Hyper Light Drifter - A Story Without Words

[@lucasparry6834]

The monoliths you discover in the game, can actually be translated outside of it...They shed light in most of the history of each race you find, the drifter's backstory and the giants. Oh, also the race that came before them (who actually built the giants, you can see one of them in the hologram that pops up each time you activate a new monolith.

[@poogle9368]

Anyone else feel like being bombarded with story makes me want to know less about it while games like hld make me more curious about the story.

[@komaenen1359]

Yeah tbh it was a bit convoluted for me I had to do something I have never done before, search a walkthrough

[@MagnusDangerMagnus]

Utterly brilliant. I hope people share this. Thank you. "NPCsplaining" deserves to be part of the wider gaming lexicon.

[@dahliasdarkside1695]

his search for a cure is confirmed by the creator in his Vice interview

[@Theyungcity23]

It even says it on the games kickstarter page.

[@dahliasdarkside1695]

Indeed.

[@ThePsychicPsycho_uZ]

It also states it if you unlock the trading card on Steam.

[@newagegoku9601]

DahliasDarkside Also confirmed in the steam card on him.

[@Vulcanfaux]

DahliasDarkside coming back a year later. But it's not said in game. Yes the dev says that's what the character is doing. But Ingame. Nothing tells you at all. You would have to connect the dots yourself and even then you wouldn't be able to do that Til you reached the end. At the beginning of the game all you know is this guy is sick and he is has traveled here.

[@thomassteele5748]

The comic book Nausicaa valley of the wind fills out the plot details that were not mentioned in the film version. You find out where the pollution came form, who built the giant robots, where and why the giant Om come from/ exists, where and why the sea of corruption came from exists, the reasons the war is being fought. The manga leaves very few loose ends.

[@TheKingReto]

Modern storytelling is not as bad as you picture it here. The best example I know quite well for that is Skyrim. You can learn everything about the world your character lives in if you want to. The more you know about Skyrim and Tamriel, the more you can dive into this fantasctic world, which is one of the best feelings a gamer can have.

[@Vigilante-THE_BAND]

DerpNerd thats your opinion

[@binxmaster]

Does Ico or Shadow of the Colossus ring a bell?

[@woblier]

DARK SOULS

[@Brandonious15987]

+Michael Bincal Or Fez?

[@TheR971]

+Michael Bincal or Enemy Mind (probably not...but it's AWESOME. and though it has words, they always establishe a picture, which tells the story. The words themselves are kind of empty. It sounds weird, but it's great.

[@post-apocalypticcomingsoon1625]

+Michael Bincal and before that, Another World and Flashback.

[@Micavich]

+woblier dark souls has dialog. A lot of dialog.

[@rogerdoger9826]

Am I the only one that enjoys lores and long endless dialogues from NPC?

[@nvfury13]

Not by a longshot.

[@Stellos812]

You are not alone, friend!

[@BlackMonolithEntertainment12]

+Ulysses Hern i do too...but i also like making my own stories on why I'm doing something....idk i think its called role-playing????

[@nvfury13]

+Black Monolith Entertainment I roleplay games as well, but prefer to be given story (for the world and NPCs at least) since I had the Apple II/Atari era to make the entire story(and characters) in my head.

[@BlackMonolithEntertainment12]

+Nick V technical it still is its called visual story telling they are still giving plenty of storytelling in all the things you see it's nice to not be spoon fed when I can just find out the story myself

[@Cae5ium]

subtle, subtle, ever so subtle. this game really makes you take a step back and really appreciate the world that you're in. truly a masterpiece imo

[@DeathKhan]

"Hyper Light Drifter takes a lot of cues from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind." Welp. I'm sold.

[@Magnymbus]

+DeathKhan Agreed. I effin' loved that movie, so much that I'm trying to get my hands on a physical copy of the manga Hayao Miyazaki wrote of it before hand...

[@farkler4785]

I started playing this game a week ago, and in my opinion, a literally perfect game that has no flaws.

[@uberleetben]

This game's awesome, I backed the Kickstarter and this game is a fantastic combination of Intriguing story and Skill-full gameplay. Great video and ideas once again.

