So, I've chuckled at some of the earlier ones (the one from Besiege comes to mind), but this one just felt...off. It seemed like it came from the desire to make a comic for the new game, not make a comic because it was funny or interesting. I don't
mind text walls, I mean
is one my favorite PA Strips - but they text is used for a point of ridiculousness, and makes sense for Tycho to talk that much. It also helps that in instances where characters are playing a game, most strips like Penny Arcade or Critical Miss will put the main strip's character's face or features on the video game avatar. I have no idea who the speaking character is in today's strip, so I have nothing to compare their behavior to. I assume they're one of the "real world" characters from before, but the full armor and helmet means I can't assume who it is.
I'm okay with comics using games for punchlines, but the strip should still make some form of sense when the reader hasn't played the game. This strip just seems clunky - what is that elixir? Why are you bringing up new elements (Baldur's Gate II, another character who knows they're in a game) at the end of the strip instead of a punchline continuing from the earlier panel?
Using another PA example:
I've never played Rainbow Six: Black Arrow, but the visual is goofy, I can tell there's a problem with the game's hit detection, and the punchline has a nice dry humorous tone. It was a comic strip about games that didn't require the player to have spent hours playing to get the joke.
The X-Files strip last time was another strip I chuckled at, even as someone who hasn't finished X-Files. The joke made sense, the premise (A rebooted series) was established early, and there was enough text to explain without over wording the situation. It was a nice, contained strip. This one starts with "already in progress," (which isn't needed, and could have remained only in the title), and just had an adventurer returning the quest item. Here, the joke just doesn't make sense - I got hung up on the elixir name, which caused me to over read every other part of the comic looking for an explanation. The Player Character idea is interesting, but we've established that
THE PC is explaining the upsides of being a player character. Why would there be a second player character in a single player RPG? How would saying "don't' worry, someone else will control your child's every action" be of a comfort?
I think it could have worked much better if the Knight only said "Don't worry, I don't have a soul, and look how I turned out," followed by the mother's statement and the follower's (sort of out of place) question, with the knight's response as the punchline.
I don't know how many strips you've written - I'm only going off of what I see here. And I see a reliance on verbosity that cuts off the punchline or undermines it with poor pacing. The art's pretty good - let that carry some of the writing. It's a comic strip, not a text adventure.
EDIT: Reading above comments I've realized that some party members can be created by the player to flesh out the grouping - giving multiple PCs in a single player RPG. That said, for an element that the comic relies on so heavily, that should have been better explaining
in the context of the joke (such as with the X-Files where the characters discuss the reboot).
