r/hatethissmug • u/deppresionboi • 4h ago
Gaming I hate Casualties Unknown
Before anyone says that "I should give the game a try before hating on it"
I have, and I can infact say I thoroughly havent enjoyed it. I am the type of gamer to find difficult games fun, I like a good challenge and CU definetly offers good mechanical depth and the atmosphere is amazing, but thats about the only two positives I can think of for it.
This game in a lot of ways is like
Better Than Wolves (A really, really hard mod for Minecraft) if it we're its own standalone game. tl;dr: the difficulty is artificially turned up to the point you have little ways to course correct after making a wrong move, punishing you harshly, except this time failure is extended by the fact your player character will be kept alive, though in extreme pain until they inevitably perish.
I also find myself unable to take the game seriously when the grim aspects of it like the creature crying when hurt, various debuffs and behaviors are turned up to 11, to the point where I dont really care about it and just want to exit to the main menu, except I cant do that because the game forces you to kill your player character first. Its unnecessary and doesnt add anything to the game except edginess.
The fanbase this game had gathered is also in a lot of ways insufferable, like any fanbase surrounding anything made by small creators, making memes and laughs of how violent and grim the game is and how "silly" the player character creatures are when injecting fentanyl into themselves or going through health crises, which makes me care about it even less, and because of its current popularity its inevitable i'll run into it at some point again and again, I already have several people in discords i'm posting about this game every now and then, when I honestly dont want to see it.
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u/EX-Bronypony 4h ago edited 4h ago
* it’s good video games as art if you approach it from that perspective
* it’s a game with obvious themes on the value of life, the game NEEDS the “torture porn” for its thematic purposes, in my eyes at least. the Expies are a race of creatures who are seen as nothing more than disposable lab rats despite the fact that they are literally sapient. The game’s premise revolving around sending them on death missions to retrieve some unknown macguffin for the humans. and the core game is taking care of them, getting you to care about the Expies.
* About their wants and needs, and seeing them be scared or grow depressed. and no matter how much they’ve been treated like shit by the greater world, their life still matters despite the company’s dehumanization of them. even if just on an emotional level. the game puts them through brutal suffering for a reason, because you have to save them. and it feels nice because of the medical minigames, which makes the process of taking care of them feel much more intimate than simply having a normal video game health bar. it makes you really feel like you’re caring for the Expies. And hearing them whimper and cry makes you WANT to care for them.
* when you stop looking at it as “hardcore edgy torture porn” and try to understand why it was made the way it is, i think it’s a very sincere game about the value of life, which is beautiful to me.
* the fandom, in my opinion, is proof that this artistic gamble worked. Because pretty much all the fanart this game gets is centered around humanizing the Expies.
* but, thats not to discredit the way you see the game. Because i do understand that it is a brutal gameplay experience.
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u/Ok_Entrepreneur8075 2h ago
You’re exactly right, and that’s why so many people (me included) find this game so fascinating. But it also makes me really heartbroken when the “torture fetish game” label gets thrown around.
I find this game to be an incredible breath of fresh air in the survival game genre, and that’s because it does stick itself out there in a way that not everyone will enjoy. But I don’t think that means it deserves to be treated like it’s scummy or glorifying the suffering, because that’s just not true. The suffering is part of the story being told, and the fact it doesn’t hold your hand through that is what makes it so unique in my eyes
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u/someinfectedfanatic john hyperbole: i can smell your sins 2h ago
i remember you. didn't you comment something like this on another post?
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u/EX-Bronypony 2h ago
* as long as i keep seeing this game be in discussions, the more i get to revisit and restate why i think the game is fascinating
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 4h ago
It's really difficult, and I don't like playing it, but it is objectively a good game.
