You could always go the Rachel Summers route and have his mind transported into an alternate reality where he has to find out what caused the universe to turn bad/stop it from turning to begin with, or have him take the role of Bishop in that setting (an intro of weird shit happening, he thinks it's some kind of psychic attack or Science Reason, goes to bed, wakes up in the AoA because his power made him immune to the reality warp/time paradox/Other Science Reason) but honestly, if you're going that route, it'd be better to do it as a standalone game. I'm all for the drama and storytelling in a game like this,
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, but that's a narrative shift without the clutch.
See those are all great ideas on how to execute it but it still breaks the sandbox. It' why we're not moving to the Bermuda Triangle or Australia.
We MAY open up San Francisco for awhile but y'all wanted a Sandbox and the team wants a sandbox. Suddenly shifting the sandbox in a way that restricts girls from showing up for more than a single semester/season isn't an option.
Though I will advocate for either DLC or a side project that's just AoA Null... Before they beat AoA like a dead horse. Like even the wiki is brief and missing citations for the later stuff.
Also what makes you think Rachel Summers won't be making an appearance?
I suggested earlier in the thread having short Danger Room Scenarios That Totally Aren't Based On Naughty Fanfic Pixie Found When She Googled Her Friends to unlock costumes for those designs. Rogue's more or less the same character in both universes, but Kitty has one of the biggest personality shifts between the two universes, so it'd be kinda jarring to have her show up.
We have plans for the Danger Room.
That said, getting friendly with Classic 90s Jean and AoA Jean? Goth Rogue and AoA MILF Rogue? Drop me off in the reality where that can happen and smash the dimension-hopping machine, I'm never coming back.
Easy, just have a glimpse of it as a particularly bad nightmare Null has. Maybe Null gets sick and has a bad fever.
We'll do more than that. Like the entire past segments will be presented. It's just during AoA, the X-Men comics took a major shift in showing several issues exclusively in this alternate timeline. With the original appearing very briefly or not at all.
Maybe Null doesn't get involved in some arcs that still happen. He honestly feels like an auxiliary or specialist guy brought in for situations where he is required. His defensive capability makes him a liability until his powers develop.
This. 100% this. For the most part unless it's a mission that can get you a lot of bonus points with girls by participating, you're gonna hear it second hand or maybe read about it in the news or on one of the campus' computers.
Wait, is Null some kinda psyker? Is that why Farouk is after him?
My knowledge on 40K lore is extremely limited but from what I know of psykers? ... Kinda?
I was tired and didn't address this
I'm very glad to hear that the Australia stories will be skipped. I did not much like most of the stories between Mutant Massacre and Second Genesis (start of the gold/blue teams).
After that, many people did not like the gold/blue teams era, but I did enjoy several stories, such as Second Genesis, X-Cutioner's Song, most of the Joe Madureira issues, and of course Age of Apocalypse. The quieter, taking-a-break issues of Scott Lobdell's run were also pretty good, in my opinion. So I hope that the game will include some of the gold/blue teams era material.
The Fall of the Mutants, Dissolution & Rebirth, Genoshan X-Tinction Agenda, and The Return of Professor X Eras will probably all be condensed into chapter 4? As well as Legacy Virus and Fatal Attractions being part of the finale. This will mean skimming a lot of it but we do want most of it to be canon to Earth-69.
Like Cameron Hodge is way too cool a villain to skip over. We need Bishop, Cable, and Stryfe to be a thing. The Horsemen of Apocalypse and Mister Sinister need to make their appearances.
We said the game was gonna end at Onslaught so the Acolytes need to show up and Xavier needs to shut down Magneto.
Some things will be lamp-shaded or cut entirely. If Dazzler is going to be a romance option then we can't have her disappearing into Mojoverse. Mojoverse probably won't be experienced by Null at all. I'll also state that yeah if Magik is a romance option then she's not gonna be deaged and die to the Legacy Virus.
As Shadow King is going to be a chapter 1 thing.(We're way too deep into it to have it not be) it's obvious that that's not gonna be a story adapted around this time.
As stated a million times in the past and will be stated a million times in the future. We're not gonna dedicate the game to fighting aliens every chapter so Return of Professor X will probably be heavily cut down or Null may not take part in the mission.
TL;DR A lot of it is really messy so expect the CliffsNotes of only the important bits. Lots of it will be DLC side quests. Keep in mind that this is a lot of maybes with nothing confirmed.
Keep in mind that I've been using a lot of ifs, maybes, and probably, so none of this is set in stone. Heck we may be willing to make these the longer semesters/seasons if we can justify all this happening over the course of a single year.