I'm not sure if explaining their motivations better in-game would really change much how they are understood, as people tend to focus more on the actions and not on possible motivations.

I think I'm starting to agree with that, at least in basil's case. I feel like his motivations for what he did are decently clear. I think most of these problems could be solved if the captions were in the game. Honestly I felt like the pictures were super difficult to understand at first. Until I found this sub I didn't even realize that the suicide was supposed to have been Basils idea, and that was after I had beaten the game. Also I didn't realize at first that the pictures were from Basil's perspective (maybe I'm just dumb).

I feel like I'd rather have too much info in this situation than to little. The emotional impact of the game's finale is a lot stronger if you're on the same page. I get why people like the story being a little less clear cut, I like it too. There's a lot of good "theory food" like>! The identity of ABBI, the somethings, etc.!< But I just feel like such an important plot twist should be more clear.

I think you've kind of made me realize that my main issue is just that the captions should've been in the full game. (I still stand by the newspaper idea though, if only because it would just shut down the "they would've been caught" conversation for good)