CthuluIsSpy
Arcane
Yeah, I joined Oculus, and I've been cooperating with the Faceless the whole time. It's just that if one didn't cooperate with the Faceless then DC would be disproportionately harder, and as a big boss or threat Tchort kind of comes out of nowhere.
I mean, does he or his minions ever show up elsewhere? You do find out about him from the cultists, but there's no indication that you actually have to fight the bastard. If anything there's more foreshadowing that you'll end up fighting the cult, which never happens because the game is designed around the infiltration path unless you go full retard and blow your cover.
When I encountered the Institute they reminded me a lot of the Children of the Cathedral from Fallout. They are both a cult promising advances to human evolution, they both have sinister overtones and are instrumental to the main plot. In both cases you're expected to infiltrate them, although I feel Fallout handles the more direct approach better.
The difference though is that in Fallout the Children of the Cathedral are a directly antagonistic force; they are responsible for the super mutant invasion that threats your vault. Whereas in Underrail the Institute kind of...aren't? I mean yeah they stole the cube from Coretech but they aren't the ones behind the Faceless invasion, they're just opportunists after the cube for...reasons.
It's why I think there should have been a Tchortling invasion triggered by the theft of the Cube by the Institute, to make him more of an actual threat you have to deal with.
Like, it starts off with a Faceless incursion as they start tearing apart the rails looking for that cube, and then Tchortlings start to spawn as Tchort's influence begins to grow due to the cube.
I also think there should have been an Institute ending where you actually go full Tchortist and help Eidein, and on a flip side an option to join in the faceless assault on the institute as another way of accessing the elevator.
I also found it kind of funny how you're warned by the Faceless to leave the Institute when they show up to invade it, and you can just leave, come back after two hours, and pick up where the invasion leaves off. You can even tell Eidein to wait when he asks you to join him in the Institute basement.
It would be have been interesting to return to the Institute in ruins and get to Deep Caverns that way.
The path to Deep Caverns just feels kind of forced and limited to me, and the fact it's a one way trip doesn't help matters.
Actually, the worse part of the mutagen puzzle is that the scanner is several zones away from the combinator. It just adds to the tedium. They should have been right next to each other. It doesn't even make sense world building wise that the researchers would have the scanning equipment and mixing equipment so far apart from each other, because that's just inefficient. It's why I just gave up on the puzzle and just shot Tchort to death.
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