And with that, we are officially at the halfway point of Sarah's Origins chapters, plus the conclusion of the most challenging entry so far. When I started brainstorming the outline for the Reboot, one of my biggest goals was to make Sarah's darker turn feel more built up and human.

Themes of redemption and self-loathing are baked into the character, but I also know if the events never measured up to those themes, then 90% of Sarah's brooding would feel pointless. So the way to go was basing the decision to join Eclipse on Sarah's sheer force of will, one of her greatest traits as a character/fighter. Especially when said fear is often born purely out of fear and ego.

If Animus was supposed to show how damaging bottling those feelings is for yourself, then Descent shows how badly it ruins other people. Spelling those other people, we can bring up Zhi, Nexus, and Eclipse. In the original course of events, an older Sarah joined up with Nexus through a woman named Reyna. The organization acted more like a one-stop shop for criminals in the underworld.

It was only through the help of Misty Sinclair, the recluse hacker in that version of the story, that Nexus' plans got on Titan's radar. I much prefer my new versions of all these characters a lot better.

Unlike both Titan and the Pantheon, writing Eclipse to be a smaller entity that pretended to be bigger than it was by messing with the right people would do well to show the scope of the former while tying into Sarah's arc.

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Eclipse rules through fear, extortion, and brainwashing because they can't bother to face the consequences of their actions if they were brought to the light, unlike Sarah, who eventually found the courage to do what's right. And serving as the face of this divide, we have Zhi. Since her character will be popping up far more frequently and I wasn't a big fan of her counterpart "Reyna," I had to sit down and think about what I wanted to do with her.

Eventually, the basis would be building her character as a parallel to Asad and Sarah. The former's motivation is built heavily on the survival of the fittest mentality, feeling that freedom should belong to the strong. However, Sarah is still trying to find control and strength in her life, even if it comes through violence.

To that end, I wondered what would happen if I increased that "control" aspect a thousandfold to every part of Zhi's character, kinda of like an evil version of Sarah. The nitpicking, obsession, and arrogance were all symptoms I picked up from resident control freaks. This bled into her fighting style, which used both Hookswords and Wing Chun to focus more on field control and counterattacks than pure offensive tactics.

Hell, her name is even a reference to this theme as Zhi in Chinese not only revolves around awareness and control, but it's also a reference to Lü Zhi, China's first female empress (who was nutty), a subtle nod to Asad's name being a reference to a king of the jungle and maybe a little teaser to what may happen to her in the later chapters of the story.

Finally, we have our leading man, Nexus. While I like the changes I made to Eclipse as a character, I also like the idea of a super information highway for the underworld, so fusing the concept of Nexus in the eyes of a singular character would be better. And so the much more colorful version of the character was born.

I'm glad that despite being one of the more complicated stories with Paladin, I am proud of some of the risks I took. However, if you feel Masks and Descent needed to be lighter and less self-serious to your liking, then fear not because the next chapter will focus back on James Cormac. But we'll see a whole new side to his colorful life in the chapter "The Hunted."