[@src248]

That Studio Ghibli picture is my background, and it really freaked me out when it showed up in the video

[@torahibiki]

+Steven Chabot ikr

[@roofusonna1846]

Nice video, much of what you say is correct about Miyazaki's Valley of the Wind film, though incorrect in regard to the Valley of the Wind manga. There are explanations of where the pollution came from, what the purpose of the Omu is, how the sea of corruptions began, why the two dominant kingdoms are warring etc. Weaving the very personal of Nausiccaa and the people she encounters, refugees migrating away from an expanding war front, telepathic insects, corpse looters and snake like coward princes. I appreciate Miyazaki being able to have these elements synergies together to create a a story greater than the sum of it's parts. I hold a place in my heart for the old man, and his craft.

[@scarecrow9974]

I won't comment on your opinion, since I have neither played HLD nor ME3, but what I will commend is your usage of silence and music to emphasize your point. The swelling of the music and the sudden appearance of your silence (usually missing and quite uncharacteristic in your videos) just made the whole video so much more emotional and endearing. It was an amazingly crafted technique which only reinforced your point of view; that silence can sometimes tell more than overabundant noise. I'm also quite impressed with how you were aware of the Nausicaa references that are essentially the foundation for HLD. All in all, possibly one of the best episodes I've seen from you.

[@MrBigCookieCrumble]

Hyper Light Drifter is hands down my favorite game of 2016 and i have a feeling it won't be pushed off the top, that being said there's a lot of 2016 still to come..

[@UndeadTurning]

The way Dark Souls handles it is quite good. Not wordless, obviously, but if you're driven by a good story, you're very happy to get that armor piece that gives just a little bit of backstory, or an NPC you keep alive and fight beside start to tell you their stories, but nothing about them seems expositional for the sake of it. The best part about Dks is the amount of self interpretation you can inject into it, and it can all still make sense.

[@arthurstickel]

Fantastic, mate! You are so right. And I'm inclined to believe that all of your points are applicable not only to videogames and interactive mediums, but also for movies and TV and stuff. I am currently working on an idea for an animated tv series, and by watching your video I noticed how I was going in the wrong direction; I was overthinking the story behind the world, and the creatures, and an explanation for the quirks of every single character, when it's just as important to leave stuff open for interpretation and for imagining. Thanks a ton, this really helped me out.

[@kamakozy13]

What you leave out of your created world will make it seem even more vast. Making someone imagine what's there in the dark or what's at the top of the mountain created a mysterious charm that can sometimes surpass anything you could have written

[@infamousXsniper055]

This video was beautiful, especially when you played the music at 6:00. Thank you for making this.

[@IAmEvilTree]

You get my like and favourite just for the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind reference.

[@torahibiki]

+IAmEvilTree i second this

[@justsomenoob1593]

thank you for opening my eyes shoddy cast.

[@ShoddyCast]

How do you prefer the story to be told when gaming? Follow us on Facebook | Facebook.com/ShoddyCast Follow us on Twitter | twitter.com/ShoddyCast Follow Austin | twitter.com/arhourigan Support the show | www.patreon.com/ShoddyCast

[@soldierfromkrieg6460]

+ShoddyCast I NEED TO KNOW THE FUCKING LORE OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND STUFF, WHO MADE THE GOD WARRIORS, WHY IS EVERYTHING GOING TO SHIT, WHY IS EVERYTHING ALREADY SHIT, WHY ARE THERE GIANT BUGS, WHY ARE GOD WARRIORS. I NEED TO KNOW SHIT

[@tonyarevalo8175]

You'd have fun with the dark souls series.

[@chriswoodend2036]

+ShoddyCast I think the game that best struck the balance between the two extremes was Portal. It has the direct and relvant story but a rich underlying story that can be found if one is interested in digging.

[@hopeeagle75]

I'd love to have a weird balance. I love the feeling of discovering a mystery then working out the answers. I also enjoy how like Skyrim has so many books to read over and gives lots of background history. I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it too.

