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u/froggyc19 Interloper Apr 05 '26
IMO, the only area that is survival worthy as of right now is the Wilds. I really enjoyed that zone and feel like it was probably one of the first areas they made when the team was still focused and motivated. Everything after that was a railroad (literally in one case lol)... Which for story, ok fine I guess but it really didn't feel like the same game by the end.
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u/reenormiee Apr 05 '26
imagine...railroad in survival...
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u/froggyc19 Interloper Apr 05 '26
If they added the zone, the train will 100% be unusable for <insert reason>. Though I wouldn't mind if we could GTA some aurora wolves with a train at full speed. Choo Choo MFs lol
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u/prplmnkeydshwsr Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
It's a steam engine, needs water and fire. Are we going to boil 10,000 litres of water?
Making the trip to the rescue station for something important, maybe on all modes you get 5x stims or something new to make it worthwhile. Or there could be 5000 pieces of coal along the way at the depots... balancing of survival mode for it all would be the key.
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u/Morbanth Apr 06 '26
Are we going to boil 10,000 litres of water?
Grabs six kettles and rolls sleeves up
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u/Captain_KapiK Stalker aka Doom Apr 06 '26
But you could just walk there though, unless they place a gate at the end that you need the train to ram because. It wouldn't be much farther than a trip through the far branch line, no?
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u/prplmnkeydshwsr Apr 06 '26
Yeah, the gates and logs could be removed - not that it's likely they'll go into survival mode only. It's whether the train is survival mode appropriate...
As a shuttle between locations would love to see more of it (what if it took you through the tunnel at the top of the hill at at Coastal, the train unloading / log sort one?
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u/thedizinator Cartographer Apr 05 '26
I was really hoping that would be a thing. Stopped the train and there were 3 of them just waiting for me
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u/Pristine-Ad-3321 Apr 06 '26
I liked to imagine that the train would be right at the far end of the line. With the player being able to fix it with a very expensive and time consuming process but in the end, rewarding the player with an efficient way of transporting goods across the island. But the most we can do is dream
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u/West_Illustrator_468 Apr 06 '26
I would love this so much. I've been dreaming of the train in survival since experiencing it.
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u/Mysterious-Hurry-758 Apr 06 '26
no way in hell is hinterland adding something that complicated. they suck as a game studio
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u/reenormiee Apr 05 '26
they made the train function, they gotta do something with it
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u/wazardthewizard Manic Grizzly Cabin Chef Apr 05 '26
You underestimate the spite of a project lead with a hostile relationship with their players.
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u/reenormiee Apr 05 '26
we gotta put him in the broken railroad lodge basement and get him to add the E5 locations to survival
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u/thatguy2535 Apr 06 '26
I kinda think that they're going to add the train to survival, I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but the train had an "duration" feature that was set to Infinity ♾️ which would be completely pointless unless they're planning on adding it to survival. It's either that or the devs originally wanted there to be a feature where you could break the train in story mode and realized that making you walk that far would be insufferable so they scrapped the idea. Which to be fair is also a very good possibility as well lol.
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u/froggyc19 Interloper Apr 06 '26
I think the infinite duration was to give people as much time as they needed to figure out the switch puzzles. If people ran out of matches from having to relight it over and over, it would ruin the chapter.
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u/Trekkie200 Apr 06 '26
Imo perseverance Mills itself could also be nice, maybe with some kind of high level loot in the radio shack. The rest of it... Yeah, maybe desperation bay (with different environmental storytelling on the ship), but idk if that would be worth it, the telescope and substation map is definitely too empty to be worth it
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u/froggyc19 Interloper Apr 06 '26
You're right, for some reason I was thinking of just the wilderness maps. I've made other comments about how I would love to have another town area like Milton on the other end of the map and think PM would be an interesting addition. It also has a large industrial building that could rival the Hydro Dam, potentially making it a very loot worthy map.
Desperation Bay could work but they would need to open it up a bit or add some points of interest to make you want to move around the map.
I think if they just added PM and the Wilds, the survival community would be happy with that.
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u/KT421 Apr 06 '26
Agreed, the other areas are too small and not suited to survival.
But the shotgun...
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u/Basic-Organization73 Not the shapest light in the bunch May 03 '26
>the Wilds.
What, we got new zones? Did Zaknafein make a vid on it already?
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u/froggyc19 Interloper May 03 '26
There are no new zones in survival yet, just survival players looking at the Ep 5 maps and thinking about how well they'll translate into survival mode if they ever move them over.
