it's the survival of the fittest ending as opposed to the meek shall inherit the earth. I had a thought the other day, we say survival of the fittest holds true but if you leave two rabbits in a field a year later you will have 2000 rabbits due to thier reproduction rate, they breed like rabbits, predators need a huge area such as wolves for a single pack but do they own it, they have to battle other packs and starvation, rabbits are meek yet they produce at such a rate they overtake anything, so which is true, it seems the meek shall inherit the earth holds true and survival of the fittest is false
@@yaroslav7458 but if there is competition you can raise your station in the world at others expense, I believe that is something you can do in game no?
@@yaroslav7458 I was more making the point that the first endings philosophy matches survival of the fittest ethos, and that the endings of this game are more about our world than the game world, as that's at least to my understanding the point of stories, and the stories exist in our world even if the events and characters aren't "real" they do in fact exist
During that ending the protaganist said they feel like they are wasting their time. When they shot the random person it is a metaphor for how much time they really wasted. Some random human being who probably didn't deserve it just getting shot in the face is a metaphor for the poor protaganists entire life from here on out. An endless cycle of mindlessly killing people. Ending one is the worst/bad ending because nothing changed and everything you did was for naught; so might as well take your anger out on some random passer by.
I think that kind of thing is intentional cause it seems to happen in everyone's ending at some point. Personally it reinforces the idea that yes, you got the "good" ending. You're happy and the skies are blue and everything is great. But nothing actually changed. You're still killing people, none of it matters, some guy gets in your way, blow them apart because it's all meaningless anyway. The final ending is completely scripted, nobody can die in that cutscene because finally death is real. The world has meaning again.
In each ending the protagonist meets one of the Triagons. First Ending: MC Kills Death and the world becomes and endless prison where no one can ever die. Second Ending: MC Meets Life and receives almost godly powers as a gift for being so powerful. Third Ending: MC Kills Malice, becomes some kind of a Triagon himself and resets the world, starting a new golden age where human life can have a price once again.
I’ve never touched Cruelty Squad, and the weirdness is definitely evident in every aspect of the game. But one thing I don’t see talked about much is the genius of the writing. There’s genuinely some horrific and deep stuff to think about with each of these endings, and I can’t wait to officially try out the game for myself sometime
I honestly really like the usage of the OPL soundchip in the soundtrack. It’s such a homage to late 90s video games that use this soundchip, especially those for PC, such as MS-DOS.
Well thats rather... strange xD Soooo, is the menu screen's car occupant the protagonist, after suicide? Or is that some guy that the protagonist killed, I wonder as its the same car we use in the second level.
The protagonist is black. I know it's hard to tell, because it's very low on polygons, but the body here is shaded like a Caucasian with a sunburn (so it doesn't look like him). Also the dead body doesn't have his shades (glasses) and it doesn't look like a suicide. Moreover, at this point it seems like the protagonist is immortal or close to it, with all the weird modifications he's gone through (besides his motives blablabla). The car you see is the same car used in the second level. It's literally the same model (you can see the same shooting pattern on both cars), with just added in model. The car, which is used is not even yours. It's just some random car you can steal and that's about it. I think the corpse in the car is just some random guy, a """casualty of war"""" to say. Random bystander in the wrong time and wrong place, I guess...? Their world is filled with unnecessary and pointless death (along with "un-death"). It's like in other games, especially FPS or war FPS shooters, where they show you "desolated place" along with some burning objects to convey a certain feeling.
@@Sourusophyexe the car is yours. you find it in your garage in the 'home' level. could've been that he stole it originally, but the car is 100% owned by the MC.
@@Sourusophyexe No the car guy is definitely the protagonist, its his car, he has pink hair, and his skin is also black (but hard to figure out because his skin is bloody). It's the aftermath of earning his death after the final ending in Trauma Loop. He worked his way in his empty life hoping financial freedom would give meaning to his life (ending 1), eventually he took the position of CEO yet only thing he got was the wall of deadend of his life (ending 2), he then retired but that obviously didn't fill his void, so he eventually decided to end it, which wasn't pleasant considering how it was depicted in Trauma Loop, but so was continuing his empty life (ending 3).
