Boyfriend Dungeon Doesn't Go Far Enough

ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm taking June off.  May is always a pretty brutal month for me at my job, but this one's put me through a tougher time than usual, and honestly, I've still been trying to rebuild a rant backlog buffer since the year-long employment crucible that was my 2021.  So...I could just really use a little break to build the reserve back up and ease myself out of customer service fight-or-flight mode.  Thus, the next rant'll be published in July, at which point we'll resume our regular schedule.  Thanks for understanding, and I'll see you then.

And now, the rant proper:



Boyfriend Dungeon is another of the Kickstarter RPGs that I’ve backed.  I don’t generally go for dungeon-crawlers, as they usually don’t have as strong a reliance on storytelling, but the premise of the game piqued my interest--it’s basically a hybrid RPG and dating sim where you’re dating (or just being good buddies with) the very weapons you’re using in the dungeon, within this peculiar world in which some people can magically transform themselves into weapons.  The idea sounds fun enough, and I can’t deny that, as a game where the majority of love interests are men (with a masculine non-binary as well) and which clearly has a very modern, progressive outlook on gender identity and sexuality and all that jazz, Boyfriend Dungeon gave me a bit of hope that I might finally find some quality gay male romances in my preferred game genre.  RPGs have always been and still are unrealistically dominated by heterosexual romances, and what few same-sex couples exist in this genre are much more often female ones.*  And frankly, regardless of what genders are involved, it’s harder-than-average to find a love story in an RPG that’s particularly noteworthy, anyway.  So yeah, I had some hopes for Boyfriend Dungeon, particularly when I realized it was being made by the same developer that did Moon Hunters, another RPG I had kickstarted and quite enjoyed.

And make no mistake, it’s a pleasant game.  The gameplay of Boyfriend Dungeon is, interestingly enough, less like Moon Hunters than it is a Supergiant Games title; there were a lot of moments as I was crawling through the dungeons that I was struck by a recollection of Bastion.  Meanwhile, the content of the dating sim stories reminded me in some ways of Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4’s Social Links--and the fact that the dungeons were meant to display and act as analogies for the protagonist’s personal fears and hang-ups increases that sense of SMTP4 similarity.  The game tells a small but recognizable and paced story with a noticeable beginning, middle stage, and conclusion, and having this clearly structured a narrative is certainly more than a lot of dungeon-focused RPGs can seem to manage.  Additionally, BD maintains a very prominently open and modern mindset and theme of respecting personal identity, pronouns, lifestyles, dietary beliefs, all that politically correct jazz--it’s very inclusive, is what I’m saying, so players caught up within or just looking for a game with a strong and positive theme of current sensibilities will probably like Boyfriend Dungeon quite a bit.  And that stuff’s not just the window-dressing to the game, either; the main story of the game is rooted within such concepts.  The protagonist and antagonist serve as mirrors for how to approach a desire for intimacy with others, with 1 doing so in a healthy manner, the other becoming mired in toxic mindsets.  It’s a decent game, Boyfriend Dungeon, is my main message here.

At the same time...Boyfriend Dungeon disappoints me, because it never really seems to take any part of itself as far as it needs to.

Let’s take the dungeon-crawling aspect of it, since that’s where I first noticed this problem.  The dungeons in Boyfriend Dungeon are adequate enough, as dungeons go.  I mean, I didn’t enjoy going through them myself, but I don’t like stomping through any dungeons; the actual act of playing an RPG is boring to me.  I at least think that people who DO like the gameplay of this genre will have a decent time in Boyfriend Dungeon’s...2 dungeons.

Yeah.  2.

Now it ain’t a problem for me personally, the fewer dungeons the better I say, but even I have to admit that I find it odd that a game called Boyfriend Dungeon has only 2 examples of its namesake within its entire course.  Didn’t this game advertise itself as a dungeon-crawler on its Kickstarter?  And Steam page?  And Xbox page?  How do you make a dungeon-crawler, advertise it as such, include the word “dungeon” in its name, and then only put 2 dungeons into it?

I mean, I guess I’ve played some dungeon-crawler RPGs in which there was only, technically, a single dungeon to traverse through (such as some Etrian Odysseys, for example), but even those generally had enough significant differences between floor groups that the effect was that of multiple dungeons.  And their supposedly single dungeon had more (and larger) floors within it than Boyfriend Dungeon has in its 2.  It just feels like the dungeon element of Boyfriend Dungeon was an afterthought more than the selling point they made it out to be.  Again, not a problem from MY perspective, but I would definitely understand someone more gameplay-oriented being put out by it.

