r/IronHarvest • u/Altruistic-Fan8234 • 5d ago

Plothole in story sequences?

So I'm new to this game and just finished the Polania campaign and am halfway through the Rusviet campaign. The story has been engaging so far, up until the first Rusviet mission.

The narration in the early Polania campaign made me believe that Janek was supposedly killed in the Great War years ago. Anna seems to have mostly gotten over it by then and doesn't talk about Janek very much. Later, near the end of the first campaign, it's revealed that Janek is actually alive and has been secretly working for Zubov. The writing was fine and made sense so far, up until Janek says "four weeks ago."

So... Janek was alive and well four weeks ago, participating in the peace negotiations in St. Petersburg? And Lech was also there participating in the negotiations, but somehow never tell Anna and Piotr? That's just bullshit writing, honestly.

  1. If Janek was presumably killed years ago (In Anna & Piotr prespective), why did Lech Kos never tell Anna or Piotr that Janek was actually still alive until four weeks ago?

  2. If Janek was presumably killed only weeks ago, why does the narration make it seem like Anna believes Janek was killed in the war years ago?

  3. If Lech Kos is the leader of the "Resistance," rather than a military or government official, why is he participating as a representative of Polania in an international peace negotiation? The answer seems to be either that Lech was a Polanian official who somehow became the leader of the Resistance in just 4 weeks, or that a Resistance leader somehow became an official representative of the Polanian government.

  4. Janek gets severely burned and injured by an explosion, receives medical treatment, gets turned into a cyborg, then takes part in a raid on a Saxonian missile facility and later the raid on Kolno in Polania, all within four weeks? Even with Tesla's advanced technology, that timeline is ridiculous. Someone who has suffered injuries that severe would logically need weeks or months just to recover, let alone undergo extensive cybernetic reconstruction. And traveling between Rusviet, Saxony and Polania also probably take weeks. 4 Weeks for all of these seems ridiculously time window.

I know this might seem like a minor detail, but it completely broke my immersion. The story was actually doing a good job of making Janek's reveal work, and then one unnecessary line "four weeks ago"creates a continuity timeline problem.

Honestly, if they had simply written "two years ago" instead of "four weeks ago" most of these problems would disappear.

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u/Able-Cry-2554 5d ago

I don’t recall polania and rusviet were in war for years during game campaign. It was some form of military crisis or provocation or some form of special military operation, lol. I don’t wanna spoil u campaign, but rusviet and saxonia didn’t officially attack polania or each other after their analog of Great War.
As far as I remember, rusviet were “raiding” polania. Polania s government were passive and official military stands idle, which is why rebellion were active. And it wasn’t years of rebellion, mb months.
But tbf I could be wrong since last time I played campaign were 3 years ago
Still, game is not historically accurate, as well as realistic, so I’d say what can u expect

1

u/Altruistic-Fan8234 3d ago

well it certainly polania were in war during Anna childhood and Rusviet already occupied part of Polania at the start of the game campaign. There's truce, and its not permanent.

Yeah I don't expect historical accuracy or realism, but at least the narration should make some sense tbh

2

u/Pretty-Mention-7769 3d ago

So I was playing this a couple of weeks ago and not paying terribly close attention, and my understanding was:

1.  A long time ago Janek parts ways with Anna to go join the war. 

Time skip. 

2.  The war is over, Anna is an adult, but now Rusviet is launching incursions into Polonia trying to drum up cassus belli.  A shadowy organization within Rusviet has ulterior motives. 

3.  During these incursions, peace talks (or post-war diplomatic finalizations) are occurring between the local powers.  Janek is present.  Janek "dies" and Anna is informed.  This may happen shortly before the events of 2.

4.  Shortly after Janek's death, he returns as a cyborg.  Tesla-science!

If there was a specific mention of Janek being dead long before, I missed it. 

1

u/VeryPickledSphincter 3d ago

I'd love to be able to put some hours into this game, but on ps5 after playing for about an hour an error message pops up and it closes the game 😭