Cruelty squad feels like the opposite of Hylics, this sharp political world, but they have similar themes and moments at times, due to both being partially inspired by gnosticism
Don't you mean sharp "polygonal" world? But I do agree with what you mean. The biggest difference between the two is that when you tear away all the long words and absurdities, the world of Hylics actually isn't that bad to live in.
@@alfalldoot6715 It can also be argued that in both worlds you play as a agent of death of sorts, using slain foes to advance themselves, to in the end bring change. The moon rises and waynes.
The First Ending is the worst: No death anymore so now you are trapped in a still meaningless life that has no end point. Just miserable marching into infinity. Second Ending: ??? Third Ending: The Onion Peeling is a metaphor for your unraveling of the world itself, the ending of it so that balance can once again be restored, to start again some day but at least freeing ALL from the agony of a life where death had no value due to life being able to be restored with a payment not at all dissimilar to a phone bill payment.
i see the first ending as removing death from the world and nothing else, doing what you did, the second ending is when you attain the power the cruelty squad ceo once had, and you learn that no matter how high you are on the ladder, there is infinite suffering in store for you, realizing what you did
First ending: Protagonist feels fulfilled and happy in his new job, however things are still terrible Second ending: Protagonist ditches his job and becomes a stock market trader, finding new meaning Third ending: Protagonist snaps and goes on a murderous rampage
Am I losing my mind or when you beat the game the first time don’t you have that like red and pink skin? Then after you get the life ending you get the life suit skin? I’m just wondering if the game just automatically switches your skin after the second ending. Because I remember when I first beat it I had that pink and red suit but when I went back after getting the other 2 endings my skin was that blue and green suit.
Basically you start off with the pink and red suit and after the second ending you get the green and blue one. And once you get the green the blue suit then it replaces your original one in every other ending.
Для русских людей напишу. (For russians) 1-ая концовка, самая плохая Мы убиваем смерть. Вроде неплохо да? На самом деле нет, теперь мы в окружении своих друзей которые улыбаются нам и машут своей рукой Теперь мы должны терпеть боль и страдания вечно, ведь умереть нельзя.... 2-ая концовка Жизнь приахуела от нашей силы и сама слилась 3-ая концовка Мы убили страдание 9вроде так) и теперь мы стали ебанным полубогом, создав золотой век, и искоренив все плохое.
Чел тыыыыы... В первой концовке гг убивает главного гностического архонта, который смотрит чтобы человеческие души не сбежали из и тел и бессмысленных страданий. Убивая архонта гг освобождает всё человеческие души из заключения, человечество попадает в рай а гностический демург со злобой смотрит на счастье людей. Во второй концовке гг становится идеальным капиталистом который зарабатывает 300 млрд в наносекунду.
В третьей концовке гг становится бессмертным идеальным плотским Богом, который сначала становится идеалом для всей жизни на Земле, а через тысячи и миллиарды лет, видя что вселенная изнывает в агонии, гг уничтожает всю жизнь, и так начинается золотой век(намёк на то что человек может испортить всё, и что единственная его цель - перестать существовать)
To put it (my own bullshit interpetation) as simply as possible, Life and Death in Cruelty Squad have no meaning when human life can be reformed cheaply and easily. And with technology advanced in unthinkable and disgusting ways without the moral concern of killing, profit motive is the only thing left, reducing human beings to disposable assets. All deaths and repeats of levels are canon because of this permanent state of undeath. The "Divine Light" that is given to the player is the favor of corporate overlords, who have replaced God, and repeated deaths further sever the player's standing with these new gods. And only when the player has had their Hope Eradicated can they receive the blessing of true Death itself, reintroducing it into the world and ending the nightmare and bring about a new Golden Age. Also Stonks :^)
cruelty squad in general is the depiction of a cyberpunk landscape where death and the cost of human lives means nothing because even the cheapest of people can regenerate. Naturally if the cost of humanity means nothing, life stagnates forever and businessmen desperately try to cling to increasingly insane heights to try to preserve status. Explains all the wacky architecture and overall terrible waste of resources everywhere. Cruelty Squad takes it even further past simple stagnation; life has literally mutated to cancerous tumours and zombies because humanity has lived for so much longer than they wanted to. The Cruelty Squad themselves only exist to mildly inconvenience the targets by killing them over and over. The Protagonist never really speaks but he does have dreams of a better life as shown by the early access trailer. By finishing Archon Grid he supposedly keeps going by learning to forgive himself but not really doing anything to change the system. In LIFE he becomes a major businessman since the easiest way to beat it is using the transactional rifle that scales with his stocks. He has risen to power in a world where power is meaningless. In the Trauma Loop ending he has abandoned hope for the system and finds the Cradle of Life, supposedly the essence of life that has been kept stagnant ever since death was meaningless and proceeds to wipe it out, causing a universal reset. Ultimately it’s a simple theme that life must have meaning if anything of significance is to happen, and the disasterous consequences of a meaningless society is reflected in the hellscape that is the world of cruelty squad.
