#66 - StarRupture

Happy 2026! It's been way too long since I posted a new game review. (Has it seriously been 4-1/2 months?!) Life has been interfering with my gaming lately, and my list of games I want to review is only getting longer and more daunting. Then, StarRupture released 3 days ago!

I've been anxiously awaiting this game for a while now. I participated in the playtest in July 2025 and I've been excited for this early access to drop on Steam. My friends and I have been counting the days.

Apologies for the blurred Discord chat in the top left of some screenshots; it loaded Discord in Legacy Mode until I switched the game display to borderless fullscreen. Even then, I still needed to blur my friends' names in the bottom left as it pulled their Steam names for the characters they played.

StarRupture is a first-person survival crafting/factory automation game, similar to Satisfactory. But its developers have been working very hard to separate it from Satisfactory through unique story and gameplay mechanics. For instance, you have four characters to choose from, all with names, numbers and backstories.

You can swap characters anytime during gameplay, so you're not tied to your decision. So far, despite all of them having unique backgrounds and specialties, they all seem to play identically, so I don't think it really matters which one you choose. Pick the background you like best. I went with the Scientist at first, but when my friends joined and none of them wanted to play as a girl, I gladly switched to the Engineer.

Remember I said they all had numbers? That's because they're all convicts! Their crimes are varied (the scientists' former job and criminal record just says "CLASSIFIED"), but they're all serving time on the remote planet of Arcadia-7. Their sentence requires them to harvest resources for five different corporations. Ideally, working this job will eventually pay off the debt they owe to "society" (read: major corporations).

You awaken from a Regeneration Chamber and find yourself in a small ship on the planet's surface. These Regeneration Chambers are how you come back every time you die in this game. A "sleeve" (clone) is generated in the chamber for you, which is fed constant video and audio of your activities to keep their brains stimulated until they need to be awoken. As you'll learn from lore scattered around this planet, death is no longer something to be feared in this sci-fi world, as long as your data disc isn't damaged.

An AI voice introduces herself as GAL - the Galactic Assistance Liason - of the Claywood Corporation, a sixth corporation who oversees your sentence. She's there to guide you through your job and ensure you complete all tasks to help benefit the corporations pay your debt!

You and your fellow convicts are part of the ARGOS Project, the first team in more than half a century to explore, harvest resources, and document this world as a potential New Earth.

But first, you must complete a training program before you're trusted to collaborate with the other corporations. You step off your spaceship and walk to a nearby clearing for your first view of the planet surface.

First, you need to harvest a Meteorite Heart. You do this by using the Harvester tool to extract minerals from the outside of meteorites. Once you've collected all the resources, it will crumble to pieces and you'll receive the Meteorite Heart.

Note: If you just shoot the Harvester blindly at the meteorite, it will eventually crumble and you'll lose out on valuable resources, so target those colored minerals!

Also, notice the three rows of six bars on the side of the Harvester? When all 18 of them light up, your Harvester will overheat. Make sure to reload it with [R] before that happens. It will automatically reload if it overheats, but it will take twice as long.

Once you have a Meteorite Heart, you can build a Base Core with your Building Tool, which will define the build area of your base. You can't build outside of the range of the Base Core, but it seems as though you can build as many Base Cores as you want in the game so far. So spread them around the map to build bases at all the various resources you need to collect. This umbrella-looking thing protects your base from the deadly rupture of the nearby star, Ruptura.

What's that? You thought the game just had a cool-sounding title? No, the sun literally ruptures in this game! It completely engulfs the planet in fire, incinerating all signs of life. Then the planet goes through a rapid regrowth and regeneration period over the next 10 minutes or so, eventually restoring all signs of flora and fauna to the surface. Ensure you've built a Habitat to retreat to; you won't survive out in the open during the wave blast.

Make sure you harvest all the flaming rocks after a star rupture. They're a rare resource called Ignitium that can only be found in the immediate aftermath. Once they cool, they're gone, so take advantage of the opportunity to collect them.

I haven't been timing the star ruptures so I don't know if they happen on a schedule or if they're random. Sometimes it seems like they happen about every hour or so, sometimes it feels like it's only been 20 minutes since the last one. But you have a decent amount of time to explore before the next one hits. Just ensure you keep a Meteorite Heart and some building materials in your inventory so you can quickly whip up a Habitat anywhere you're exploring when the star is about to rupture.

