But i think the developer is thinking that the conquering girls is better story telling.
Even Rachal in the SCENE was thinking about the MC she didnt care about steve. Did you notice that?
The conquest is what the grinding was for 2 years in real time. Now that time was thrown out in the window as far as Rachel is concerned, since your goal just got snatched away from your nose and now the reward will be the sloppy seconds of douchebag with even more grind being put in it. I can already see the story becoming some 4d chess wannabee between the two guys for updates and updates until some measly resolution, because let's face it, you either go really dark with the setup that is given, or you glammor over it.
The better solution would've been writing Steve out offscreen and only meet with Emily, but from a storytelling point of view, the developer just wrote himself into a massive fucking corner, because unless he's willing to scrap the entire update, he'll have to spend a long time on resolving this unless he wants the story become super rushed. Which at this point doesn't even really matter anymore, the cohieson is off.
Not only for Rachel, but for the character progression that the MC had so far as well. From a guy that slowly becomes a witty survivor, he became a second at everything looser in mere moments. This basically pushed his progression back to zero. The thinking and the execution behind it just simply doesn't work well with each other.
I get the intention behind the scene, but given the circumstances with everyting, in and out of the game, it's just a small patch applied to a massive fucking wound that was freshly made, it worths jackshit.