From what I’ve read, while there’ll be a few nods and references you might only get if you’ve played the original games; the game can be played with no need to have played the originals.
Also, if you do decide to pick up the original two games, keep in mind they were made back in the THAC0 days.
Called it. I’d be prepared to bet that in a few more weeks, Meta’s just gonna quietly drop the idea of ActivityPub integration all together. To me at least, it always seemed like the whole “planned Fediverse integration” for Threads was just them trying to jump on what they saw as the latest buzzword bandwagon.
Had Threads been released a few months earlier, you can bet they’d have been talking about “Metaverse integration” instead.
I feel the two big reasons are:
The average user of a site like Reddit probably hasn’t noticed any significant changes; or if they have, they just don’t see them as a problem. So they don’t have any significant incentive to emigrate to another site. On the other hand, people who are tech-savvy notice the changes; and decide they need to move.
To a lot of people, the Fediverse is just not as convenient as centralized sites. People who are more tech-savvy and/or use Linux, are willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience in exchange for using a site they see as better.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that right now, the Fediverse is still in its early days. Every site in its early days generally has a broadly similar userbase- people who are familiar with technology and willing to put up with some inconvenience because they see the potential.
A few games have gotten me to do that over the years.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition was what finally convinced me to fit a 1TB SSD, and Control was what convinced me it was finally time to get a ray-tracing card.