There IS a problem with this lack of dungeon-ing that I do myself take issue with, though.  The dungeons are, as I mentioned before, meant to represent personal fears of the protagonist.  I think the idea is for him/her/them to conquer these personal issues and become a more complete and actualized person, as well as a better romantic partner.  But with only 2 dungeons in the game, this storytelling mechanic is pretty damn limited, unable to explore the hero’s mind and personality any further than a mere 2 characteristics.  So even if you care as little about the gameplay elements of RPGs as I do, there is still a flaw within just how limited the dungeon count of Boyfriend Dungeon is.

Although, really, I doubt that more dungeons would actually have done much for the protagonist’s character.  While a good personal story of growth would have needed more than 2 opportunities to tell itself, the fact of the matter is that the 2 opportunities it did have were squandered.  Neither of the fears that the dungeons of the games represent are actually explored at all in their relation to the protagonist, and are barely even acknowledged by the characters in dialogue.  These 2 fears are obviously meant to describe the shy and socially hesitant state that the protagonist is in when he/she/they first arrive at Verona Beach at the game’s beginning, but that’s as far as that goes.  How did Protagonist gain these fears?  What thoughts do Protagonist’s love interests have about these fears in relation to him/her/them?  How is the protagonist confronting these personal issues and moving past them, in the emotional sense?  Why does the protagonist never have any thoughts to share on these fears when their nature is finally uncovered at the dungeon’s conclusion?  How does the protagonist feel about the process of conquering them?  What about the protagonist’s experiences thus far has allowed him/her/them to overcome it?

There’s just so little substance to this concept of the dungeons as the things holding the protagonist’s heart back.  It’s like if you were going through a Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 dungeon, but the character at the end of the dungeon never says anything the whole time, never interacts with their shadow, never expresses any perspective on the process of embracing and overcoming their weaknesses before, during, or after the whole ordeal.  You’d still be able to get something from the metaphors of the dungeon’s enemies, and from the dungeon’s own decor, but the huge majority of the message wouldn’t be there.  It’s not as bad as Princess Aerin’s complete failure in The Princess’ Heart to engage with the personal sins that the 4 demons she fights represent, but Boyfriend Dungeon’s failure to capitalize on their idea of using the dungeons to develop the protagonist is not far off from that, either.

So the dungeon aspect of Boyfriend Dungeon isn’t taken far enough, and its attempt to tell a story of growth for its protagonist isn’t, either.  What about the other major theme of the game and half of its title?  What about the Boyfriends?  And girlfriend.  And...themfriends?  Whatever the non-binary equivalent is.

Well, honestly, the game just doesn’t quite manage to do enough on that front, either, in my opinion.

First of all, the concept itself of dating weapons just...isn’t really explored well enough.  The fact that each of these characters you’re dating can turn into a sword, a scythe, a dagger, and so on, to be held and wielded by you in combat against monsters representing your fears, is a surprisingly minor detail to everyone involved.  I mean, Boyfriend Dungeon doesn’t ignore it or anything like that--Sawyer will sometimes mention the fact that they’re a glaive, Isaac will reference being a rapier often (and this fact is the initial reason for you hanging out with him, to have him train you on how to more effectively use him), and so on.  But the fact that Seven can turn himself into a goddamn laser sword** is somehow never a major, relevant point to his personal story and character development.  Apparently, being a second-banana member of a KPop band is deemed as a more interesting angle of Seven’s character to base his personal story around than the fact that he can turn into the lovechild of a taser and a lightsaber.  Isaac is a fencer who can turn into a rapier, Sunder’s ability to inflict the bleed status relates to his physical condition, and there are some aesthetic connections between the characters’ human and weapon forms, but beyond that, the fact that these boyfriends, themfriends, and girlfriend can transform themselves into weapons isn’t really important, to them or to the story as a whole.  Boyfriend Dungeon’s attention-getting gimmick is that it’s about being able to date your weapon, and yet the character stories for every single 1 of these romantic interests would be unchanged in all significant ways if they were just regular human beings! 