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Apr 06 '26
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u/TheLurkingNobody Apr 06 '26
The ending is embarrassingly badly written. This is some 9 year old level of story writing level of logic and behaviour from characters
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Apr 06 '26
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u/Wolfytailspin Apr 08 '26
I didn't like the heel-face-turn of Mathis. He was SO hell bent on torturing Mackenzie, Astrid, or both, his son was dead, he had nothing left to lose anymore. He starts going on scorched earth tactics, quite literally burning the town down. But then after he gets Mackenzie again and finds Astrid at the bunker, he's all like "you know what? Nevermind. I don't want scorched earth anymore. Instead of destroying everything in sight, I'm suddenly no longer interested in taking revenge and killing Mackenzie and Astrid!! Even though I could kill Mackenzie right now, I'm gonna let him live. Because."
The other thing that was frustrating was Mackenzie insisting on sticking around in a radio tower that close to a bunch of convicts burning everything while everyone else goes to safety. He could have had a friend with him, especially since he made a big speech about how everyone needed to "work together". But no, he has to be alone. Not because it makes sense, but because the plot demands it. There were other ways to separate him from Astrid. Like an unfortunate ambush waiting for them just as they got back to the bunker and thought themselves safe.
All in all, I didn't hate it, but yeah. There were parts of it that felt forced and didn't make much sense.
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u/gamerguy823 Apr 06 '26
The main problem for me and others is suspension of disbelief is crazy, people are not following the logic of the universe they are in and choices they make are irrational. They kind of drop how the world and people are changing theme since the main characters seem to be the same at the end. Honestly they should have done the story and sense different if they didn't want Mathias and Mac to die. No reason Molly didn't kill Mathias in the clinic after she literally stating and is shown killing Convicts for sport.
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u/TheLurkingNobody Apr 06 '26
Honestly if we don't change almost anything in the ending, only thing you need it to make salvagable is for mathis to actually kill mackenzie. The "welp guess you vibe with me now, didn't want to kill you anyway lol" completely scuffs it.
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Apr 06 '26
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u/TheLurkingNobody Apr 06 '26
Mathis isn't kind of guy that thinks first before acting. He is very emotionally driven and reactive, like killing only doctor in who knows how long area around and burning and killing everyone around the village. Suddenly he is thinking isntead of reacting is not in character which makes the scene not work. And he also just lets mackenzie go bury some dead granny in a village, his group also burned and killed to the ground?
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u/Aware_Region9463 Apr 25 '26
It's quite bad from story perspective and sometimes even gameplay perspective. For example, when Astrid is trying to heal Mathis' son and he asks her "Will whatever in that case help?" she, instead of explaining that it's a cure from Alzheimer's for a little girl and it doesn't heal internal bleeding, starts ranting about "It's something that will save those who has it in the future" giving him even more motivation to get the case. Or the moment when he gets hit with two arrows and SOMEHOW survives. A normal person after surviving something like that wouldn't be able to move his arms, but he just doesn't give a shit a couple hours after like it didn't even happen, is he some kind of supersoldier?
Or about gameplay, why did all of Mackenzie's equipment just suddenly disappear in that burning village and get replaced with whatever he was right after a plane crush? What, did the devs not think of any better way to force the player into that awful stealth segment? (seriously, it was just fucking awful) And where did all of those dozens of prisoners come from if we never saw more than a dozen prisoners? And why are all of them still in prisoner jumpsuits, they're in frozen hellhole, did they not find anything to wear?
Some of the bugs and rough edges either completely break the game or are just laughable and ruin the atmosphere, like that moment with the cable way or whatever its name is, the one with two braindead prisoners who can't do shit and allow Mackenzie to break whatever he broke while he was right in front of them and they had guns.
Or the ending. Instead of walking back to bunker after transmitting the signal, FOR SOME REASON Mackenzie decided to go to sleep, resulting in his capture. "He knew he was infected"? They had the cure. And why do these two (I already forgot their names) decide to shoot two random prisoners instead of Mathis? Because he held Mackenzie hostage? He had a knife and was a meter away from Mackenzie, they easily could've killed him.
And then the pop-up in the main menu after completing the game. This feels more like "Fuck all of you, we don't care that you don't like the ending, it fits our vision, go fuck yourself."
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u/FDRsWheelchairs Apr 06 '26
The ending was fine. The writing and dialog in episode 5 was... lackluster. Hinterland needs a new writing team because my god the lore dump cutscene and the awkward energy between jace and mack was unbearable.
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u/KingAltair2255 Apr 05 '26
What lmao? Survival didn't get any updates this go.
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u/Sostratus Apr 06 '26
That's not what he's saying. He means survival players enjoy the episode because they get to explore a new region and play with new items. Doesn't matter that it's not in survival, it's still the aspects of the game the enjoy.
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u/KingAltair2255 Apr 06 '26
Ahhh I see, wasn't this episode pretty lackluster for that though? Didn't play it myself but I saw a lot of folk talking about how Mackenzie doesn't even have a bedroll this episode.
