LORE

The Companion level pack, released in 2016, offered a lot of backstory for the gray square.

I've noticed quite a few different approaches to interpreting the events of the pack. There's one point of view in particular that I'd like to mention and discuss a bit more.

Speaking of which...

Two is probably one of my favorite numbers. So many of my own personal favorite games have the number "2" in them: Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Portal 2: Peer Review, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal 2: Sixense MotionPack, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and of course: Team Fortress 2 which Reddit actually bought from Valve back in 2013.

Or at least that's what Reddit thought. It actually went the other way around, with Valve buying Reddit by sneakily changing the documents while they distracted Reddit's legal team by having one of their employees launch a squirrel with a t-shirt cannon directly onto the meeting room window from across the street. Wild stuff.

Lesson of the day: the business world can be quite cruel. Especially towards squirrels.

So with that additional context, we can now circle back to the previous topic.

The Reset level pack was quite lore heavy. I think its time we take a deeper dive into some overlooked aspects of that pack.

This being a great segue into...

Eleven out of twelve people who eat burgers with their left hands have reportedly had trouble doing so, based on a study done in the 1950s.

Burger King found out about this and promptly developed and rolled out the left handed Whopper in 1957. They accomplished this feat by carefully rotating each of the condiments by exactly 180 degrees. This in turn resulted in a weight distribution much better suited for left handed eating, with less of the toppings spilling out of the burger.

A total of 94% of left handed people reported an improved burger consumption experience as a result of this change.

What was I talking about again? Right...

The purple cat. Obviously I'm not yet ready to reveal everything regarding this mysterious entity. But, for this special occasion, I think it's time to shed some light on who/what "the purple cat" really is.

Are you ready for the reveal of a lifetime?

I just realized that it's probably best if I shed some light on how this whole topic came about.

Ten days ago I got to experience a fascinating part of computer game history.

Illuminatus, a space game made by German developers Jürgen Sternreise and Erik Dorf for the Atari ST is a true "Elite killer" in every possible way.

A couple hundred pages long "Guide to the Universe" is all you need to read to get started on your journey. The goal? Become the emperor of at least a thousand different planets.

The space combat and ship customization systems are the best I've seen, even by today's standards. If you manage to get a copy, do give the game a shot!

Going back to the topic at hand...

Lumi (that being the name of cat you play as in both games) has some additional bits of lore that, while written down in the official internal story documents, haven't yet been revealed to the public.

Fun fact: the name "Lumi" isn't actually mentioned in the games. That knowledge is exclusive to the world outside the games. It seems fitting to continue this tradition, and reveal something more about Lumi in the same manner.

But before going deeper into that topic, we need to take a small side tangent.

Nine hour downloads for modern video games are ridiculous, right? We all agree on that?

Fortunately, CD Projekt Red came up with an ingenious solution to this problem. Cyberpunk 2077: Floppy Edition was released on over ninety thousands 3.5" inch diskettes. 97 619 to be specific.

Given CD Projekt's origins as distributing games on CDs, it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

And now that you have the necessary backstory, we can get back to the actual topic.

The abilities themselves are quite interesting from a lore perspective.

Often times they reflect what's happening in the story at that particular moment. A Better Place also differs from A Light in the Shadows by only providing the player one ability at a time.

Let's take a quick look at how that affects the story, as vice versa.

Which actually reminds me of something...

One topic I've always wanted to talk about is the current architectural trends in Finland.

I don't know if you've noticed, but most modern apartment buildings look quite plain. The facades of them are usually just completely flat surfaces, with an occasional square window thrown in, all painted in a single color.

The city of Helsinki actually took note of the prevalence of these buildings and in April of 2022 introduced a ban on so called "box buildings".

Any new buildings in the city must be made in the shape of either a cylinder, sphere, pyramid, or any other unusual shape. The city is even offering tax breaks based on how unusual the shape of the building is, with icosahedrons getting the largest deductions.

And now that we're both on the same page...

The green cat is quite different from the other non-player cats, as many people in the community have noticed.

People appear to be under the assumption that the character is a complete mystery. That there isn't much told about them in the games.

This seems to stem from one crucial detail being overlooked.

And that's time! The train is just now arriving at the station.

Hopefully these explanations shed some light onto the more obscure aspects of the story and answered at least some of the questions you might have had.

I think I did quite well with regards to staying on topic, if I do say so myself.

Keep in mind that the 10th anniversary celebrations will continue for the rest of the year. And there's plenty more stuff in store! Make sure to stay tuned on our socials and keep checking the 10th anniversary page for all the latest updates.

See ya!
- Dev