So what is this Habitat? It's the living quarters you build on the planet surface. You can stack them up to 3 containers high and connect them with ladders (Vertical Connectors) inside, or set them side-by-side and make a doorway (Horizontal Connectors) between them. You need to build an airlock to get in, and if you don't want to feel claustrophobic inside, install windows (Viewports) on the walls.

Once inside, you need to build a Corporate Terminal. This is the screen you'll use to track your progress with each corporation. They don't want to give you full access to their equipment - you're a risky investment to them - so you need to earn the right to use more advanced tools and machines. You will need to fulfill their requested items for each level, until you've earned enough data points to progress to the next level.

How do you fulfill their requested materials? By building an Orbital Cargo Launcher. You see, there's a space rift nearby that can transport resources light-years away in seconds! It's how you got to this distant galaxy in the first place. The Orbital Cargo Launcher will send them to the rift, transporting them back to Earth where the corporations can collect them.

An interesting thing to note: Unlike Satisfactory, which used power lines to power all your machines, StarRupture uses platforms and rails to conduct power. You initially build solar panels and then build connecting platforms to your machines to power them.

Whereas Satisfactory uses conveyor belts to transport resources, StarRupture uses bendy rails. And they don't fill up with resources; they only transport the amount of resources that the receiving end can process. If it fills up, no more resources will travel down the rail.

Here's me adding too many machines to my power grid and overloading it. I need to add some more solar panels to get everything up and running again. You can tell by the light color on the platforms, rails, and machines. Red is down, green is online, yellow (on the machines) is pending action.

Once you've completed the initial training, you unlock access to all five corporations. They will have different resource requirements for each level of advancement, with equipment rewards related to that corporation at each level. You will have to use more advanced machines to make more technical items as you progress, so prioritize whichever corporation you feel will benefit you as you go.

• Future Health Solutions is a pharmaceutical and medical corporation, providing you with food and health equipment.
• Selenian is a space mining corporation, providing you with more advanced machines for harvesting, mining, smelting, constructing, etc.
• Griffits Blue is a military corporation, providing you with weapons to defend yourself from the wildlife.
• Moon Energy is an energy corporation, providing advancements to power technology.
• Clever Robotics is a drone and logistics corporation, providing more advanced tech solutions for transportation of resources and equipment.

Like Satisfactory, resources come in one of three qualities: impure, normal, and pure. In this game though, you can actually tell the quality at a glance.

Below are three Titanium Ore nodes. The crumbly dark one in front is impure, the jagged silver one to the middle right is normal, and the perfectly-shaped rainbow one in back is pure. As far as I can tell, the only difference is how quickly you can mine them; the more pure, the more resources you can obtain in the same time period.

When you're between building factories, make sure to go out and explore the ruins of past settlers and explorers. There's plenty of lore to be found from old tablets and still-functioning computer screens in the wreckage of former Habitats and factories. You'll need to find blueprints for more advanced recipes, and those can only be acquired through exploration of ruins. Don't be afraid to loot dead bodies, which will show up everywhere on your map once you've explored an area.

Don't forget that this is a survival game. Grab some of the local plant life and make sure to keep your food and water bars charged. They drop slowly, so you have plenty of time to craft and explore between meal breaks, and your character complains if they're getting hungry or thirsty, so you'll get a reminder in advance. You will die if you don't eat and drink though.

Also, beware of the local wildlife. They're giant alien spider bugs and they only get tougher and more numerous, the farther away you explore. There are the Slashers and Young Slashers, which are the standard alien spiders you'll see everywhere:

Then there are these blue infected ones called Exploders. They live up to their namesake and explode near you, releasing a blue cloud of infection that will kill you if you don't get out of it soon.

There are also Spitters: green spider bugs who shoot a sort of acid at you from afar. Or their larger variants, the Flingers, who will fling a giant acid spray from their tail from a quarter mile away, coating an area in green. Not pictured because they always kept their distance and I couldn't get close enough to get a decent screenshot before they scurried away.

Finally, there are massive tan-colored spider bugs called Goliaths, covered with impenetrable armor across their arms and body that look kind of like moose horns. They can shield themselves almost completely while charging at you, and they'll easily take out your shield and half your health in a single blow. Give these a wide berth unless you have some beefy weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammo, and some friends helping out.

Below, he's covering his face with his armored front arms as he sneaks up on me. That pistol isn't gonna do shit; time to run!

The aliens will also attack your bases more often, the higher you level up your Base Core. If you're not there to defend, they'll infect the base, which will shut everything down. You need to clear out any lingering bugs and disinfect the base. You can tell which bases are infected because they'll show up as red on your map and the base itself will be covered in a blue cloud of infection.

