t wage war in the first place.

Good points; I’m convinced.

I’ve enjoyed all their works tbf, and I’ll likely get to enjoy yet another good game :-)

It was not stated here who was behind the attack, only that the attack found place. Are the two stories connected? Attacks happen all the time after all, so it’s hard to tell.

Good point! I’m confident that they’ll deliver some thought provoking elements to the story in this regard.

Furthest removed from the core gameplay? What is the core?

The difficult survival? Not knowing what next will try to kill you? The uncertainty of the future? Living in darkness both figuratively and literally? The longing for the life before the war? Exodus is just the least dark game, but the core is still very much there I feel like?

True, though I was a bigger fan of Metro Exodus for the fact that they left the psychic stuff out honestly. Exodus is a good example of how you don’t have to follow the recipe exactly to get a good cake. Nevertheless, there has always been a big focus on the atmosphere and the people, regardless of the psychic part of the story, where they’re coping with survival while piecing together what has been going on before during and after the bombs.

However, I just read an article here that reassured me greatly: https://www.ign.com/articles/metro-2039-developers-on-how-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-changed-their-plans
They still focus on the slow burn story, so all is good, I believe! :-)

This one I’ll be keeping tabs on - sounds like a great and fun game!

I’m stoked for another Metro game, but I feel like they’re leaning a little hit too heavily into the radioactive monsters with this one? I feel like it’s becoming less “possible dystopian future” and more “save the world/country from the supernatural creatures” kind of game…?

What I really like with the franchise is how everything is grounded in possible everyday reality. Sure they have some monsters, but it’s not trippy or fantasy-like. There’s atmosphere through the environment being filled with everyday items in a post-war world, like printed photographs hung up on the walls, letters left behind by now-skeletons, and the general scarcity of resources that make survival a core piece of everyone’s mind. I hope they will achieve this like in their past games, with storytelling grounded in reality being front and center.

On another note, it’s interesting how they have made what looks like Pripyat, and I kinda hope it is! I’d much rather explore Pripyat in Metro than in Stalker.

The way that kids and students learn has changed drastically ever since the start of the world wide web. We no longer need schools or teachers to acquire information or knowledge.

What we need teachers for now is to teach how to interpret the information that we find, to verify its authenticity, and when & how to challenge that information.

With AI (still hate that term) it has become easier than ever to use shortcuts in thinking. Why figure out of the answer when you can just have the answer presented to you? Big Brother loves you!

Teachers are more important than ever, lest we want a society of sheep that can only think as far as the internet and AI let them, which by this point is largely controlled by tech giants and governments. See Information Warfare.

Also worth a read/dive:
State-Sponsored Internet Propaganda
Cognitive Warfare