First, congratulations to the Team and all involved on an outstanding Title. It is 2022, and Plague Innocence holds up extremly well at 4K Ultra on a 3990TI. The engine is fantastic and the story is compelling, without being exhustive and is an example of interactive digital entertainment at its finest.

First essential critique that I hope will be acknowledged.

1. IN Game Music : The over-use of violins during somewhat repetitive gameplay sequences is to much to bare. Someone in the audio department decided to drown violins into both delay and reverb and the outcome is depressing and unbearable it sounds.

2. NPC enemy speech : At times fantastic, at other times- best just avoid it altogether.

3. The Metal Gear Solid influenced "sound effect" upon being caught- is jarring, out of place and well, belongs in Metal Gear Solid.

4. Almost all recent titles feel compelled to have death sequences end with a thunderous slamming sound, this is now cliche and incredibly annoying.

To the title of this post,

I do not know if it is shared, but smaller, more intimate set pieces where there is immense effort placed into their design, is akin to being loosely directed along a spectacular theatrical journey.

I am not at all a fan of these wide-open "sandbox" titles, yet I can see this is direction being taken in the upcoming sequal.

Innocence strikes a great balance of open world gameplay and set pieces, guiding the player with a loosely linear level design. At moments opening up to a sense of scale- the Windmill on fire scene haunting and spectacular in scale.

My concern, is the title may transition to yet another of these generic sandbox titles where all immersion is given up in place of twitchy-gameplay.

Few people are willing to expend the types of type games of past would ask of a person, instead prefer extremly well designed, compelling interactive digital experiences.

Hope this helps.