Our investigation into Bugsnax and the disappearance of Elizabert Megafig continue, and we’ve returned as many of the remaining Grumpuses to their homes in Snaxburg. Hopefully, if we help them deal with they’ll problems, they’ll provide the information we need to get to the bottom of this.
At this point, we have started completing the side quest chains offered by our fellow Grumpuses, and a pattern has begun to emerge in them. Each has come to Snaxtooth Island in the hopes that Bugsnax will be the solution to a problem that they face in the outside world.
To that end, we help them by hunting the Bugsnax they request and delivering it to them. And each time they provide a temporary, yet fleeting surge of pleasure before the fundamental issues underlying the hole in their heart reemerges. Culminating in the hunt for a legendary Bugsnak, and the ensuing boss battle.
My stream audience remarked that the ends of these questlines didn’t feel meaningful because we aren’t really addressing the problems any of the Grumpuses have. There’s no growth or sense of development whatsoever.
I don’t disagree necessarily, but I would posit that the pointlessness is entirely the point. At the end of the day, what we are is a journalist moonlighting as a Bugsnak catcher in order to get to the bottom of a big story. The Bugsnax don’t perform miracles and we aren’t a therapist, there was no world in which we were magically going to make Chandlo stronger or give Wiggle the inspiration to compose a new song. At best, all of them are running from their problems without confronting or addressing them in a meaningful way. As a result, their efforts were destined to amount to naught.
It’s a lesson that we must all strive to engrave into our minds.
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