Just finished Chapter 3. What a long, precarious, disjointed ass level. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I feel like it could have been divided into two separate missions and the whole thing would have felt better paced. A heist taking place in an opium-fueled brothel? Fun. A navigation-focused section in an ancient underground library? Fun. A secret wall in the brothel that leads to an ancient underground library? Now youre just fucking with me.
Pacing and cohesiveness misgivings aside, this was a fun mission. Though I keep forgetting on Master difficulty, you cant knock out civilians in any capacity. So when Im crossing the rafters in kitchen devoted to cooking opium and Garrett makes a remark about pumping it through the air ducts to knock everyone out, Im all for it. Then I promptly get the good ol Mission Failed screen for my efforts. Great. There was also a puzzle in the library area to get apparently an extra piece of loot and it seemed inaccessible without focus mode to highlight runes on the wall. Is it possible to get that without using focus? Oh well.
By the end of this, I was definitely beginning to run out of patience, but I wanted to get through the level. Managed to not knock anyone out, though I did finish with a rather high number of alerts, Im not sure if its counting alerts I reloaded after triggering. The story seems to get a bit more absurd with every cutscene, but Im not too put off by it. Garrett as a character is very solid and consistent with the old Garrett, who seemed to be a bit of a voyeuristic creep anyway. Voice acting is still very solid, with Garretts actor in particular being very good.
Three chapters down, about 11 hours into the game. Perhaps Ill conquer the fourth tomorrow.