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I've yet to play it, but I think even Xenoblade Chronicles 2 managed to give this duality of weapon and human more relevance with its stupid waifus, yes?  Not the kind of title that it looks great to fall short of, from my initial impressions of it.

Also, I hate to say this, but not a lot of these characters’ stories are all that interesting.  I mean...Sawyer’s generally likable enough, but all that really happens in their Social Link is a bit of worrying about their future prospects in life which, though reasonable and certainly a believable concern for anyone in Sawyer’s age group nowadays, never goes anywhere or has any resolution, and some mildly amusing lessons on how to cook basic low-income meals.  It is not a compelling story of love blossoming.  It’s not a compelling story of friendship forming.  It’s kind of shaky as a tale of becoming acquaintances, really.  And while the rest of the cast at least felt a little more like they were forming a bond of interest and companionship with the protagonist, and/or had a demonstrable attraction to him/her/them, they still don’t really feel all that romantic or interesting.  I’d call Valeria’s the most romantic, but it barely breaks into the territory of average as love stories go, and I’d call Sunder’s the most interesting character study, but it ends on a weak, gimmicky note.

In fact, when I consider it, I think there’s a subconscious reason I’ve equated Boyfriend Dungeon’s romances with the Social links of SMT Persona 4 specifically--because as a general rule, they, much like all but 1 of SMTP4’s love interest Social Links, are more like friendship stories upon which an ill-matched romance was clumsily stapled.

Also, connecting the problems with the protagonist’s personal development with the current subject, I feel like Protagonist isn’t even a particularly deciding or dynamic factor in some of the character journeys of Boyfriend Dungeon’s love interests.  At least as often as I felt like the protagonist was an invested participant in these vignettes, I felt like things were just coasting along, with the protagonist along for the ride of his/her/their boo’s personal journey.  Not always, or anything, but still, I think the protagonist is too often not a strong entity within a love story that he/she/they are supposed to be half of.  And hey, don't get me wrong, this is a common problem with both RPGs and Visual Novels (the latter format is what Boyfriend Dungeon's character interactions mostly mimic), not some failing exclusive to BD.  But signature or common, it IS still a flaw.

Look, I don’t like to go off on Indie RPGs.  And I also want to reiterate that Boyfriend Dungeon is a fine enough title: I don’t regret playing it, nor do I regret backing it.  I have backed worse and I have played worse Indies in my time.  And to be sure, while I appreciate a strongly inclusive RPG and wish we had more of them, anyone who really thirsts for a game that steeps itself in modern mindsets and perspectives on love and identity will get a lot more out of this title than I could.  But at the same time, Indie RPG or not, decent game or not, Boyfriend Dungeon’s got a persistent, recurring flaw: it just doesn’t take any of its major components far enough.  It doesn’t have enough dungeon content for a dungeon crawler,*** it doesn’t take an active enough hand in telling the protagonist’s story of growth into a healthy friend and/or romantic partner, it doesn’t incorporate and explore its idea of people who are both humans and weapons far enough, it doesn’t tell strong and involving love stories,*** and the player doesn’t feel like a dynamic part of how some of these romances progress.  Each part of Boyfriend Dungeon feels enjoyable, but lacking.  There was more that this game could have been.


















* Not that I’m complaining.  As I’ve said before, I still want a lot more of these than there are.  It’d just be nice and refreshing to have an equal number of bros-before-heteros romances, too.


** For that matter, it’s weird that the rest of the cast are normal, tangible, traditional weapons like brass knuckles and talwars, and then there’s just this 1 guy who’s a lightning beam with a handle stuck on it.  What’s up with that?


*** There IS a DLC coming that's going to add a third dungeon and 2 more weapon people to romance, but if it's not a free update (which it might be?  I'd have to look back on all these backer updates I get to know for sure, but I think it'll just be easier to find out when it releases), then these can't really be counted in the main game's favor.  And even if they were, a dungeon count of 3 still seems noticeably low for a dungeon crawler.  Furthermore, even if the 2 new romances turned out to be really good--which there's not much reason to expect if we go by precedent--that's still 2 out of 8, which is not a great showing.

Pillars of Eternity 1's Downloadable Content

I have to confess something.  Something terrible and degrading, a secret which has festered within me for 7 years now, like a lingering, decayed fragment of me at odds with the rest of my soul.  But I’m tired of it--tired of keeping up the facade of a discerning, cultured critic, tired of trying to maintain this farce that I’m respectable, that I’m worthy of your time and consideration.  Because the shocking, dismaying truth is...

