Dungeon Crawler Carl vs. Camusian Absurdism

Prepare for a highly pretentious post…

Albert Camus describes the “absurd” as the confrontation between the human desire for meaning, and a universe indifferent to that search.

This is the core conflict in The Myth of Sisyphus — a man condemned to eternally push a boulder uphill, fully aware it will roll back down again. His struggle contains no objective meaning. Camus says that Sisyphus’ task is meaningful only in the sense that he chooses his attitude toward it. He creates meaning within the struggle, not outside of it.

Carl and his fellow survivors are thrown into a manufactured, arbitrary, and often contradictory world ruled by an alien bureaucracy that has no interest in fairness, morality, or human dignity. All this is broadcast as entertainment for spectators who treat suffering as a spectacle.

The Dungeon, likes Sisyphus’s labour, is endless, cyclical and meaningless. Floors reset, evolve, or negate previous progress. “Win conditions” are often arbitrary or anti-climactic. The system isn’t designed for hope — only spectacle. Like Sisyphus, Carl pushes on anyway, even when the system is unwinnable.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus claims:

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”

Carl embodies this idea — but uses rage, humour, loyalty to others, and sheer refusal to give the system what it wants. His revolt is active, not passive! He chooses to care about people, relationships, and small moral victories even when the “universe” of the dungeon has none to offer.

This “carved-out meaning” is quintessentially Camusian.