[@powervidsful]

didn't journey already do this

[@TheAndroidNextDoor]

This is why I want to have the opportunity to write the story for a video game. For the longest time, many video games have felt more like interactive movies than something entirely their own. I want to play a game that sucks me into the world and doesn't let me out. I want it to feel real, and not many games fully accomplish this. The problem with many developers is that they don't fully understand the iceberg theory for writing. For novel writing at least though this applies here as well, if you're creating a brand new world, what you end up showing the audience verses what you yourself actually know, is like an iceberg. Most of what you know ends up staying hidden while what the audience sees is the part of the iceberg above water. However the challenge comes with telling a coherent story, while only giving the audience the top of the iceberg, while simultaneously convincing them that the rest of it exists and is still there, even though they don't know about it. Reality is like this. You don't know every little thing about the world but it doesn't stop it from existing nor does it stop you from knowing that it exists. Developers these days spend so much time and effort creating the iceberg that they feel like they have to show you the whole damn thing to justify it's existence and that, quite frankly, takes the fun out of it.

[@Mr_Jombles]

Perfectly said. Nice one matey.

[@lucsommerland9293]

Hyper Light Drifter actually also has a lot of backstory but it's hidden in monoliths that are scattred around the world, they're extremley hard to find and you'll need to translate the text to english. There is also a hidden story room where you can see wich monoliths you've collected.

[@OohFiesty]

Hey, Austin! this was awesome, and the editor especially (whether its still Austin or not) I just want to say that you do amazing work with the spacing and music and whatnot's of this video, like seriously your really doing amazing work,

[@rangerofgaia6075]

It does actually mention that the drifter is searching for a cure. I do not know if it is in game, but in the steam card "The Magician" it does state it.

[@Cam_Rin]

Incredible video, I actually took some (A LOT) of inspiration for this for a presentation I'm doing for a class. Really wraps up a lot of thoughts I've been having about storytelling in games. Keep up the good work!

[@Meetchio]

Thank you ShoddyCast for recognizing the brilliance of this masterpiece, the very reason I become a game developer was from the inspiration in the games early stages.

[@DetectivePoofPoof]

Great video! You cover a lot of frustrations Ive been having with how narrative is presented in games.

[@joisama]

I see a lot of people writing Dark soul but Dark soul I feel like is more about lore while this is more about story.

[@S1lva139]

love your videos Austin, looking forward to more of them. Sincerely hope that big gaming companies watch your videos and learn a thing or two from you.

[@TheCohesiveGarage]

You nailed it sir. Subscribed!

[@samuelallen2680]

This was really cool and different, you should do this type of stuff more often. Keep up the amazing videos!

[@OurayTheOwl]

What about Shadow of the Colossus, Journey and Fez for inspiration on drifter? I mean its like wander had a baby with an arcade cabinet. Also on the flip side of story telling, The Talos Principle, where they bombard you with bombard you with things that don't help. And the medium between them being games that have you collect audio logs or journal entries, like Amnesia. I like these exploratory styles of plot development.

[@UndeadCookieMonster]

+OurayTheOwl Haven't played Shadow of the Colossus, but that game doesn't have any real dialogue, right? It's all visuals?

[@OurayTheOwl]

pretty much. Just ambiguous circumstances and pretty set pieces.

[@verbnoun9891]

Never seen you before, but your admiration for this game alone made me subscribe. Thanks for the video!

[@smirf111]

Just discovered your channel and I'm already getting sucked into this time sink. Very well done keep up the awesome work!

[@vinicorreiacs]

That's one of the best videos i've ever watched about video games

[@richardnickles9321]

it's videos like this that makes this channel exceptional

[@nadirbaitsaleem7270]

I love it when you make these types of videos. Please make more! :D

[@dwebb1968]

I love this channel.

[@Joshua-yf5mh]

Even though its just the sandbox and not the actual story mode, i think The Long Dark does a good job of telling a story without much dialog/narrative. You are given a short paragraph opening that briefly explains the game world and how your character came to be stranded in the Canadian wilderness, other than that you are left to wonder about the people who lived and worked in the abandoned locations you come across.

[@datoneguy825]

I have beaten it and really enjoyed the experience. Without the unknown, there is no wonder left. Great video!!!

