slightly more organized thoughts:
so sub 10 is huge and that’s both a fault (I spent a lot of time winding down from tiring navigating of several sections, and eventually defaulted to a guide of where everything is and what it connects to) and a blessing because it’s such a clear culmination of everything that’s come before
it’s jarring, and awe-inspiring, and sad to go through locations you’ve known and seen how they’ve changed in the meantime, and I don’t think I’d give up much of its locations
except that moldy ship you have to go through before you get to the teleporter like ewwww no I hated that place
like I think the feeling of it being underwhelming or not v much depends on playstyle and how you went at the game, too? I had to split my time between a sizeable first half on monday and then the rest of the game today - and even that was almost a little too much to bear haha - and I had such a strong sense of how much I was getting through and how this vast hoard of items I ended my first session with was dwindling, and fewer were take their places
so the end felt like this downhill rush to get rid of all this stuff and put everything in their places and sTABILIZE EVERYTHING and ascend the lighthouse and!!!! and I guess the way you left really appealed to me? you don’t use the lighthouse bulb itself, but rather the newer, improved technology scattered all around. it’s simple, but travel has always been simple and intuitive, and I... like the focus on light imagery, on climbing upward and becoming light to try and free ourselves of all these desolate, buried spaces and endless voids
the previous problems - like mur nearly collapsing half the universe, tHANKS MUR - are addressed and in a way that... makes it clear that mur and liz were never the beginning and end of the subnet. there’s a note in the game that states that when they’re talking, but it also reminds me of something mateusz said years ago? that he never said mur was the creator or the founder, he just... stumbled onto it. and that the subnet never saw him as a supreme antagonistic force, just a virus and wildcard, iirc? but while it might be jarring that “oh the submachine is healing itself, it doesn’t need us” is just tossed at us in a note, it’s... as carelessly revealed as basically all information has ever been, and once again, it loops (get it.....) back to the player character arriving on the heels of everyone else, investigating what’s left behind, always being a little too late
but not too too late since hey, mur and liz are alive! I’M REALLY GLAD ABOUT THAT IDEC
like I got emotional when stabilizing that part of sub 7 - since you see a note about liz and the pillars and some bioluminescent flora and it’s such a balm after seeing even that sanctuary shattered and aged and broken. (and... with a corpse in it... that sure was fun to stumble upon)
speaking of stumbling I also felt bad for all the little bots running surveillance and maintenance. did they shut down from age? will new ones be made? are they okay???? tbh I got spooked when I found them in unexpected places, like the basement - thank god there weren’t any in the mordor version of the basement. like jfc what was even up with that place. I am sure more thoughtful people will actually be able to tell me what is up with that place but I’m still reacting rn so yeah
bUT YEAH SO ABOUT THAT ENDING
it is very simple but I feel with this kind of series, there was no way to make an ending that would deal fully with the payoff that people wanted and expected. for me, I got to finally see the two people I’d been chasing for so long, see a sky, and then have the opportunity to have 100000 more questions about everything.
which is what I wanted! I didn’t think the world would be explained. I didn’t even think that the submachine would be explained properly. to learn about shiva (I thought they’d been talking about a literal deity in 9... I’m so embarrassed now........) and liz and the nature of the submachine was fascinating! I’d still like to have like, an actual timeframe of what mur’s been doing and how long he’s lived and when the edge happened versus the meeting at the end of 10, and like... how much of the epitaphs in 9 were true?
did shiva go “heeeey stick your arm into this waterfall in kent. it’s a good idea. trust me I’m a supercomputer and absolutely know what I’m doing” and why was that water karmic and how are the layers doing and???? god sO MANY QUESTIONS
but tbh that’s what satisfies me the most? because sure I can headcanon a lot of stuff, or theorize with the rest of the tag, but submachine has always been a story carved out in empty spaces and remnants of other people. that kind of information can never be complete, and that’s what makes it so alluring and evocative to me
(also how are all of mur’s and liz’s conversations in notes? did they have like a scribe following them around in a sub-layer, nOTING EVERYTHING DOWN??? the most important duty of all.....)
but okay yeah I was like “man I can’t think of anything to say about the end” but clearly that was not the case
other people feel free to chime in on this? or like hit me up on tumblr messenger to scream incoherently together?????