I understand that the last text says that the world is doomed because excess energy (Wealth) without knowing where to go and not being used to better the system means that this system (human society/Life/Earth) will end catastrophically. Meaning that the world is going to end and people will suffer. From everything before I get the idea of humanity is fucked because of trauma. We try to heal trauma with wealth and greed so we fuck up the world even more and hurt other humans in the process which creates more trauma. The protagonist seems to transcend all this because he embraces death transcending human nature and not caring about anything. So he either transcends or kills himself. But before that he had to become the wealthiest being ever. That's my interpretation of it.
@Static Data your first paragraph just made me realise why death is necessary, if you were immortal or infinite, you would eventually be every one and everything and therefore no one person or thing, I can only point to you as an entity, because you have a beginning middle and end, if you had no end or beginning I would have nothing to point at, or I could point at anything and say it's you and that would be true, probabky why God is such a nebulous idea to people, and how Christianity can he characterised as Ned Flanders, but also the Spanish inquisition, neither of those is true
First ending you become immortal, but life sucks because living forever is boring Second ending you become the same CEOs you kill for a paycheck. Still pretty shitty Third ending you end global immortality because living forever is boring. Saving the world or something
In a world where nobody can die death has become irrelevant. In cruelty squad, death has become a joke. Resurrection technology is available to literally everybody there for giving no meaning to life OR death. Immortality rains, and through that immortality; Beauty became skewed. The things that would normally be beautiful to us regular humans, became ugly and disgusting. The "humans" in cruelty squad could only derive pleasure from what we would see as utterly repulsive. After the cycle continuing for long enough the " cradle of life" (god of this world) generally stopped caring about anything in general; as it had nothing to do. A constant, infinite, unending loop of boredom. That's why it allowed the world that you see in cruelty squad in such a pitiful state of limbo. It is a distorted shadow of what we would view as a Utopia. It is a Utopia that is so long gone it has become its own dystopia. If you live long enough, eventually you will live to see yourself become the villan. At the end I believe the protagonist strips the world down to its bare minimum and allows it to begin again, as this constant cycle of life without death is traumatizing to society as a whole; in general causes nothing but chaos, as the goal is to accumulate enough wealth to not be "liquidated" (assasinated). The only way for anything to have meaning is to start over, hence why everyone was marching toward a giant "death" healthbar. They had lived so long that they longed for the chance to die. You (the protaganist) become the grim reaper and the god. There was only ever one choice. Tl;dr: Cruelty squad is a perfect depiction of a Utopia turned distopia through neglegence and greed. The protaganist kills everyone to start again. He destroys this world because it is the only logical choice. The third ending is the true (cannon) ending. Hope you enjoyed the read! Just woke up from my depression nap. CEO mindset.
As someone who always wanted to join the military/PD/FD and is a law student, I find it saddening how the game developers choose to only focus on what is wrong with the world, (i.e., income inequality, kleptocracy in some countries like Russia, etc.) Of course there are wrong things and unless we improve somehow to that specific point, there will always be something wrong with this world. Businessmen aren't usually greedy. Yes capitalists are concerned with maximizing profits, BUT usually at least in theory it's for the benefit of the world and society. 85% of the world lives in poverty, and I don't know if Westerners understand this simple fact, but profit isn't always a bad thing. Yes taken to an extreme, anything is bad, even oxygen and water. Today the poverty line is below 30USD per day in some developed countries - hopefully it'll be 60USD in the near future, then 90USD and so on - an always rising standard of living for everyone, a world with *little or no* disease, poverty, inequality or the like should be our ideal. The world is what we make it, at least to an extent. At least in my opinion we should try to be proactive, and do our part to make the world a better place in our personal and professional capacity. I'd be a proud police officer (SWAT-equivalent of my country) and would love every day of my job - at least I think - because I can make the world a better place by checking on things like human trafficking, corruption and the like.