[@haloGod268]

The unknown is why I love Warframe's universe. Its dark, withholding, and we barely get information as we go. I find that in some games, the ability to speculate and theorize is often as fun as, if not more fun than, the game itself.

[@spearman4712]

I really like the way this video underscores what Hyper Light Drifter reveals about the power (and sufficiency) of player imagination. :)

[@Synful_RoX]

10 seconds into Austin talking about this game, and I'm already convinced to buy it. 90% positive steam reviews also helped. Hoping for a fun experience c:

[@TheJosephB333]

I must say this is an absolutely amazing video and you cpature what I think is being majorly overused in AAA games. I wrote one of the lore threads on Reddit and the steam forums. And I look forward to you making your own lore theory. Also ignore all these people saying "no mention of x and y" You got everthing you need right here. You picked three or four representitive and relevent examples and got your point across eloquently.

[@alexanderaljabbar7773]

Dear Austin, or should I say ShoddyCast. U are an awesome person and I love your personality. I personally love your open letters and this very video. U change the way i see games, Thank U for that. There's not much that I could say rather than thank you for giving us such amazing videos. Sincerely, Alex. Thanks 4 reading

[@Deathspirit232]

Not a single reference to Dark Souls? No? ;_;

[@Trashware]

+Deathspirit232 Only a million of those in the comment section ;) Yet no one mentioned Limbo. Or Machinarium. Or.. wait, let me think on this some more.

[@Deathspirit232]

Trashware Limbo is actually great example. And fnaf.

[@SomeKindaSpy]

+Deathspirit232 Dark Souls kind of does already with item description.

[@Irn424]

+Deathspirit232 FNAF? Are you dumb? That game is shit, you have to LITERALLY decode the fucking game's shitty story

[@kinghtstemplar]

I second that

[@papee23467]

How did darks souls not pop up when you were making this video

[@christianpinna5037]

2 words !DARK SOULS!

[@pavelradev1990]

I think it could be like an athlete performing during a sport. There are no words just constant action and you can tell a story with that action. Just by the little things like how a football player moves his hips to juke or spin around a defender. or how a basketball play adjusts his shot while in the air to also get around the defender. That can tell a pretty cool story by itself.

[@joelcraig9803]

Journey is a Great example of what your talking about. The entire story is conveyed by murals. it even gives a prophecy about the end of the game throw murals.

[@Kouyou160]

We'll get there, I think game devs just haven't been doing story-telling long enough to know to cut-outs what needs to be cut out narratively. Everyone is just so excited at the space they're given that its normal to want to fill it up at first. They'll learn good tight editing eventually, its just a matter of time, its still a really new medium.

[@thetuerk]

duuude this video is so inspiering. this made my Day somehow by mentioning my favorite childhood movie.

[@bmckelvy5717]

Now I want to play Hyperlight Drifter.

[@bmckelvy5717]

I hope it's free....

[@fizoh9535]

+B McKelvy nope.

[@bmckelvy5717]

+Fiz101 NOOOOoooo! Ah well. I'll get it anyway!

[@fizoh9535]

***** its really good I have played through it 4 times

[@hugofontes5708]

+King Xalchyr You sound like my little brother looking at beans and lettuce. When he was 5.

[@kizofio]

I always come back to this video. I just love it

[@Deadforge]

I've always loved this method of story telling. Especially in fromsoft games or overall lore in games. I live the way it was used in Little Nightmares and Control.

[@majoraikana5893]

I absolutely love games that make you speculate. I actually enjoy it, theorizing about games like Starbound and The Legend of Zelda make me think and actually take away a lot from the experience, moreso than studying, not to say that makes one experience better than the other, that's up to the individual and their opinion. Open interpretation is amazing in storytelling. As fun as studying is, unique experiences have a nice charm to them as well. I just love a good story, whether there's real exposition or not. Not everything has to or ever will be resolved. The same is true for real life as well as fantasy. Sometimes just don't make sense, and despite the horror of that, there's also an immense beauty to find in that.

[@sebastianalancliffordthomp4114]

I can't believe I hadn't realised this connection before, Nausica is my favorite film XD The music almost had me in tears

[@remongrabu]

Really well presented perspective. Well done!

