I really don't understand the praise of this game's writing. The performances I think are mostly fine, but the actual plot is all over the place. Character decision-making is often laughably bad, some character arcs are unfulfilling, and the game reaches its climax halfway through the game, and then kind of sputters out before having a decent conclusion. Only to then turn around and add a literal cliffhanger to the end to slap you in the face. It feels like they had bold ideas for this huge connected narrative with these multi-faceted characters but most of them just end up being under-used, boring, or so unbelievably over-the-top bad decision makers that it just feels sloppy. Stuff like the Ash chapter that has the potential to add basically zero to the story or the fact that the older Holt brother will chase his own brother up a tree instead of shooting him to keep him quiet about an escape plan when he's been mourning his other brother nonstop for hours is just ridiculous.

I've never understood the praise for Quantic Dreams games, and there were moments where the writing felt VERY in line with the kind of nonsense, poorly-paced stuff you'd see in one of those.