businessmen aren't usually greedy, but the game is saying that most successful ones have to be. in my opinion, the first ending shows someone who can't achieve happiness; they have all their friends and "good" values but in reality they feel like a failure while all of the less honourable profit. the second one is someone who embraces the capitalist system, and while they are all powerful, they destroyed everything around them to get there, which was actually to the detriment of society. sure, maybe you personally just want to make the world a better place. but that puts you in the first category. won't you ever feel injustice? how about the way veterans are treated in north america? the game is saying it's impossible to suit both society and the individual unless something about capitalism changes altogether. in fact in the third ending he doesn't just change capitalism, he *destroys* it. that's why the developer doesn't even have anything positive to say, except in the third ending.
I could go on for paragraphs, but I'll say this... I get it... You did not need to make peoples eyes bleed for (play time) hours to say this message though.
@@EnderQuartzMC No, not really... Corporations bad, greedy, sucking all our resources and willing to sacrifice way too much for short term gain, and our countries are lead by these morons.. Also mediocrity is more often than not rewarded over honest, good work. So haul yourself over to r/14AndDeep... This is what happens when you make assumptions.
i really enjoy the aesthetic of cruelty squad the chaos puts my brain at ease. Cute cartoony games like animal crossing or breath of the wild look good but lack the satisfying brutal edge this game has but thats just me.
These aren't spoilers given that this game never has any context anyways. And I'm no lore analyst, so if anything, I understand the game less after this.
"MAJOR SPOILERS"
good thing i have absolutely no idea what the hell i am looking at
Hillarious how in the first ending the protagonist just walks and casually obliterates some random just passing nearby
it's the survival of the fittest ending as opposed to the meek shall inherit the earth.
I had a thought the other day, we say survival of the fittest holds true but if you leave two rabbits in a field a year later you will have 2000 rabbits due to thier reproduction rate, they breed like rabbits, predators need a huge area such as wolves for a single pack but do they own it, they have to battle other packs and starvation, rabbits are meek yet they produce at such a rate they overtake anything, so which is true, it seems the meek shall inherit the earth holds true and survival of the fittest is false
@@yaroslav7458 but if there is competition you can raise your station in the world at others expense, I believe that is something you can do in game no?
@@yaroslav7458 I was more making the point that the first endings philosophy matches survival of the fittest ethos, and that the endings of this game are more about our world than the game world, as that's at least to my understanding the point of stories, and the stories exist in our world even if the events and characters aren't "real" they do in fact exist
During that ending the protaganist said they feel like they are wasting their time. When they shot the random person it is a metaphor for how much time they really wasted. Some random human being who probably didn't deserve it just getting shot in the face is a metaphor for the poor protaganists entire life from here on out. An endless cycle of mindlessly killing people. Ending one is the worst/bad ending because nothing changed and everything you did was for naught; so might as well take your anger out on some random passer by.
I think that kind of thing is intentional cause it seems to happen in everyone's ending at some point. Personally it reinforces the idea that yes, you got the "good" ending. You're happy and the skies are blue and everything is great. But nothing actually changed. You're still killing people, none of it matters, some guy gets in your way, blow them apart because it's all meaningless anyway. The final ending is completely scripted, nobody can die in that cutscene because finally death is real. The world has meaning again.
In each ending the protagonist meets one of the Triagons.
First Ending: MC Kills Death and the world becomes and endless prison where no one can ever die.
Second Ending: MC Meets Life and receives almost godly powers as a gift for being so powerful.
Third Ending: MC Kills Malice, becomes some kind of a Triagon himself and resets the world, starting a new golden age where human life can have a price once again.
so, the third ending is a good ending?