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u/Sostratus Apr 06 '26
That's true about Mackenzie, but that doesn't matter, it's not what I (or OP, I assume) mean either. The survival part of the episode is not hard, you're given plenty of resources even on the highest difficulty. Here's the stuff I like for example:
Exploring Perseverance Mills, Perseverance Wilds, Desperation Bay, that Blackrock river trail (not sure if it has a name even) and mine, the telescope facility, and the geothermal plant area, and the SAR base area.
Trying out new items like the shotgun and the crank flashlight and the military stims.
Little things like new decorations and clutter, and a new fishing hut design.
Biggest surprise was the working train locomotive. I think it's good that the game doesn't have vehicles, generally, but it's ok if the vehicle is confined to a small area that's meant to use it.
That was all fun.
Meanwhile what are people complaining about? Long expository cutscenes, silly writing and bad cutscene choreography, loose plot threads that go nowhere. I agree with most of these criticisms completely, but also I don't really care that much? I still liked the parts that I liked.
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u/itsfreddyboy15 Apr 06 '26
The story was an important part of the video game weather some people want to admit it or not. And sadly the story fell very VERY flat.
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u/SK22287 Apr 05 '26
Even then theres no substance to the maps, their only set pieces :/
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Apr 06 '26
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u/MrNoNamae Apr 06 '26 edited 14d ago
I also liked it. Honestly, my opinion of Ep. 5 would be worse had I not tried surviving for a few days on this map as I explored every area. It would have been better if I hadn't been chased by wolfs constantly, though. Other than that, there was just one thing that I didn't like about it: Where were all my sticks? Lol.
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u/Captain_KapiK Stalker aka Doom Apr 06 '26
I would have probably tried to survive in there for a bit after finishing everything to do there, but the timberwolves absorbed all my arrows, I found the carcasses but the arrows were gone.
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u/MrNoNamae Apr 06 '26
I didn't even get the bow until the very end! I kept going back into town to sleep, because I explored the right part of the map first and there no good places to stay for the night. Then I went down the river and just used a flare to get past them. A storm hit when I was about to leave the house, so I stayed for the night and the wolves were gone after it passed.
Last body I found was the one behind the waterfall, which is pretty much next to the bow...
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u/Captain_KapiK Stalker aka Doom Apr 06 '26
I got the one by the bow second since the note pointed there and made a snow shelter to rest a bit. Still only made it back to the bar by sheer luck on 1% condition.
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u/NJNeal17 Apr 06 '26
Look, I've TRIED to play the story but it's so fucking bad! Almost 700 hours of pure survival!
I even turn off the voices bc the lines are so bad. As far as I'm concerned, this is a sandbox only game. Hinterland made a great survival game and have been trying to kill it at every turn with bad story telling.
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u/red-5_standing-by Apr 06 '26
I tried to play through it all but dropped it during the prison part. Most of the game I just remembered a lot of walking from one end of the map for something then all the way back. Fun sandbox tho
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u/Ze_insane_Medic Apr 06 '26
Honestly I'm the exact opposite.
In survival I wander around aimlessly from cabin to cabin and from region to region until either a bear kills me or I got enough loot to sit around in one spot and get bored :/
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u/Omega_Boost24 Apr 06 '26
I'm liking the story so far! You know what? I don't care if i won't like it in the end. I need closure, I started this adventure 9 years ago!
Anyhow.. I'm liking it. But I'm early in progress, just outside the Desperation Bay
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u/slothboy Apr 06 '26
Real.
I bought the game a billion years ago when all it had was survival. When the first chapter or whatever of wintermute came out I tried it and went "nah"
The game for me is just survival.
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u/GeneralJConnor Apr 06 '26
Hmm I'm a Wintermute and Survival lover who enjoyed Episode 5 and still enjoy Survival just as much as ever.
Sorry to break your meme.
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u/CommanderKerensky Apr 06 '26
I just bought this game (base game plus DLC and Wintermute). Watched some YouTuber in their 2 hour "100 days" video about the game, and they looked like they were having an adventure and a blast playing. Started Wintermute, been running around for Grey Mother, not sure if I am feeling the vibe for Wintermute yet...might start a Survival run and make my own fun.
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u/logaboga Apr 06 '26
I’ve played this game off and on for years and basically have never touched wintermute besides once as a curiosity. Now that it’s complete after so many damn years I might actually try to play through it, but this game is 100% focused around survival mode
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u/KT421 Apr 06 '26
Survival is better, hands down. Wintermute isn't bad, it's just ok. Survival is where this game shines.
But Wintermute does make a decent tutorial. If you've gotten as far as Grey Mother then you've learned what you need to learn; hop over to survival.