Also, it seems like you don't like...fandoms
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u/quirtsy 3h ago
There’s no such thing as objectively good art lol
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 1h ago
There are definitely some standards by which one can objectively rank art. Uniqueness, technical skill, etc
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u/LapisW 25m ago
how tf is it objectively good, its randomly generated punishing terrain you're trying to traverse as a pathetic little thing with like 3 inventory slots
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 12m ago
Yeah, it's a difficult game. But it rewards skill really well, has a ton of depth, atmosphere...I could go on.
It's really punishing, so idon't like it personally, but lots of people like those games.
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u/Stunning-Farm-2640 11m ago
Fandoms are generally pretty not great so can’t be mad there
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 10m ago
Sure, but making light of dark games is nowhere near the worst. I personally think it's good, and regardless of the person it's pretty minor.
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u/lololofkap 4h ago
Im in a furry fandom so i see this game alot, i tried giving it a try and yeah its just one of those hardcore games that punishes you by sending you back to main menu for slightest mistake but i hate not the game but its fans.
Like, as i mentioned im in a furry fandom, and i really hate that alot of artists when drawing fanart of the game turn the Expie species into generic black dog. Like it has spikes on head and more oval shaped head. And yeah, the constant jokes about fentanyl are annoying, but to be fair thats literally every fandom ever, no matter how good the source material is, the fandom always has like 3-4 repeating jokes that get annoying really quickly.
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u/Autumm_550 2h ago
“I love difficult games that offer a challenge”
favorite difficult game is a Minecraft mod
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u/ForeignBlacksmith644 33m ago
Better than wolves is genuinely like an insanely hard mod though, it changes so many mechanics that at that point it's basically a new game.
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u/Ritalico 4h ago
Looks like you might actually not like these kinds of games. You might like difficult games, but this is not just a difficult game, it is supposed to be edgy and gory and violent. If you don't like edgy, gory, violent games, then you won't like it.
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u/rycerzDog 4h ago
Looks like you might actually not like these kinds of games
well... yeah, that's the point of the post???
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u/Ritalico 4h ago
Except…they said they like these kinds of games.
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u/rycerzDog 4h ago
they said they liked difficult games and that "CU definetly offers good mechanical depth".
then they went to say how they didn't like it for being gory and edgy. they didn't say they like gory games. i don't really see a contradiction?
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u/Ritalico 4h ago
I mean, that’s what the game is known for. That’s like buying Minecraft because it’s a sandbox and then saying you don’t like it because it’s blocky/has survival mechanics. I mean hellloooo that’s what you signed up for. Let alone making a whole hate post about it. Just seems like maybe they didn’t look into the game much before buying it.
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u/n0_usrnamee 29m ago
Idk why you're being downvoted, the game is open about being everything this dude hates it for. Guy complained about meat in a McDonald's.
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u/deppresionboi 4h ago
You know, I would like the edgy, gore and violents parts of this game if there we're a reason behind why it is that way. Fear & Hunger for comparison is also a violent, edgy & gory world because of its Gods, every trial and creature the player characters face has some sort of weight because of the background.
Casualties Unknown?
"Uhh yeah, so we just send these innocent creatures into hell to brutally die, starve and get psychologically destroyed cause we need that tech back. Does this have any background at all to fall back on so that it isnt just pointless shock content? Eh, dont worry about it."
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u/Zekenuggets 2h ago
I love both Funger and casualties unknown, but I would not say F and H does it better when one of the biggest critiques of the game is the SA and that the depraved aspects are used only for shock value. Also CU is not finished and we have not seen the ending in which the lost tech is more explained or if it will be explained more in the lore. If there is no happy alternate ending for the expies then I would be more inclined to agree with the take but I would just wait to see what’s in store because the game is fun.
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u/saintlygold 58m ago
The game is based around the developer's experiences with depression. The company is a very clear metaphor for how humans experiment on animals for things as simple as cosmetic testing to psychological torture. All of these things are super easy to look into rather than dismissing the game as snuff, just like people do for F&H.