@@left2841 Kind of, the cyberpunk hell with no price for life is gone and the new world has the same laws as our real one.
@@sasguy228who is malice?
@@V0IDWARE The third triagon, basically an embodiment of the whole evil and disgust this game was made with
@@sasguy228 wasnt the third triagon about money?
*THE SUN SMILES AT YOU WITH ETERNAL MALICE.*
Cruelty Squad occupies an enormous portion of my mind, at almost all times.
and i almost never hear anything about it online
it's just like the gorbino's quest. This is the gorbino's quest of life
Gorbilliomaire mindset
See a therapist.
Lmao. I think most CEOs do see therapists 😅
I have Cruelty Squad in my Steam library and I have never felt so intimidated to play a game in my life.
If only Shinji had played this game, he would have get in the robot on his own.
I don't get it.
Ok I understand accelerationism now.
I’ve never touched Cruelty Squad, and the weirdness is definitely evident in every aspect of the game. But one thing I don’t see talked about much is the genius of the writing. There’s genuinely some horrific and deep stuff to think about with each of these endings, and I can’t wait to officially try out the game for myself sometime
its crazy to think one guy made the whole game, Ville is incredibly talented in many disciplines
I honestly really like the usage of the OPL soundchip in the soundtrack. It’s such a homage to late 90s video games that use this soundchip, especially those for PC, such as MS-DOS.
Well thats rather... strange xD
Soooo, is the menu screen's car occupant the protagonist, after suicide? Or is that some guy that the protagonist killed, I wonder as its the same car we use in the second level.
The protagonist is black. I know it's hard to tell, because it's very low on polygons, but the body here is shaded like a Caucasian with a sunburn (so it doesn't look like him). Also the dead body doesn't have his shades (glasses) and it doesn't look like a suicide.
Moreover, at this point it seems like the protagonist is immortal or close to it, with all the weird modifications he's gone through (besides his motives blablabla).
The car you see is the same car used in the second level. It's literally the same model (you can see the same shooting pattern on both cars), with just added in model. The car, which is used is not even yours. It's just some random car you can steal and that's about it.
I think the corpse in the car is just some random guy, a """casualty of war"""" to say. Random bystander in the wrong time and wrong place, I guess...? Their world is filled with unnecessary and pointless death (along with "un-death"). It's like in other games, especially FPS or war FPS shooters, where they show you "desolated place" along with some burning objects to convey a certain feeling.
@@Sourusophyexe the car is yours. you find it in your garage in the 'home' level. could've been that he stole it originally, but the car is 100% owned by the MC.
@@Sourusophyexe No the car guy is definitely the protagonist, its his car, he has pink hair, and his skin is also black (but hard to figure out because his skin is bloody). It's the aftermath of earning his death after the final ending in Trauma Loop. He worked his way in his empty life hoping financial freedom would give meaning to his life (ending 1), eventually he took the position of CEO yet only thing he got was the wall of deadend of his life (ending 2), he then retired but that obviously didn't fill his void, so he eventually decided to end it, which wasn't pleasant considering how it was depicted in Trauma Loop, but so was continuing his empty life (ending 3).
Read your bible! (KJV, preferably) ♥
@@abel6298this game is about corporate dystopia the bible would NOT work there
Cruelty squad feels like the opposite of Hylics, this sharp political world, but they have similar themes and moments at times, due to both being partially inspired by gnosticism
Don't you mean sharp "polygonal" world? But I do agree with what you mean. The biggest difference between the two is that when you tear away all the long words and absurdities, the world of Hylics actually isn't that bad to live in.
@@alfalldoot6715 It can also be argued that in both worlds you play as a agent of death of sorts, using slain foes to advance themselves, to in the end bring change. The moon rises and waynes.
100 hours in, and still finding new shit
3 triagons 3 engins
Malice Death and Life.
The First Ending is the worst: No death anymore so now you are trapped in a still meaningless life that has no end point. Just miserable marching into infinity.
Second Ending: ???
Third Ending: The Onion Peeling is a metaphor for your unraveling of the world itself, the ending of it so that balance can once again be restored, to start again some day but at least freeing ALL from the agony of a life where death had no value due to life being able to be restored with a payment not at all dissimilar to a phone bill payment.
