Having JUST finished replaying it myself last week, I wholeheartedly enjoyed your review. Thank you!
I had the exact same thought regarding the ending: the girl that in this game is so often depicted as vulnerable and caring (she loves her friends) is at the same time a ruthless serial killer who doesn’t seem to hesitate for a second about setting dozens of stranded survivors on fire who “just” want to escape the island as desperately as she does. When the final outro cutscene was playing and she ends with "I’m not going home…" I couldn’t help but fear for the next group of people she’ll encounter. ;)
Non-sequitur: OMG did I hate the quick-time events, though! Felt like I needed to fail at least 3x for EACH quick-time event before I got it right. /o\
Yes! No.1 reason: microphone quality! I have to attend many calls every day and no Bluetooth headset (BT v.4 > 5.3, SPS, AAC, LDAC) has even come close to the simple quality of a ~25,-€ wired headset.
As a parent, EVERY kid feels like your kid. This made me cry.
I’m glad to hear it’s not an issue in your experience / industry.
German here: I have yet to witness these “European-style” vacations mentioned in the post title.
Most workplaces seem to frown at people taking >2 consecutive weeks of vacation, esp. if they don’t have kids and do it in main travel season / during school holidays. Handing in ~3 weeks of holidays often at least needs some kind of explanation to the team-lead, e.g. “I have school kids who have their summer holidays and we need to keep them busy until school starts again.”
I have yet to see a single company going easy on someone saying “I’ll be off all of August KTHXBYE”.
In no particular order: