I've read the books and am about halfway through the Netflix version. The whole tree chopping saga was exactly as it was described in the books, unfortunately.

Omigod my (East Asian) parents do this as well. This makes so much sense now

The show also has a functioning communist society that is thriving out in the Midwest with functioning agriculture, 5 year plans, a movie theater, solidarity, and Marxist-Leninist policy

Wow, I didn't expect that at all after having played the first two games. This actually makes me wanna go watch the show now. I wonder how the show will handle the main conflict in the second game, which was an imperialist and Islamophobic interpretation of the Palestinian occupation and honestly, pretty yuck.