The second ending is CEO/LIFE ending you become john cruelty istead of working for him
i see the first ending as removing death from the world and nothing else, doing what you did, the second ending is when you attain the power the cruelty squad ceo once had, and you learn that no matter how high you are on the ladder, there is infinite suffering in store for you, realizing what you did
I don't think this video title should day major spoilers. That would imply I did not just watch a disjointed, cocaine fueled fever dream.
The endings are killing death and making reality a stagnant prison, killing life and resetting the balance of the universe, and CEO grindset.
Teeth, with teeth, with teeth. Take a bite.
First ending: Protagonist feels fulfilled and happy in his new job, however things are still terrible
Second ending: Protagonist ditches his job and becomes a stock market trader, finding new meaning
Third ending: Protagonist snaps and goes on a murderous rampage
bad analysis
@toetruck1589 ong
my old account got deleted but im back to tell you that your take is still one of the worst things ive ever seen
Am I losing my mind or when you beat the game the first time don’t you have that like red and pink skin? Then after you get the life ending you get the life suit skin? I’m just wondering if the game just automatically switches your skin after the second ending. Because I remember when I first beat it I had that pink and red suit but when I went back after getting the other 2 endings my skin was that blue and green suit.
I was wondering the same thing. Maybe you get the green and blue skin after the death procedure..?
Basically you start off with the pink and red suit and after the second ending you get the green and blue one. And once you get the green the blue suit then it replaces your original one in every other ending.
This is like if Blacktown was a hyper capitalist corpotocracy instead of an anarchy
Ohhhh I get it
I don't get it.
@@JonJohJamesonskill issue
I am so sad the singing from Max0r's Video isn't actually in the game
Tell me someone made a mod of that already
Anyone got an idea what the image at 9:30 is supposed to represent?
I always thought it was a neuron
@@sympleton7439 Thank you for your thoughts. You seem to be the only one that has any. :)
how do you get that rifle? i know the damage scales with your stock market money or something and that its in HQ but i cant find it
Just a little hint its off to the right before big bad
Also to max out its dmg, you'll need $1mil invested in stocks
I feel like I remember you from the comment sections of alot of LeatherIceCream videos. Don’t know why I’m saying this
@@scout3752 yep
@@cthulhubot0077 thanks
Для русских людей напишу. (For russians)
1-ая концовка, самая плохая
Мы убиваем смерть. Вроде неплохо да?
На самом деле нет, теперь мы в окружении своих друзей которые улыбаются нам и машут своей рукой
Теперь мы должны терпеть боль и страдания вечно, ведь умереть нельзя....
2-ая концовка
Жизнь приахуела от нашей силы и сама слилась
3-ая концовка
Мы убили страдание 9вроде так) и теперь мы стали ебанным полубогом, создав золотой век, и искоренив все плохое.
Чел тыыыыы...
В первой концовке гг убивает главного гностического архонта, который смотрит чтобы человеческие души не сбежали из и тел и бессмысленных страданий. Убивая архонта гг освобождает всё человеческие души из заключения, человечество попадает в рай а гностический демург со злобой смотрит на счастье людей.
Во второй концовке гг становится идеальным капиталистом который зарабатывает 300 млрд в наносекунду.
В третьей концовке гг становится бессмертным идеальным плотским Богом, который сначала становится идеалом для всей жизни на Земле, а через тысячи и миллиарды лет, видя что вселенная изнывает в агонии, гг уничтожает всю жизнь, и так начинается золотой век(намёк на то что человек может испортить всё, и что единственная его цель - перестать существовать)
No soy rusa pero lo he leido jodete amigo
lol wtf why is google translate so good at russian?
@@TheHippyProductions rhey arw communist !!!
What. The. Fuck. Did u just watch
The sun smiles at you with eternal malice
give yourself another medal you just became deepfried and based
You are a high net worth individual, an expanding vortex of pathetic trauma.
You're telling me that the first 2 endings aren't sung by some weird ass AI mocking you?
how do you make your character transparent?
You need to become „shitmen” trough stealth suit
There is a stealth suit you can get in the store
Where did you get that laser gun in the second ending? I cant beat the boss cause no weapons seem to hurt him.