Have you noticed that massive engine-like structure sticking out of the mountain in the background of all promotional media for this game? It's a building you can find and explore. Took me a while, but I was able to get over there, and it's absolutely enormous! That's literally an entire mountain it's sitting on!

See that small fan-shaped semi-circle in the dirt on the bottom left of it there? There's a hole at ground level I was able to use to get inside. Unfortunately, the door into the actual structure wasn't powered and I need a Power Cell to open it; an advanced technology that I haven't unlocked yet. I'm excited to see what's inside!

This game just opened early access, so it will probably have tons of updates over the next few years before fully releasing. So if you're playing this game and come across bugs (not the kind you shoot), let the developers know! Hopefully it'll only get better over time. They already have a roadmap posted with more features and content planned, so there will be updates to come.

There's so much more I want to discuss about this game, but I don't want to ramble forever about small details, so just go check it out for yourself on Steam! Its normal price will be $20 but it's currently on sale for $16 until January 20th.

#65 - Vampire Hunters

Surprise early review! I usually spend all night writing these (because I'm a night owl) and then post it first thing in the morning before I go to bed. But I wound up with a free day and nothing to do, so I decided to write a review this afternoon.

Vampire Hunters is essentially Vampire Survivors, except instead of an 8-bit top-down survival game, you're now in the middle of the action with a 32-bit FPS view! The developers even admitted this game was designed to be a mix between old-school FPS games and the innovative gameplay from Vampire Survivors.

No, they did not make that previous game. Gamecraft Studios made Vampire Hunters; whereas poncle made Vampire Survivors.

Like its predecessor, Vampire Hunters is a survival game, where you fight an infinitely growing number of monsters who are all slowly shambling toward you. Unlike its predecessor though, there is a time limit to pass each level. You need to survive for 30 minutes before you can escape the level.

Technically, you can stay as long as you want and continue fighting enemies indefinitely, but enemies will get significantly harder until you're overwhelmed. So having an escape is a nice change.

You start by picking your character. There are six characters to play, but only three are unlocked right away. You need to meet certain criteria to unlock the rest. Each character has different stats, so pick something that aligns with your play style. I chose the Paladin because I felt her weakness was easier for me to manage than the other two.

There is only one stage to play starting out - Brotherhood Chateau - so you can jump right in at this point. The game has eight main stages and three bonus stages. As you make progress, you'll unlock more stages to play.

The gameplay starts out real simple. You have one weapon that your character starts with, and you take out cultists as they spawn from portals within iron maidens scattered around the castle. There is no firing required; like Vampire Survivors, your weapons auto-fire as you point at enemies. When they die, most of them will drop a soul (that blue hovering dot) that you can pick up.

Collect a few of these and you'll get a full-screen menu pop up with four random options to pick from. Mostly weapons to acquire (or upgrade a current weapon), but sometimes you'll get a relic that will boost your stats in a specific way.

You can carry up to ten primary weapons, two passive items that will either damage enemies or buff you, and two secondary weapons for close-up combat. Which are a real life-saver when you get into a tight corner with enemies in your face.

And yes, you use all weapons simultaneously. So the bottom of your screen will slowly fill up with weapons as you acquire more. How many hands do you have?!

I don't know if it's strictly a Paladin ability (I haven't played any other characters yet), but I can do a stomp on the ground if I hit Shift while in the air. This blows back enemies and damages them, which is excellent for clearing a space when I'm getting overwhelmed.

There's also a Blood Skill you can use by pressing F when the red orb in the bottom center of the screen fills up. There's not much information about it in the game, except that it does some sort of attack or ability for a few seconds, so I keep forgetting it's there.

Every once in a while, a boss will spawn with a life bar across the top of the screen. They can be a nuisance, but generally aren't that bad to deal with as long as you keep moving and don't neglect waves of monsters for them.

They get really annoying when you're overwhelmed with hundreds of monsters and four bosses spawn all at the same time.

Fortunately, you can see all enemies through walls, so you're never surprised going around a corner. Bosses show up red when looking at them through walls, so you can quickly identify them from across the map.

When you inevitably die (or finish the stage), you can go back to the main menu and upgrade your character. There's a Skill Tree, where you can upgrade specific attributes or unlock/upgrade artifacts by spending the Reputation Level points or Boss Tokens that you earned from each stage.

If you've unlocked any artifacts, you can equip up to three of them on the main menu.

