[VladTheImplier]

Many instances of media are giving a spin on horrible historical events for the sake of entertainment. These are never meant to be "tasteful". Does Wolfenstein condone the holocaust? All the Dracula books and movies make Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, a charismatic character, even though he murdered so many innocent people in such a cruel way just to secure his position.

They do put a tasteless twist on a horrible event - that makes this thought experiment so intriguing as a setting to explore. What if the Nazis won? What if Vlad The Impaler was an interesting and charismatic person, what if JackTheRipper was a hero under cover. It's all stupid, but interesting at the same time. That does not mean they disrespect history.

[paulmd]

If Wolfenstein had you playing as a prison guard gassing people but it's OK because they're actually vampires then yes, that would be extremely distasteful. AFAIK that's absolutely nothing at all like what Wolfenstein is, so I'm not sure why you would bring that up.

[glangdale]

That's just stupid. The Nazis, and Dracula, in case you haven't noticed, are the villains of their respective pieces.

Deciding that people who cut up women are in fact pretty fascinating and charismatic dudes "who had their reasons" is not exactly a new, intriguing setting to explore, unless you're a sophomoric ghoul.

In the media we are drowning in handsome genius-level IQ serial killers, as opposed to the sordid idiots that they are in real life. Thanks, no. There are a lot of thought experiments we could do; strangely, we seem to constantly come back to this one.

[VladTheImplier]

It's a genre that keeps fascinating people who like that genre - what possibly twisted mind could do such horrible things? It's indeed an often taken and explored trope of fiction, certainly not for everyone. Also all of the Mafia themes: So many of the media on that hides the gruesome reality of recruiting people out of poverty to push them into a never ending circle of violence, with notorious killers that tortured their victims in much fashion like jack the ripper. (Think Richard Kuklinski, whose death count is without a doubt much higher than Jack The Ripper) And yet many of the fictional books, series and games portrait the Mafia as being about honour, family and pride. It's a fictional world that if made well enough is interesting to explore.

Probably that game wouldn't have been for me either as I despise torture porn akin to saw. But that doesn't mean, that this sort of fiction is inherently bad. Tasteless for sure, yet in a genre of a grotesque deep dive into a parallel universe where the gruesome and grotesque is justified by a mysterious, higher cause.

[egypturnash]

Eponysterical.