[@spodevids]

Fucking thank you, I'm so sick of having to sit through expositional dialogue. And I saw Nausicca for the first time in the early 90s before there was an accurate English Translation (Wind Warriors existed but was an abomination). I bought a bootleg VHS from the Japanese video store in Japan town, and loved it. I totally got the gist of the story even though I had no idea what any of the dialogue was. Visually stunning, It was really ahead of its time being from 1984.

[@shikiisandoval51]

I love when you do more insightful, calm videos like this, but I'm not saying to stop making your more exuberant and energy filled videos either

[@ty_sylicus]

I just finished this game and it is incredible. For the first time in a long time, I just sat afterwards and really thought about it all. "Imagination"? Now there's something I don't feel I've honestly used in many years.

[@johnpriddey3837]

This reminds me so much of Hero Of Many. Theres no words, at all, and we hardly gain any information about the games world.

[@MeatCuthbert]

I think dark souls has one of the best middle grounds. You are told the very basic central story (and not even all of it) but can gradually piece together the rest through item descriptions and the world around you. A good example is in DS2 where you slowly piece together why there are giants here and what they were doing. It may or may not have been spoonfed to me (depends on how you define it) but it at least FELT like I discovered it myself

[@kevsvids1000]

Honestly, a game story that doesn't answer all the questions I have is going to annoy me. I want all the answers, but I want to experience the story and find the answers to the questions I have, myself. I don't want to be force fed answers like a baby, and I don't want the answers dumped on me all at once in a villains monologue, or a cutscene. Only a badly written story does that. A game that allows you to discover the answers that YOU are looking for will earn my respect. If there's a specific answer that you want that has nothing to do with the main plot, you should still be able to go out of your way to find it. It adds realistic depth and immersion to the games' world, with great re-playability. It feels like the world consists of more than just the story your character is experiencing. You can play it over and over again looking for answers to the questions you have, and asking new questions along the way. Fallout is great at doing that. "The Keller family transcripts" is just one example. You find a holodisk from one of the family members. "Who is the Keller family?" you ask. It actually has nothing to do with the main story, but if you chose to, you can go out of your way to find all the other holodisks spread around the world, which answers all the questions you have about the fate of the Keller family. That's how you write an interactive story. EDIT: I don't play interactive adventure/role playing games to use my imagination. If I want to exercise my imagination, I would read a book. I play games to enter and experience the imagination of the games creators.

[@komaenen1359]

This. I much prefer games that are story-driven, but not directly, if you get what I mean. So like, you get some story to provide a bit of context as to what you're actually doing, and there's much more story scattered around that you can hunt down and get if you want to. I'm playing this game right now and its maybe just a little on the vague side for me, but still one of the best I've played in a while

[@GodsofOdds]

Does anyone else want the lore series to come back? That was my favourite thing about this channel how it explained the lore in games.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Nausicaa soundtrack + HLD = chills. Well done man.

[@federicorivera7355]

bro you're music and delivering speech is on point also i would like to metion you're delivering on most things is impeccable also i like your dear bethesda series i like how passionately you say it yea some cuz words but sometimes those are on point like in the video where you mention M.A.D btw we talked about that in class and i alredy knew what it was crazy huh.

[@theironknight597]

every Friday I sit in my recliner and watch shoddycast on my smart tv

[@petrodeloro]

I think the lore of every game is really important. Because if you are forced to 'fill the gaps' you will make every story, every game, the same for you and, in the same time, every single person will have different knowledge of the worlds the stories are taking place in. Like it's good for some games, games that are... simple. I think there should be large lore for every single game, but i wouldn't mind if games share that lore. Like it is absolutely irrelevant to say that people wear underwear in Watch Dogs, because you can figure it out, as it's 'normal' world. But I do not think it's irrelevant to say, to explain, how, for example, magic works in Skyrim...