There are also Permanent Upgrades, which boost your character's stats in specific categories. You spend Upgrade Coins to boost each of these stats, which you also earn by playing each level.

When you meet certain criteria, you might unlock a constellation, which you can then equip for added benefits. You can only have one constellation equipped at a time, and they give you a positive and a negative effect, so choose them wisely.

Finally, you can select your main weapon to start with. The three main characters' weapons are unlocked right away, but you can unlock any others you've come across in your gameplay by spending Boss Tokens.

Running all over the levels can get you swarmed on all sides if you're not careful, so I like to plant myself on a ramp or platform with only one entrance, then pick off enemies as they come up to me. I stay until I'm completely overwhelmed, run to the other side of the map to clear the area, then go back to start again. That strategy seems to work pretty well for me when I'm just trying to run out the clock.

There are treasure chests that randomly spawn throughout the level. They'll appear as a gold chest icon in the world (See lower left corner of last screenshot). They bring up the full-screen menu with four optional weapons/relics/etc. to add or upgrade.

When you take down a boss, they'll drop a red chest, which will give you a buff to a particular stat for that round. All chests only last for a limited time, so fight your way to them as soon as you see their icon in the world! Or miss out on easy upgrades.

Each stage has different requirements for ending the stage after the 30-minute mark. I've beaten three stages so far: the Brotherhood Chateau requires that you approach each iron maiden portal and manually close it. The Corrupted Necropolis (Egyptian tomb-themed stage) requires that you slowly summon two ankh's on either end of the stage, then place them over the hands of the giant statue in the center of the stage.

In the Village Yard, you just need to get to a hot-air balloon and escape to the skies.

So if you enjoy fighting endless waves of enemies and surviving as long as possible, check out this game! It was a lot of fun. There are leaderboards for each stage, showing global rankings and points earned. My highest rank in any stage was 1,691st place, as seen below:

If I'm brave enough to stick around past the 30-minute mark and keep mowing down monsters, maybe I can get my ranking below the 4-digit mark. I've easily spent several entire evenings playing this game; it's pretty addicting. Now I need to go check out the fourth stage (Yuki Vale) and see what that's all about. Looks like it's Japanese-themed.

#59 - Far Cry 5

Welcome back! For my next screenshot-laden game discussion, I'm going to be talking about my favorite of the Far Cry series, Far Cry 5.

The original Far Cry was released in 2004 by Crytek to demonstrate the expansive capabilities of their brand-new CryEngine. As such, it was more of a tech demo than a solid video game title. Sure, it had a story and missions to complete, but it was mainly focused on showing off long-distance outdoors scenery, something that was difficult to render in those days. The game took place on a lush green tropical island and pushed computer hardware of the time to the limits of their functionality.

Ubisoft quickly bought up the Far Cry franchise from Crytek and proceeded to remake the original game, including several direct spin-offs/sequels of it, all for consoles. These were severely limited due to console hardware at the time, so they were far more linear and lower quality than the original open world PC game.

Crytek, meanwhile, made a deal with EA to develop a whole new game called Crysis, which would become famous for having realistic physics rendering and graphics far beyond consumer PCs' capabilities. Crysis would become the benchmark for high-end computers for many years afterward. But that's a game discussion for another time...

When it came time to make a true numerical sequel to Far Cry, Ubisoft decided they needed to get away from the tropical jungle setting. A lot of games at the time were focusing on that setting, including the new Crysis franchise. Plus, they felt like the main character from Far Cry just wasn't interesting enough to become the face of the franchise. So Far Cry 2 was actually a completely new game, with a new story, a new protagonist, and set in an unnamed African nation.

And thus began Ubisoft's trend of resetting the whole franchise with each new title. So jumping to the 2018 title Far Cry 5 isn't skipping any important story or background; it's an original standalone game. Although Far Cry: New Dawn is a direct sequel to this game; don't play it unless you want spoilers to the ending of Far Cry 5.

If you want a cool intro to Far Cry 5, Steam has a free 30-minute video called Far Cry 5: Inside Eden's Gate. It's a live-action prologue, following three people (one of which is a vlogger) who attempt to infiltrate the Eden's Gate cult. They meet with a local man who claims his sister just abandoned her home and joined the cult. She's changed, dedicating her whole life to the cult's religious beliefs, and refuses to come home. This video shows how people are brainwashed into joining Eden's Gate, as well as how news of the cult spread outside of Hope County, Montana, which brings us to the intro of the game.