Pillars of Eternity 1 just didn’t really do anything for me.

Woedica knows I wanted it to.  PoE1 was 1 of the first RPGs I ever helped crowdfund!  I was enamored by its theme and concepts, and by the idea of the writers behind it being able to make what they wanted without the pressures and expectations of ignorant larger publishers restricting them.  And I DID like it, and appreciate it, make no mistake.  I recognize how interesting and thoughtful its setting and lore are, I recognize that it has a good story, I recognize that much of its cast is terrifically written and unique!  There is a ton about Pillars of Eternity 1 that is great and even brilliant, and I see this and acknowledge it and respect it...objectively.

It just somehow never really managed to get past that point of appreciation from afar, for me.  A few parts of it managed to penetrate deeper, like the Grieving Mother--such a great character!--but not enough that the game ever spoke to me the way I thought it was going to, the way that I think it did most other people.  I don’t know why that is.  I’ll openly admit that Pathfinder: Kingmaker, though most certainly a great RPG, doesn’t have the same weight, intellectual power, or significance that Pillars of Eternity 1 possesses...but I love Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I only dispassionately appreciate Pillars of Eternity 1.  I don’t know why that is, but I can’t pretend otherwise.

So basically what I’m saying is that you should probably disregard everything I’m about to say in today’s rant and just come back next time, when maybe I’ll have a subject that I actually know something about.



The White March, Part 1: This add-on’s got some definite charms.  You gotta appreciate the polish, for starters--it’s not the only game to do this, but any time a development team pays such attention to detail that characters breathe vapor in cold environments, you’ve got a work that you know the creators truly wanted to do everything in their power to get right.  That and the fact that NPCs trying to put out a burning house are pathed to run back and forth to the nearby water (to fetch it and throw it on the fire) and even exchange dialogue while filling their buckets were examples of the DLC’s high level of polish that struck me right from the get-go.

Beyond the polish, I also laud the extent that the soul-reading was incorporated into the quest to open Durgan’s Battery--it’s as interesting an experience as it was in the main game, and a lot of effort is put into some of the memory/previous life recollections, even when they aren’t relevant to the quest itself.  The mayor’s memory, for example, is not the one you’re looking for in that quest, but it’s an engaging snapshot of her history (as well as that of the town) that’s well-written and spared no effort.  There’s some decent sidequests--I rather liked the one involving the head of the foundry, and the ongoing and evolving history of the quest where you’re collecting relics and soul-reading them is nicely done--and both Zahua and the Devil of Caroc are decently written characters.

With all that said, I gotta say...The White March kinda feels like Obsidian’s team mostly was trying to recapture the glory days of Icewind Dale.*  As a result, a lot of this DLC--most of it, really--feels very Dungeons-and-Dragons-generic to me.  Like most of it could have been taken from any base pre-written adventure outline that a DM might use for a placeholder session between main campaigns.  Durgan’s Battery, for example, doesn’t really feel like it has any actual personality of its own--it just comes off to me like a timid mash-up of a Dragon Age 1 dwarven stronghold and Durlag’s Tower from Baldur’s Gate 1, while not as compelling as either.  The abandoned dwarven fortress trope that Tolkien started is wearing thin these days, and little of Durgan’s Battery stands out enough to refresh the cliche.

Also, what’s even the point of the side story with Concelhaut?  It’s pointless and dull.  If the majority of The White March, Part 1 feels like an experienced DM just buying himself time with a generic premade outline while he works on the next part of his real campaign, then the little sidequest of infiltrating Concelhaut’s pad feels like a first time DM reading lines from a tabletop starter pack.

Lastly, while Zahua’s a good character, he absolutely should have been in the main game, not an add-on character.  Zahua’s quirk of reveling in suffering and discomfort as a way of Keeping It Real Bro is the kind of personality basis that best cements itself over time and quantity of examples.  If he’d been with me for the entire PoE1 adventure, then he’d be a much more singular, stand-out personality to me, because his character would have had the time to fully impress itself upon me.  Like...imagine if instead of being a major character in the show, Ed from Cowboy Bebop was only present in its movie.  She’d still be fun and engaging, but she wouldn’t be memorable, wouldn’t be iconic, as the personality and character she is, not for any lack of skill on the writers’ part, but simply for lack of time to really capitalize on who and what she is.  That’s how Zahua feels to me--a couple DLCs just don’t cut it for a singularly quirky character.