[@123asd1]

I love lore, I love books that expand the universe but there need to be moments with you your current story not what happened or will happen but the confusion of the world around you. Fallout 3 had these moments, we knew the bombs fell and we either want to live our life or find our father, but theres hidden stories that even in game books dont tell things that you can only imagine. Like skeletons laying entangled in each others arms with drugs strung about showing at one point either as the bombs fell, before they hit dc, or after these two decided to take their own lives with each other and go out in a manor more peaceful then most. Or the house with medical supplies, at first your like random loot but as you explore you find two leg braces, and crutchs in the kids room, it shows that before the bombs this familys kid suffered from sort of leg problem be broken or disease based. Theres a ton more but its been so long since I played it last. New vegas had fewer of those moments too.

[@stavem3361]

i saw an add on adult swim where they talked about hyper light drifter the main goal is to for the drifter to find a cure to his sickness

[@yunolose]

you make some outstanding points. The reason i love fallout is because of the amount of lore it has but that does not mean that when i venture into a cave filled with radiation and ghouls with rad scorpions to find out what happened in a near 30 min read of a computer ( forgot what they were called). I actually like not knowing and just make assumptions based on the surroundings and more. Maybe the rad scorpions infested the area which caused something to happen. I would rather have a little story with me searching around looting bodies that have notes that tell me a little story of what had happened instead of finding out from dialogue from a near by npc. I guess this is why i like vaults so much in fallout even though the computers are filled with information the atmosphere is great. i end up skipping the information and just use my imagination. I probably worded this badly but in conclusion i 100% agree with you.

[@MarkArandjus]

Part of the majesty of the reapers was their mystery, they were unknowable, their motivations were beyond the understanding of petty life-forms such as humans, like some old being from a Lovecraft story. The Joker in the Dark Knight, if they actually showed you how he got the scars and what his name was and where he came from that would defeat the charm of the character.

[@cloud99vii27]

Interesting the similarities with Nausicaa, also good choice putting Panacea at the end of the video, loved this track. P. S. The fact that dev Alex has a heart illness make even more sense because he named his company Heart Machine and the theme of life and death is really important in his works

[@batguano7777]

I think a mix of exposition and mystery is often equatable to my enjoyment. often... not always

[@GoodCriticBadCritic]

What do you think about the story of Dark Souls? The lore is so purposefully convoluted that you have to piece it together in order to even make a theory. In Bloodborne, for example, your player character knows more about his/her journey than you do, and it's not even clear who the villain is.

[@komaenen1359]

You do get hints about it, and I prefer bloodborne in the sense of that you aren't undead, and somehow make it back to the last bonfire when you "die" but you are dreaming, and trapped in this dream until you can actually kill it. That's what it means when you kill the Nurse and it says nightmare slain

[@dividedreality9708]

Here's how I see it: The Anubis-like deity calls forth powerful nomads known as "Drifters" to restore balance in the world with a restart cell (that huge shiny gem). Unfortunately, the dark being, known as Judgement, sees the world impure, the inhabitants as undeserving, and wants to wipe them out, so only it remains to change the world to what it sees fit.(Which explains the Titans, and artillery weapons in certain areas). It prevents anyone, including Drifters from obtaining the cell, that's why at the beginning cutscene, it makes the protagonist contract a terminal illness.

[@ThatIrishLass]

This is why people love The Elder Scrolls. They seldom give Expo dumps, and more often withhold information you didn't specifically seek out(which leads to things like people not understanding the Great War or the fallout of the death of the Septim dynasty, among other things, but that's fine, because those are things we don't need to know to understand the game, they're just backstory, and if we want to we can find them out). The games are about exploring and this just limited to mechanics, but storytelling. Some of the most emotional moments in the Elder Scrolls come from scenes with no lines spoken and not even a letter or book(Finding the dog in the Hut next to a skeleton in Skyrim springs to mind. No one says what happened or and there's no note, but every person here has been guilted into adopting the little guy, and some playthroughs have been driven entirely by the quest to keep that dog safe and sound.

[@ThatIrishLass]

isn't just limited* on a phone in bed.

[@manwithbearddude3709]

the three huge glowing dudes reminded me of the huge dudes from nausicaa and the valley of the wind

[@amzissou9093]

I guess this is a postmodern experience getting good in the gaming industry. Nice to see it :)

[@destris975]

Another awesome video, keep up your great work :)

[@Freeman-kj1hp]

Great video and great points. Imo Austins video series, if you can call it that, is getting more and more interesing.