Far Cry 5 begins with clips of a documentary talking about Eden's Gate, a dangerous cult in the fictional Hope County, Montana. They discuss how the cult started buying up land, then the local radio station, then even the cops. Before the locals realized it, Eden's Gate was in control of all of Hope County. They're a militant religious doomsday cult, preparing for the End Times, which they believe is coming soon. Their leader, Joseph Seed, is worshiped by the cult followers as a prophet. He's also known as "The Father."

We cut to you riding in a helicopter over Hope County. You play a rookie deputy to the local sheriff's department, accompanying a U.S. Marshal. You, the Hope County Sheriff, and another local deputy, are escorting the U.S. Marshal to an Eden's Gate compound. The sheriff keeps mentioning "Peggies," which he explains is what they call the cult followers here.

Your helicopter lands in the compound and you find yourself in a tense situation. Peggies are everywhere and not happy at your presence. The four of you nervously walk up to the church in the compound and let yourselves in, approaching Joseph Seed at the altar as he gives his congregation a dangerous sermon.

Despite the sheriff trying to keep the situation calm, the hot-headed U.S. Marshal walks up to Joseph and thrusts a warrant for his arrest in his face, demanding he turn himself in. The crowd gets agitated and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by angry, armed Peggies... until Joseph himself calms them down. He tells them that it's all right, they planned for this, and he will NOT be taken. He then offers himself up for capture.

Now, here's an opportunity to play a secret (and quick) ending to this game. You can choose not to cuff Joseph at this point and instead walk away. If you do, the sheriff will comment that it's best to leave the cult alone and that the team would likely die if they attempted to arrest Joseph anyway.

But then we wouldn't have a game to play, so... you cuff Joseph and escort him back to the helicopter. The Peggies outside are highly agitated at this turn of events and the closer to the helicopter you get, the more tense the situation gets.

You strap Joseph into the helicopter and are prepared for takeoff, but the Peggies don't want you to leave with him. They start jumping on the helicopter and the team is forced to fight them off as they lift off into the air. One climbs over the windshield and into the blades, causing the helicopter to come crashing down!

You awake to find Joseph recovering from the crash. He calls off support over the radio, then tells you, "I told you God wouldn't let you take me." He gives you a grave warning:

Peggies gather around Joseph as he rallies them toward action. Which begins by taking you and your team captive.

The Peggies manage to grab the deputy, but a burst of flames from the helicopter holds them back long enough for you to unhook yourself and bolt into the woods. You run from shouting and gunfire, quickly learning how to hide in the foliage and silently pick off stragglers.

Arming yourself, you meet up with the U.S. Marshal in a trailer house, where you have a stand-off with a wave of Peggies. Hopelessly outnumbered, the U.S. Marshal jumps into a pickup truck and instructs you to ride shotgun and keep the Peggies off your tail. Thus ensues an action-packed car chase, through blockades, gunning down trucks and ATVs filled with Peggies, and even an airplane armed to the teeth!

Despite your best efforts, the U.S. Marshal ends up crashing the truck into a river. He's captured by Peggies, but some stranger fishes you out of the river downstream. You wake up in a bunker, facing an older guy who calls himself Dutch.

He explains that your coming was prophesied by Eden's Gate and it's set off "The Collapse." Basically, they think society is on the brink of destruction now, so they're leaning hardcore into their plans to secure Hope County. All roads are blocked, all signals in and out of the valley are cut. We're completely isolated out here. And now they're going to force all the locals to "save themselves" and convert to their cult... or die.

Dutch tells you to change clothes so he can burn your uniform. It's just going to make you a target from now on, so best to get rid of it. This is your first opportunity to customize your character's appearance and clothing outside of just picking a gender.

When you find Dutch, he's hanging out in a sort of war room of the bunker, with an information board on the wall showcasing the four leaders of Eden's Gate. You can read the bios on all four of them at this point. There are the three brothers: Joseph, Jacob, and John Seed. Then the "sister" Faith, a woman who mysteriously showed up one day to join their family. Joseph is leader over all of Eden's Gate, while each sibling controls a region of Hope County.

Dutch's bunker is on an island between all three regions of the map. He sends you out to help him clear Peggies off his island before you set off to build a resistance and liberate all three regions of Hope County. Every mission you complete, whether it's part of the main story or side missions, helps to free more citizens in a region and build a stronger resistance against the Eden's Gate leader in that region.

