The game, on paper, hits everything I like in a crafting/survival experience. I wish it would lean into the sci-fi angle a little harder, but the concept of upgrading your character as you delve into untamed wilds again and again is just fun.
It's just badly made. The devs are obviously amateurs, which is fine except they've had 5 years to refine this game. Even worse, Every part of it is designed to waste your time on top of what is literally errands/chores. It's like the devs designed an OK, kinda crappy but tolerable game, thought 'People are having too much fun with this!', and tacked on a bunch of tedious mechanics.
Want to extract rare resources you happen to find on a map? Go through a 30 minute process of resource gathering and refinement just to get a tiny, incremental bonus that's **vital** for mid and late game advancement. Just because the devs didn't want to program an extraction counter for groups when somebody disconnected or something.
Want to just immerse yourself in survival chores for rich people for pay and glory and whatever? Well, the game will plop you down with a resource list! 9/10 of the resources can be found easily enough, but then you have to spend hours trapezing around the map trying to get those last few units of ore because it didn't spawn in 9/10 of the caves.
Want to hunt dangerous animals? Well, their AI is literally just to make a beeline for your model and attack you. You can't outrun basically anything, even with upgrades, so your only real option is to climb on a rock and shoot them to death with a bow, which is even more awkward because the arrow comes out lower than it should, meaning to actually hit anything you have to jump with each shot. AND ON TOP OF THAT, there are ultra-spongey boss mobs that periodically retreat back to their den to regen health. It is the least immersive, most boring combat I think could be designed.
Want to go exploring? Well, there are random storms that pop up that are literally just 'Stand inside for a few hours and do nothing, or take damage and get debuffed!'. The interior of caves debuffs you too, randomly. Drinking water debuffs you too, randomly. You can negate these debuffs if you spend like, an hour building up a little shelter and another hour gathering all the resources to outfit yourself, but that just doubles the time of most missions.
I bought the bundle because it had so many positive reviews and looked so appealing, and I am just completely embarrassed to have spent so much money and so much garbage. These devs are greedy and incompetent and the only reason I can think that this has gotten good reviews is because comparable games are such an incomplete, buggy mess that our collective standards have fallen off a cliff.