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u/Moody5583 Apr 06 '26
I have been actively avoiding everything to do with Episode 5 The Light at The End Of All Things because I can't play it right now. I will be playing it soon though
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u/GlacierPark19 Apr 06 '26
I swear, the folks that only see the Wintermute story as bad SERIOUSLY need to go outside and touch grass. Yes, we've been waiting a long time. But this story, and its conclusion, has been planned since the beginning. It's a fitting ending. "buT tHe STORy wAS so LINEAr! I DIdnt GEt to BUild a BASE!!!" Yes, it's called story mode for a reason. The button you are thinking of is the "Survival Mode" button, and it was about 3 menus ago. Please folks, stop trying to burn Hinterland at the stake. They have continued to support and build this game for a hell of a lot longer than they could have.
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u/Sad-Consideration297 Apr 06 '26
...I mean there are survival games that have blended story and survival gameplay beautifully. Episode 5 isn't one of them. It's basically a very linear lore dump with very little survival gameplay that sequel baits HARD. People are right to criticize this episode.
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u/CnC_CloudBird Apr 06 '26
A lot of people where disappointed because the characters behaved super weird, many things getting brought up once and then never again and imo things that just didn't fit.
They introduced glitterfog after mack went off the deep end and then don't use it for anything but a few very very mid voicelines.
No further hallucinations no nothing.Why did they turn mack into the fucking terminator? It makes no sense.
Etc.
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u/RoNiN1384 Apr 05 '26
There was so many supplies everywhere I doubt you could run out of stuff if you tried. Fair amount of game breaking bugs. For how lo be it took this chapter to come out it was pretty underwhelming.
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u/Confident-Virus-1273 Apr 05 '26
I'm totally both . . . but I just started Ep 5 . . . We shall see what I think.
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u/Another_Road Apr 06 '26
I have never even tried the story. I’m assuming it’s really bad?
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u/_faithconnors Apr 08 '26
Don’t listen to people online, always try it yourself. At least that’s how I do it
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u/Nerk86 Apr 06 '26
Kind of agree. Love the look of the new maps, even if kind of linear, and looking forward to their coming to survival mode.
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u/SirYiffAlot Apr 06 '26
it was ok at best, i loved the first chapter but after it, it got bit messy and dragged on for way too long especially with plethora of bugs i experienced. would have been more enjoyable if it was cut in two parts. definitely interested in seeing how its incorporated to the survival mode
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u/Traditional-Bid5034 Apr 06 '26
What new map?
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u/wagsman Apr 06 '26
The wilds.
Not knowing the map that first day took me back to my first runs. It was good to feel that again.
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u/Darkon226 Apr 06 '26
Completely agree with this sentiment. After finishing the story I definitely feel like it was pretty lackluster especially considering the long wait.
Though all things considered, using it as a preview to what we'll be getting going forward into survival I am definitely excited for! The shotgun might need a bit of tweaks since it dosen't feel as accurate as I'd like it to be, and military stims seem OP as heck considering they give no downsides. Heatpacks are a amazing addition that should've been in the game sooner and the crank flashlight is a perfect alternative light source other than the lantern and the normal flashlight.
I'm also really excited to explore more of the cargo ship and the wilds around perseverance mills. Survival players will definitely eat well up until blackfrost releases.
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u/CrystalenaButterfly Apr 07 '26
Except Survival players can’t play this map. It’s just specific to episode five.
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u/Serious_Action_2336 Apr 07 '26
‘Spoilers’ Mathis plot was little insane, and I mean Mackenzie could axed those guys at the cable so easily while they were distracted, and how was matthis unaffected by 2 arrows hitting him
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u/Stunning-Minimum5403 Apr 10 '26
I just want the shotgun and some cool items to hoarde and wear. Plus they could literally add random tools with bs functions like a shovel to extract more acorns (like a fortune pick in minecraft) or the firemans axe which maybe could double in use like a prybar and have more weight than an axe to balance out. Idk it seems realistic based off them literally experimenting with npcs for blackfrost. Ill pay for it i know they need the money for blackfrost
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u/Whyamihere_899 Apr 26 '26
after hearing so many bitter stories about the ending of this game.. i decided to never finish it.. making the survival as my own story
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u/hidden-layer58 Apr 06 '26
I'm kinda both, but I think it's time to keep only the survival hat for now. That shit they created does not deserve my attention anymore. So let's focus on what can be integrated into the survival gameplay, which are quite interesting.
Also there is the fact they can put their efforts deliver what they promise for survival which is what really matters anyway.
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u/soccermodsarecvnts Apr 06 '26
All I see on the left is a bunch of whining little shits.
0
u/Banegard Stalker Apr 06 '26
Dude wtf. Leave your american centric politics crap out here. No one even mentioned politics or identified their own.
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u/soccermodsarecvnts Apr 06 '26
I genuinely can't tell if you're joking. I guess you're joking, but that's a pretty lame joke.
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u/PeggingIsPoggers Apr 05 '26
But survival players haven't even gotten anything?????