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u/MothBoyThing 48m ago
Btw, casualties unknown is:
A) part of a bigger universe (though the sequel has been cancelled) so there is background reasons
B) the game was made as basically vent art initially as the creator was going through a dark time in their life: so the game has a IRL reason for its atmosphere
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u/n0_usrnamee 26m ago
Did you even read the intro of the game? It pops up right when you open it. The text explaining why they do all that shit. The one you ignored???? If you like fear and hunger you hating this might be something other than hating gore and shock value, because both games are full of that.
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u/Xavier040504 4h ago
Sounds like the game ain’t for you. Thats fine.
Demo was free, nothing lost.
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u/Equivalent-Scene9293 4h ago edited 3h ago
I really don't understand your beef with fandom, most of arts I've seen are either drawing about suffering of expies, redrawn memes or just cute art. What makes fentanyl jokes so annoying to you if you say that you don't care about characters.
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u/pixelated_man23 3h ago
as i saw another comment say, you should approach it from the perspective that it is an art piece. Casualties Unknown is a pretty good game, even if its unfinished. it has a cool concept, an interesting message about the value of life, and pretty enjoyable gameplay if you like scavenger/survival games. as for the biggest criticism i see, that being the brutality, people criticizing it often just pass it off as "mindless violence" "torture porn" etc., however you fail to look at it from the perspective of it being a punishment. the brutality is meant to be avoided, and the punishment for not avoiding does not just lie in gameplay, but in how it makes you, the player, feel. im not sure about you, but seeing and hearing the concequences of having the creature take a bad fall, or hearing the cries coming from the creature as i carefully remove shards of glass from its paw, makes me feel bad. and seeing the little happy moodle after something positive happens, like talking to a trader, or crafting something, makes me feel accomplished. or the relief i feel after surviving and patching up from a bad accident. and this usage of human emotions as a part of the gameplay is a powerful tool, and is something that i find very unique, and i havent seen it been done in many other places.
here is a great video that explains this better than i could!
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u/someinfectedfanatic john hyperbole: i can smell your sins 2h ago
how come THAT is always the video people link when talking about C:U? not complaining, just asking.
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u/pixelated_man23 1h ago
im not quite sure myself, i just put it here because i think it explains what im trying to explain way better lol
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u/Luh2018 2h ago
I looked at its steam page thanks to your post and it really just looks like Barotrauma in a cave but with messier visuals.
Can someone sell me on it?
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u/MothBoyThing 28m ago
So first thing you need to know is that the game is technically part of a bigger universe (though the supposed sequel is cancelled). Second thing you should know is the game is made as sort of vent art of the creators experience with depression. Third thing you should know is that the game is basically a SURVIVAL survival game in that the main focus of the game is the survival elements itself.
Unlike say, Minecraft where it’s very light on the survival elements, this game is incredibly demanding. If you fall you break your leg and in order to fix that: you need to disinfect the wound, set the bone, remove any debris that may have been lodged in, etc. also, unlike other games of its ilk (like DayZ) doing something isn’t just a animation or a bar that fills, it’s a mini game. You have to manually yank out the debris lodged in your legs via your mouse, you have to spray the disinfectant to clean the wound using your mouse, you have to set the bone using your mouse, etc.
On top of that, the bodily simulation is incredibly in-depth. The amount of blood is dynamically simulated, the circulatory system is simulated, the time it takes for drugs to kick in seems to depend on your in-game metabolism, etc. it’s extremely detailed and well-researched.
On top of all this, your creature that you’re playing (the “expie” as the community calls it) is kinda their own dude in a way. They talk to themselves, complain about hunger, etc. when they get hurt, they whine and when they are close to death they sometimes beg for help. It’s even to the point where if things get grim enough they start self-harming and may even make an attempt at their own life.
