granted, I am not the target audience for a soulslike anyway

ew

but why in the world would you decide to make the Yellow Turban/Yellow Scarves your power hungry bad guys fueled by a body horror mystical elixir that actually destroys your essential being and humanity as part of a meditation on the essential weakness and power hungry-ness of the human soul

like. yes the movement was deeply bound up in mystical Tao-ism and faith healing and apocalyptic prophecy so I suppose there's a superficial hook -

and of course peasant rebellions have been historically demonized/dismissed/diminished -

but even so why did you decide that you wanted to- uh

"However, weaved into this mythically fictionalized retelling of the historical events of the Three Kingdoms period is an even greater threat than the poor, emboldened to rise up by some bad dude. Nah, it’s a mystical drug called Elixir that’s corrupting the lands, poisoning the people, and raising the dead."

"This is what you, a nameless militia soldier [..], are actually fighting against: Not just the brainwashed poor, but also the grotesquely transformed, as the power-hungry jerks who take Elixir either die and come back as zombies or have their bodies forever changed with new limbs and animalistic features."

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty: The Kotaku Review

I uh. Like. why. did you decide to position the peasant rebellion as the ones using drugs that are "poisoning the people" and uh, completely consumed by hunger for power?

soooooo much yikes

this isn't really based on anything, as far as I can tell? It's not an adaptation of any source text!

this was an entirely independent decision

Calling it "dark fantasy" doesn't change the nature of what you're saying politically there folks!

I mean, I haven't played it maybe it - isn't like how this SURE MAKES IT SOUND

but yikes

I know this rebellion specifically gets demonized and treated as a backdrop/springboard for subsequent historical/legendary culture heroes like Cao Cao and Liu Bei but I'm still like. yike

I mean I'm like "OKAY I can see how you got here given the givens of historical treatments of peasant rebellions and the nature of many strands of engagement with The Romance of the Three Kingdoms but even so why did you choose this"