I like my roleplaying games when they're epic blockbusters that tout the, in my opinion tried and true, dogma of "you're a badass with mysterious powers that has to save the world from itself and the impeding doom brought about [insertbadguyhere]." I think that comparing a video game to a novel is unfair, even considering the amount of text in this game. It's about enveloping yourself in the experience of playing a character who is exploring a vast and unfamiliar world rife with struggle and tragedy and mystery. This game adds onto the standard Bioware plot by adding more weight to the world around you. "Oh no, Fade Rifts and demons are killing you!" is turned into a catastrophe surrounding a widespread illness or curse that is making babies born without souls. It's a conflict that is out of the character's grasp -- something that can't be solved by the brute force of charging headlong into battle and fighting the bad guy.

 

Why are souls not going through the 'Wheel' and returning to newborns?

 

Who is Waidwen? Is there legitimacy in his former claims? Why has Eothas gone silent?

 

Are the gods truly mortal? What is their involvement in the Legacy? Why have they not intervened?

 

How did the player character survive the Biawac? Why do they seem somehow tied to this cult from a past life? How will they traverse the tenuous limitations of their powers as a Watcher to find out the truth?

 

If you're not wrapped up in the world and its mysteries, you're clearly not trying or you're simply pessimistic and unfair to the game itself. PoE is rife with mystery. Even better, it's both refreshing and staggering how often the game takes a realistically grim approach to answering these questions. Sometimes there aren't any answers. Sometimes you're only able to grasp at half the truth. Sometimes there is ambiguity in fate, in purpose, in life. There is no neat or pretty ending to certain quests; just defeat and the barely consoling reward of experience. And the game does a great job of characterizing these concepts in a real world. 

 

I don't know what to tell you, other than to keep playing. I seriously think your unwillingness to give the game a genuine chance is killing an opportunity to experience some of the better storytelling we've gotten out of an RPG in a while.

I dont find the plot mysterious at all. The info dumps basically kill it. They should have held back on the walls of text and made some things cryptic. The fact that the character is a ghost whisperer allows you to dive into the heads of other beings to know what they know. I'm 41hrs deep and its still a slog. Maybe if they showed more about the effects of the souless rather than beating you over the head with lots of text.