You have some options:
Invest on the ZKZ rifle on the stock market to make more damage with that weapon
Sleep him with the tranquilicer gun and kill him with the Bolt ACR
Or quit him his gun with the rod fishing and kill him with the Bolt ACR
I'm still learning english.
Rate My traduction
I still have no idea what cruelty squad is, there is probably a message somewhere in there, but I do not see it.
To put it (my own bullshit interpetation) as simply as possible, Life and Death in Cruelty Squad have no meaning when human life can be reformed cheaply and easily. And with technology advanced in unthinkable and disgusting ways without the moral concern of killing, profit motive is the only thing left, reducing human beings to disposable assets. All deaths and repeats of levels are canon because of this permanent state of undeath. The "Divine Light" that is given to the player is the favor of corporate overlords, who have replaced God, and repeated deaths further sever the player's standing with these new gods. And only when the player has had their Hope Eradicated can they receive the blessing of true Death itself, reintroducing it into the world and ending the nightmare and bring about a new Golden Age. Also Stonks :^)
cruelty squad in general is the depiction of a cyberpunk landscape where death and the cost of human lives means nothing because even the cheapest of people can regenerate. Naturally if the cost of humanity means nothing, life stagnates forever and businessmen desperately try to cling to increasingly insane heights to try to preserve status. Explains all the wacky architecture and overall terrible waste of resources everywhere. Cruelty Squad takes it even further past simple stagnation; life has literally mutated to cancerous tumours and zombies because humanity has lived for so much longer than they wanted to. The Cruelty Squad themselves only exist to mildly inconvenience the targets by killing them over and over. The Protagonist never really speaks but he does have dreams of a better life as shown by the early access trailer. By finishing Archon Grid he supposedly keeps going by learning to forgive himself but not really doing anything to change the system. In LIFE he becomes a major businessman since the easiest way to beat it is using the transactional rifle that scales with his stocks. He has risen to power in a world where power is meaningless. In the Trauma Loop ending he has abandoned hope for the system and finds the Cradle of Life, supposedly the essence of life that has been kept stagnant ever since death was meaningless and proceeds to wipe it out, causing a universal reset. Ultimately it’s a simple theme that life must have meaning if anything of significance is to happen, and the disasterous consequences of a meaningless society is reflected in the hellscape that is the world of cruelty squad.
^Thank you guys sm for explaining^
life no worth, rich man bad
What the fuck
Crazy God damn game
can anybody make sense from that ?
I understand that the last text says that the world is doomed because excess energy (Wealth) without knowing where to go and not being used to better the system means that this system (human society/Life/Earth) will end catastrophically. Meaning that the world is going to end and people will suffer.
From everything before I get the idea of humanity is fucked because of trauma. We try to heal trauma with wealth and greed so we fuck up the world even more and hurt other humans in the process which creates more trauma. The protagonist seems to transcend all this because he embraces death transcending human nature and not caring about anything. So he either transcends or kills himself. But before that he had to become the wealthiest being ever.
That's my interpretation of it.
@@SuperHperTube ok thank you for that
@Static Data your first paragraph just made me realise why death is necessary, if you were immortal or infinite, you would eventually be every one and everything and therefore no one person or thing, I can only point to you as an entity, because you have a beginning middle and end, if you had no end or beginning I would have nothing to point at, or I could point at anything and say it's you and that would be true, probabky why God is such a nebulous idea to people, and how Christianity can he characterised as Ned Flanders, but also the Spanish inquisition, neither of those is true
First ending you become immortal, but life sucks because living forever is boring
Second ending you become the same CEOs you kill for a paycheck. Still pretty shitty
Third ending you end global immortality because living forever is boring. Saving the world or something
In a world where nobody can die death has become irrelevant. In cruelty squad, death has become a joke. Resurrection technology is available to literally everybody there for giving no meaning to life OR death. Immortality rains, and through that immortality; Beauty became skewed. The things that would normally be beautiful to us regular humans, became ugly and disgusting. The "humans" in cruelty squad could only derive pleasure from what we would see as utterly repulsive. After the cycle continuing for long enough the " cradle of life" (god of this world) generally stopped caring about anything in general; as it had nothing to do. A constant, infinite, unending loop of boredom. That's why it allowed the world that you see in cruelty squad in such a pitiful state of limbo. It is a distorted shadow of what we would view as a Utopia. It is a Utopia that is so long gone it has become its own dystopia. If you live long enough, eventually you will live to see yourself become the villan. At the end I believe the protagonist strips the world down to its bare minimum and allows it to begin again, as this constant cycle of life without death is traumatizing to society as a whole; in general causes nothing but chaos, as the goal is to accumulate enough wealth to not be "liquidated" (assasinated). The only way for anything to have meaning is to start over, hence why everyone was marching toward a giant "death" healthbar. They had lived so long that they longed for the chance to die. You (the protaganist) become the grim reaper and the god. There was only ever one choice.
