The "Kill the Past" series can be repetitive. Some of it is out of your control, like all the establishing shots, transitions, and outro sequences. Some are active like Tokio checking his emails, or Travis taking oddjobs to afford the next ranking battle. All of it makes the game's world feel more familiar. After enough time, most of it feels as normal as the moon in the sky.

Take Susie, the disembodied head from Killer7 who gives you elemental rings for puzzles. When the player first encounters her, they'll be wondering what the hell is going on. By the 4th time they'll be think is "I wonder what this ring does".

The player start to feel safe, knowing what to expect. This is when the game can really fuck with you. Almost every chapter in killer7 starts in Garcian's trailerhouse, where he walks in on an unconscious Harmon getting abused by his caretaker Samantha, wakes him up to discuss their objective and leaves. All while screams and bangs come from a heavily locked door in the back. This is all unsettling, but after enough times you feel secure in knowing how this world works. Later that security is shattered by a missing Harmon, a dead Samantha, and the locked door, now unlocked and silent.

Late game in the Silvercase, we learn about the shelter kid program. We learn they were conditioned into, among other things, becoming perfect, obedient citizens by making them do repetitive tasks. The players are like the shelter kids. If the player is at that point, they have experienced all of the repetition and done everything the game expected them to. The game's world, in a sense, has become normal to them.

In the 25th ward Kosaka says it himself "we're just dolls, entrusting our everything to the system."

The repetition in Kill the Past has me noticing the repetition in games and real life. It has me questioning what makes things in general feel normal.

Pretty often I hear helicopters outside my window. I haven't thought about it until writing this, but that would be weird for you wouldn't it? It feels normal to me.▮