So yeah, in the end, The White March, Part 1 is not a bad add-on, but nothing about it rises high enough that I’d call it a good one, either.  And at an unreasonable $15 (I don’t see most players getting 15 hours out of it), “neither bad nor good” does not cut it.


The White March, Part 2: I guess I’d say this is a step up from the first add-on.  The main story of Part 2 has some significance and actually goes somewhere, for starters, even though that substance only shows up toward the end of the DLC’s overall quest.  Likewise, the side bit about who legally owns Caed Nua is a hell of a lot more interesting than competing with some mercenaries for the right to indulge in some breaking and entering of Concelhaut’s stupid tower.

With that said, it still doesn’t really seem like the whole thing amounts to all that much, as an adventure.  While the choice that the new enemies wind up posing regarding the restoration of the god Abydon, and how one views the past, is compelling material, it takes a while to get there, and until that point, this whole venture just feels like some more generic RPG mush with contrived enemies.  Meanwhile, the new character, Maneha, has 1 of the most thematically appropriate personal quests in the game, in theory, but in practice, it feels rushed and impersonal...and frankly, while she’s pleasant, affable, and outgoing, Maneha herself never really quite feels like she’s engaging with her companions as 1 of the party.  Something about her personality just feels like she took a wrong turn and wound up in a different game than she’d intended.

Ultimately?  While it feels like there’s more purpose and art tying this DLC to Pillars of Eternity 1 as a whole, it still seems, to me, not really worth the trouble to play through The White March, Part 2.  Particularly not when you’re expected to pay a whopping $15 for this one, too--you’re almost definitely not getting that many hours out of it!



And the verdict on PoE1’s DLC scene is: a big, fat, dreary Meh.  Your results may vary, of course.  As I said going into this, for whatever reason, the game as a whole didn’t resonate with me the way it should have, so there’s every chance I just lack the ability to properly appreciate The White March, through no fault of the add-ons themselves.

Still...still, I do think I stand by my feeling that they’re not worth it, at least to a degree.  Maybe I never did feel Pillars of Eternity 1 the way I should have, but I’ve never had a problem seeing why it’s lauded and in recognizing the merits of its story, cast, setting, and lore.  Yet I haven’t been struck by this professional respect for the game at any point through my White March experience...hell, there’ve been more than a few occasions during the course of these DLCs when I just sort of wanted it to be done with, already.  The White March may not be outright stupid, negative, or damaging the way most RPGs’ add-on collections seem to be, and certainly it’s a step up from the last DLC I experienced (that being Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s)...but it’s still just not good, at least not to me.  If Pillars of Eternity 1 is a gourmet meal that my palette just can’t quite adapt itself to, then The White March is the microwaved TV dinner of Fantasy: serviceable, but not much more than that.  It’d be hard to recommend even at a rational price point, but the fact that it comes to a total of $30--which is as much as the game itself is being sold for at this time--I advise putting this on the ever-growing list of add-ons to steer clear of.












** Glory days which didn’t even exist to start with; Icewind Dale 1 and 2 were boring and meandering and can only thrive in an environment of pure rose-tinted nostalgia.

General RPGs' Late Add-On Characters

Add-ons are, by now, a fact of life for RPGs, and video games as a whole.  Love’em or hate’em--and I know where I’ve come to stand on the matter--there’s a good chance these days that any major RPG release, and quite a few minor ones, will eventually (or immediately) be saddled with an extra adventure that you can pay to experience.  It may be a full-on extra story, or just a minor sidequest, but either way, this additional content almost inevitably comes with various new items, equipment, abilities, and/or game features to collect and earn.  It may even come with a new character who will join your party!

Hey, here’s an idea, developers?  Maybe you could, I dunno, just stop doing this?  Like, for real.  Stop.  Doing.  This.  

Stop.

Look, sometimes this isn’t a serious detriment to the RPG.  A character like Shale in Dragon Age 1, or Zaeed in Mass Effect 2, the DLCs they’re found within were available on Day 1.  Which isn’t a GOOD thing, obviously, because if an add-on is done at the time of the game’s release, then why the hell isn’t it just a part of the damn game to begin with?  But, at the very least, if you want the full experience of Zaeed or Shale as a party member who interacts with the adventure as it unfolds, it’s there to be had from the moment you acquire the game and start playing.