[@matthewclark245]

Austin states this perfectly. I've played every Mass Effect and Fallout game. Did I enjoy them? Absolutely. This game had an excellent story, and the best part is that its practically not there. All the people who make "Hyper Light Drifter EXPLAINED" aren't getting the game itself. The story isn't meant to be analyzed and explained. The story is the lest important part of the game. Appreciate it for what it is, not what should be there.

[@ianbroussard9353]

Good video Austin. Looking forward to the next one.

[@3lithepunk]

God i just loved what the deveolpers did , if you are a true gamer you ll know what to do if not anyone can finish AAA games but not everyone has a record

[@masonbloomquist2124]

this was such a subtle episode, it was so peas full

[@pietgodaard4610]

IMHO it draws even more from "Laputa castle in the sky" and than I mean the part that they are in the castle with the lost technology and such.

[@lastcall2011]

A point well made, thanks!

[@bugjams]

I remember Extra Credits did a video about why games and movies are doing Cthulhu wrong, and it was basically the same idea. Lovercraft never said what Cthulhu looked like. No idea where the tentacle-faced giant idea came from, but essentially Cthulhu was supposed to look like everything mankind feared, and it's appearance likewise changes with the viewer. It was supposed to be so horrifying that nobody could stand against it. No amount of courage or fearlessness could stop it, and even if it could, it was just so damn powerful that nobody could kill it. So when a game or movie shows Cthulhu, they're already fucking it up. Then they usually go further by having the protagonist kill it. Lovercraftian horrors aren't supposed to have any defined form of figure, and are supposed to convey absolute despair and hopelessness. That means NO hope. It's not like, well there was 0 hope, but now I added some hope, so there is some! These things CONSUME hope. There never WILL be any. That's also a big reason why I liked HLD. The ending doesn't resolve much either. At first glance, it seems like your usual 'heroic sacrifice' tale, the town and all 4 regions outside of it seem clean and sunny, but the hero dies. But who's to say that actually solved anything? The game certainly doesn't. Who's to say a new game plus isn't just ANOTHER entirely different hero who has to stop the horrors again because the first hero, or rather, every hero before that one, didn't? You even SEE dead drifters all around the map. The beauty behind HLD is that everything, from beginning to end, is totally vague. The story, in a sense, is what you make out of it. I wish more games could do that.

[@kizofio]

I immediately downloaded the game after watching your video. Gotta thank you for that cuz the game is AWESOME.

[@sethitsseth]

This video, over and over again; this video. The few negative reviews for hld ooze "Please spoon feed me". HLD is ART!

[@lunarbeetlejuice9768]

Way to play on my Pavlove when you started up the Nausicaä theme. Never had my heart pulled like that 10/10

[@FatherFigure-s6e]

The drifter was infected with a disease by judgement the final boss, he is a champion of anubis (the dog) who's goal is to take a falsely made shard that can grant immortality. The final boss is a part of the shard and your goal is to destroy the shard, the reason you have the disease because judgement infects you with the terminal illness knowing that if you cannot reach him in time you will die.

[@benedictifye]

regarding Mass Effect and Leviathan explaining the Reapers: It's like The Ring vs. The Ring 2 -- in the first movie, the motivations of the monster-girl were left unknown and unknowable, and that exact thing made it much more terrifying. She tried to solve the problem by finding the body and so on and so forth, but then was explicitly told no, that's not the point, the ghost doesn't want justice it just wants to inflict endless pain, and can't be stopped. The only way to save yourself is to kill someone else, whether you like it or not. The second movie tried to put a motivation behind the ghost's actions and basically undid everything that made the first movie effective. So it was not only a bad movie in itself but it ruined the first movie as well. It's like what the Star Wars prequels did to Star Wars as a whole.

[@fourstarphil00]

I really enjoyed your analysis

[@SamFreelancePolice]

I love devil daggers' story and it uses no words or cut scenes too

[@reubenforbes3172]

I thought this video was going to be a hyperlight drifter lore video..... the channel has basically turned into game theory.... More lore vids pls