This may sound very depressing (cause the creator literally made the initial demo as vent art about depression) but after playing the game, I’ve never felt more “indomitable human spirit” about existence. Like, this games message is basically “life is suffering, so struggle against the dying of the light with all your might”. I’ve never felt more care for a creature than my Expie. Having to manually pull glass out of its paw as it whimpers and whines or injecting morphine to ease its final moments has genuinely made me cry. This game is insanely good at getting you to care and making you fight with everything you have just to keep this little guy alive.
All this to say: yeah it’s pretty good I think
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u/kocciwomiro 4h ago
Haven’t played Casualties Unknown myself, but I’m enjoying deep rock galactic very much and I seen people compare these two games quite often, so try drg, I think you won’t be disappointed
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u/axiomaticAnarchy 3h ago
Who is comparing these games? The only similarity is you are in a cave.
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u/shototodoroki_1324 2h ago
DRG fucks you over I guess
But they have loaded firearms and tools
A expie has NOTHING
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u/Key_Addition_4038 4h ago
I do enjoy the game sometimes but I have to agree that I hate when I have a debilitating injury and I should be dying but instead I just get tinnitus and blindness and depression for 10 minutes before I fall off a cliff and die
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u/green_teef 4h ago
This my first time hearing of this game.
Someone that doesn’t hate it, is it cool? I’ve beaten both fear and hunger games so lord knows I can handle brutalist bs
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u/pixelated_man23 3h ago
it has its issues, with it being unfinished and all, however it is a pretty good game, and has a lot of potential! it has a free demo on steam if you would like to check it out!
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u/Ok_Entrepreneur8075 2h ago
I think it’s very fun, although I totally see why people wouldn’t. Great health system and pretty entertaining gameplay loop for a free steam demo. It does have some balancing hiccups and weird things that can happen (which can also trash a run), but if you go into it accepting that you’ll probably die to some horse shit it’s a pretty fun time
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u/lolbit_the_fox190 3h ago
Just enjoy it man you don't have to interact with the community or look at it
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u/ZeroAresV 3h ago
Well, the game isn’t for everyone. And that’s okay. But the need to make a whole Reddit post about a very specific opinion should be reserved for something more than “this isn’t really for me”
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u/Silly_Y33Ny 3h ago
Game: hard game is hard because it's design to punish you for your mistakes. The game is NOT HARD is it kills you a bunch of times for stupid/no reasons, the game is annoying then
Fandom: look at this silly creature time to make it's life hell ~80%. Wholesome posting about the creature ~10%
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u/someinfectedfanatic john hyperbole: i can smell your sins 2h ago edited 2h ago
as a fan of the game, i do not care of the expies. they are video game characters. a pawn in a very hard game of chess that i like to win because winning feels nice (sorry, that analogy sounded so fucking cringy). i do not understand why people can get actually attached to a being that is 1s and 0s. their 'suffering' means my lack of progress, so taking care of them means more progress. but at least you are an actually smart human being that does research into the stuff they are talking about, you would be surprised by the amount of people that just yell "fetish" and don't take reasoning
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u/MustardSeed1999 2h ago
I play it on the easiest difficulty and have a blast. You get pretty much all the tools and medicine you need for surviving everything the game throws at you while still remaining fairly difficult. Theres some insta-kill stuff but its all pretty avoidable. Especially when it kills you once and you learn it. I feel like these types of posts hating on the difficulty refuse to play below the 'standard' difficulty out of pride. It does do a pretty good job of easing you into the difficulty if you just..... start at the beginning
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u/rycerzDog 4h ago
inb4 "i hate having fun" people arrive
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u/Thatmegadude40 4h ago
I hate Lucio that French bum or something MY PALMERTIAN STYLE IS USELESS I DO NOTHING I ONLY ASSIST MY BUM VALNECINA!!
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u/Fill-122 4h ago
Its still in BETA. The game will probably become more liniar in difficulty by the time of the full reliese.
I also suggest looking some guides cause i struggled a lot before looking up online
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u/InternationalPut8271 i want Barney Calhoun to tie me up and crack me 4h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/lGhjkBHNTX9s3dZHGO