But generally, DLCs come out for a game after a good chunk of time has passed from its release date.  For example, the Far Harbor add-on for Fallout 4, which introduced the party member Longfellow, was finished 6 months after the game’s release.  By that time, just about any player who had started playing Fallout 4 shortly after its release date would be long since finished with its main plot and side content, so the only content that the player could utilize Longfellow in would be that of Far Harbor itself, and the later DLC package Nuka-World (which introduced its own crappy party member Gaige, who thus got even LESS time than Longfellow).  In a game where the party members to some degree react to and engage with the happenings of the story, and the introduction of new locations, that’s really frustrating.

Admittedly, this isn’t often a problem for me, personally, because I usually don’t play RPGs immediately after their launch.  Hell, it’s a miracle when I get to a game within 5 years of its publication.  So it didn’t cause any irritation for me when I played Pathfinder: Kingmaker a year after its launch, and thus had the DLC characters of Kalikke and Kanerah available to me from the start of the game to engage with and be a part of the plot.  But anyone who started playing the game on the day it released in September would almost surely have finished it, or at least been in its last stages, when the Wildcards DLC dropped in December.  If that player wanted to get the most out of the content he or she had just purchased, he or she would have to play the game through all over again to have the time and opportunity to fully experience all that the tiefling sisters offered as characters.  And hell, I was already planning to play Mass Effect 2 over again when the DLC that introduced Kasumi released--but not everyone was, so suddenly acquiring a character too late to have the chance to involve her in all the plot interactions which she was capable of, having Kasumi wind up as nothing more than an afterthought unless a whole other playthrough was initiated, had to be rather irritating to some.

And hey, I don’t always avoid the brunt of this annoyance.  I don’t actually know anything about the character Oom from Torment: Tides of Numenera, because I started playing that game the hour it came out, and finished well before Oom was completed and released.  And as it turns out, great though Tides of Numenera and its 1000-page-long script is, I don’t have 50 hours I can just conjure out of nowhere to drop on the game all over again to get to know the newbie.  

I do cut TToN a little slack on this matter, though, since Oom wasn’t something that was being sold as an extra so much as it was just a late addition of content that had been intended to be a part of the game but was unfinished as of the game’s release, and they added Oom to the game for free.

I do not extend that same generosity to Fire Emblem 16.

Hey, Nintendo!  The next time you feel like tacking a DLC onto your game that adds a whopping 4 separate characters to the cast, do you think that maybe, JUST FUCKING MAYBE, you could try releasing it just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit earlier?  Say, perhaps, while I’m still playing the fucking game?  It ain’t like I rushed through it, either.  I only started playing 3 Houses a month after its release, and it’s not a short adventure.  Especially when you’re insane enough to go through it 4 separate times to see every path of the game, since no one warned you that you can skip the Blue Lions route and miss absolutely nothing.  Nintendo, you really couldn’t have released the damn Dickensian Sewer Rats DLC at some point before the start of my FOURTH playthrough?

No, of course not, I forgot.  You had to get the DLCs for those lounge wear cosmetics and the game mechanic of cramming rotten fish down stray cats’ throats out into the world, first.  Obviously that’s the REAL priority, here.

Thankfully, Youtube Let’s Plays exist, and I didn’t have to waste my time and money buying a frankly subpar quartet of party members I would have to play the game a fifth time to fully experience.  May the 8 Scribes have mercy on the players who began another round of FE16 in earnest solely for the sake of the Ashen Wolves characters, though.

Just...if you’re gonna add characters to the game, characters who are meant to be a legitimate part of the cast and a part of the game’s story, do it at an appropriate time.  If you HAVE to lock them behind a DLC, which you shouldn’t, because that’s fucking garbage, but if you HAVE to, release that DLC soon enough that they can be an actual part of the damn story without forcing your player to commit to a 40-hour rerun.  Because honestly, at that point, Zahua and Kasumi and the Ashen Wolves and the Devil of Caroc and Longfellow and Kalikke and Kanerah and Maneha and Mintberry Crunch and Gaige and all the rest of these tardy-to-the-party members are almost more trouble than they’re worth.