Once you clear the island, you're free to go anywhere on the map you desire. There are three main quest lines for you to follow, one per region. They will eventually lead to toppling the leader of that region, which you have to accomplish before you can go after Joseph himself. Or you can just explore anywhere and knock out any side quests or other objectives you come across. You can also rescue and hire resistance members to follow you and help out.

While approaching enemies, it's best to first look at them down your sights or through binoculars to tag them, so you can follow them no matter where they go in the area. You can even tag objectives in an area, to help you plan your strategy accordingly.

You get bonus points for clearing missions undetected, so I highly recommend the stealth approach. You can sneak up and break enemies' necks or use silenced weapons from afar. My preferred weapon of choice is the bow and arrow. No one ever hears it coming! Just remember to hide bodies, because roaming patrols will alert a whole compound if they find a body. And some compounds have alarms that will draw in reinforcements. Make sure to disable the alarms before assaulting a compound, or take out anyone running to set off the alarm.

This game also includes hunting and fishing, as you need supplies to trade, barter, and survive in the wild. The wildlife in this game is very diverse, and some deadly if you're not careful. I've been bitten by several snakes and my only warning was a rattling sound just before they struck. The sound effects are not just ambient noise! Pay attention to them!

If you lose all your health, you pass out and get a cutscene of being captured by the leader of whatever region you're in. They go over how they're going to "free you of sin" in their own sick twisted way, before you're shipped off to a detention center.

But your prisoner transport is ambushed by the local resistance and you manage to escape! Then you have to fight through the internment camp, clear it of Peggies, then survive wave after wave of Peggies before a rescue helicopter comes for you. Only then can you go back to exploring the map. So losing all your health (without a resistance member nearby to quickly revive you) is kind of an ordeal.

I really like that they include this gameplay in the game. It allows the story to continue, so there's no actual death of the player. And it ties into the lore of the game while making you work to get back on track with your mission; a sort of entertaining punishment for failing to survive. It's much more creative than just showing a "Game Over" screen and then resetting you at your last save point, and it gives you motivation to stay alive and not just accept a quick defeat.

These same prison vans can be found driving all over the map and you can assault them and free the captive locals inside. After being captured once yourself, you'll likely feel the need to chase after every prison van you see afterward. No one should be subjected to that torture!

I absolutely love the visuals in this game! The forested mountainous region of Montana is absolutely gorgeous and they do an excellent job showcasing it, especially if you have a computer than can max out this game's graphics. Here are a few screenshots of my actual gameplay in the world, no cutscenes involved. Open them in a new window to enjoy their full 4K quality:

I guess this game resonates with me because I used to be extremely religious in my youth. I even carried a pocket Bible with me everywhere I went and would quote scriptures as I felt they applied to situations. My friends all voted me most likely to become a pastor one day.

But I was also a very curious person who loved to learn and study new things. I wanted to understand the Bible as much as I could. And when I started to find contradictions and inconsistencies in my Bible, I turned to my pastor and congregation for answers. But I received a resounding "have faith; don't question the Lord" dismissal, from pretty much everyone. The more I looked into it, the more problems I found, and the less friendly my religious community got about helping me resolve it.

After giving the Bible a full read from cover to cover, I discovered that it was an awful book full of glorified rape, torture, infanticide, bestiality, war, incest, as well as plenty of other horrifying topics, all sanctioned by God. It's no wonder we cherry-pick passages every Sunday! There are too many stories that aren't church-friendly in that book. You can't do a straight reading of the Bible without losing your congregation. I turned atheist pretty quick and learned to apply critical thinking and logic in the future instead of blindly trusting something to be true.

This game is all about the extreme end of that religious faith. Joseph Seed is considered a prophet, supposedly given direct communications from God about an upcoming apocalypse and how His chosen few can survive. Joseph's methods are based on the concept of "the ends justify the means." He will do whatever it takes to save "his people," even if it means violently kidnapping, torturing, and brainwashing them.

Even worse, the way the four Seed siblings preach to their congregation, the serene country/gospel music, even the way cult members worship, all remind me of my church-going days. Which were very happy, nostalgic days for me. So I personally feel this nostalgic pull toward this very evil cult and I have to remind myself that this cult is doing an excellent job in making it seem so appealing.

Joseph Seed is what happens when a cult is designed to dominate a culture and indoctrinate all its citizens, and this game is a good look at this kind of world from an outsider, trapped within it. It is a terrifying concept, but all the more fun to play a protagonist who is able to resist and fight back against this fascist takeover of an indoctrinated region. Which seems rather relevant in today's world.

If/when you find Boomer, make sure to give him lots of pets! He's a very good boy.