Tl;dr: Cruelty squad is a perfect depiction of a Utopia turned distopia through neglegence and greed. The protaganist kills everyone to start again. He destroys this world because it is the only logical choice. The third ending is the true (cannon) ending. Hope you enjoyed the read!
Just woke up from my depression nap. CEO mindset.
As someone who always wanted to join the military/PD/FD and is a law student, I find it saddening how the game developers choose to only focus on what is wrong with the world, (i.e., income inequality, kleptocracy in some countries like Russia, etc.) Of course there are wrong things and unless we improve somehow to that specific point, there will always be something wrong with this world.
Businessmen aren't usually greedy. Yes capitalists are concerned with maximizing profits, BUT usually at least in theory it's for the benefit of the world and society. 85% of the world lives in poverty, and I don't know if Westerners understand this simple fact, but profit isn't always a bad thing. Yes taken to an extreme, anything is bad, even oxygen and water. Today the poverty line is below 30USD per day in some developed countries - hopefully it'll be 60USD in the near future, then 90USD and so on - an always rising standard of living for everyone, a world with *little or no* disease, poverty, inequality or the like should be our ideal.
The world is what we make it, at least to an extent. At least in my opinion we should try to be proactive, and do our part to make the world a better place in our personal and professional capacity. I'd be a proud police officer (SWAT-equivalent of my country) and would love every day of my job - at least I think - because I can make the world a better place by checking on things like human trafficking, corruption and the like.
I respect you, at least someone is thinking positive.
businessmen aren't usually greedy, but the game is saying that most successful ones have to be.
in my opinion, the first ending shows someone who can't achieve happiness; they have all their friends and "good" values but in reality they feel like a failure while all of the less honourable profit. the second one is someone who embraces the capitalist system, and while they are all powerful, they destroyed everything around them to get there, which was actually to the detriment of society.
sure, maybe you personally just want to make the world a better place. but that puts you in the first category. won't you ever feel injustice? how about the way veterans are treated in north america? the game is saying it's impossible to suit both society and the individual unless something about capitalism changes altogether. in fact in the third ending he doesn't just change capitalism, he *destroys* it. that's why the developer doesn't even have anything positive to say, except in the third ending.
this dude is fully programmed holy shit
its undeniable that our current systems are letting the greedy win and drive us further to the world we see in the game
CEO mindset. You have the soul of an emperor.
I could go on for paragraphs, but I'll say this...
I get it... You did not need to make peoples eyes bleed for (play time) hours to say this message though.
I mean... The wheel also technically didn't need to be invented.
whoosh
@@EnderQuartzMC No, not really... Corporations bad, greedy, sucking all our resources and willing to sacrifice way too much for short term gain, and our countries are lead by these morons.. Also mediocrity is more often than not rewarded over honest, good work.
So haul yourself over to r/14AndDeep...
This is what happens when you make assumptions.
Not CEOpilled
i really enjoy the aesthetic of cruelty squad the chaos puts my brain at ease. Cute cartoony games like animal crossing or breath of the wild look good but lack the satisfying brutal edge this game has but thats just me.
what
Have you played The Indigo Parallel? You should try it
So are there 2 endings? I am a bit confused
3
3, first is the one walking the sunny path, the second is the standing in front of the face, third is walking in a wasteland with crazy text
These aren't spoilers given that this game never has any context anyways. And I'm no lore analyst, so if anything, I understand the game less after this.
hmm
got u thinkin'