The Forever Winter

Please note - Game is still i nearly access as of writing this review. Recommend? Yes, but with caveats. First of all - negatives: * At this time the game is not finished, and it shows. There are bugs, there are some visual rough edges like assets clipping through walls or being misaligned, there are balance adjustments still sorely needed, a lot of animations feel very WiP, etc. * Performance is adequate, but in some areas it can tank, and I mean TANK. * Movement is a bit weird and disorienting, especially when you are knocked down (which I imagine is intentional, but has given me a bit of a migraine) * GRIND. The core gameplay loop is grind, the early (tutorial) quests that you need to get through to unlock the main quests are GRIND. In some cases you need very specific drops from very specific type of container. That means figuring out which map has the optimum route, running it over and over and praying to RNGeesus that he blesses you with your Dinosaur toy (Not even kidding) * Shooting with iron sights seems to have this issue where the aiming point is above the actual iron sight, kind of opposite to the Mark button used to highlight enemies, it seems to be lower than your crosshair. * Arbitrarily unkillable enemies that show up to screw you over. I mean, it's on brand for the lore, and the challenge, but seeing the Shield Officer's smug grin on his HELMETLESS face and knowing you still can't kill him due to game mechanics no matter how much firepower you pump out is where disbelief ceases to be suspended. (I mean come on, you can damage TANKS with BULLETS, this guy's love for cats and his chiselled jawline just makes him impervious all of a sudden?) Likewise, I've had occasions when indestructible bosses from opposite factions ran into each other and started duking it out... Forever. Now, the positives: * ATMOSPHERE is IMMACULATE. The first time I surfaced on Scorched Enclaves, and saw the Europan Medium Mechs just stroll past me obliderating something I could not even see in the distance with barrage after barrage of missiles, while the sky was on fire and the monumental towers of the destroyed city were sucking in smoke clouds in the distance, while half-wrecked aircraft called CORPSE BOMBERS were literally airdropping cyborg zombies onto the battlefield only for those to be rolled over by tanks entering the fray made me consider that Warhammer 40k may have a competitor to the grimdark aesthetic. * Art design is equally IMMACULATE. That goes for the units and the maps because manmade monstrosities beyond human comprehension (aka Euruska as a whole) sometimes pale in comparison with ♥♥♥♥ you see in the environment design (cough cough don't ask where Europa gets their food from) The mood, the lighting, the blending of mundane and normal things from our current year with futursitic ♥♥♥♥ beyond our wildest nightmares is stellar. * Lore - it's grim and dark, and I can't wait to have more of it, because the game dangles some deep implications which I can only hope will get revealed in future updates. * Mechanics - I am a newbie to extraction shooters, and I found this to be very easy to get into. It's PvE with cooperative multiplayer, so far I have played exclusively solo and found it to be an anjoyable experience. Side note - I have EXTENSIVELY played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, especially Misery Mod and Anomaly, and this feels surprisingly fitting that fantasy of leaving camp, going into hostile zone, looting supplies, returning to sell off loot for profit, buying supplies and modifying your weapons to go into even more dangerous area, and repeat. It's also quite forgiving (at the moment) on the economhy side, as you only REALLY need to spend large sums on permanent upgrades or top tier meds. Unless you die a lot and can't retrieve your gear, but then again I am only 30 hours in and have yet to see the endgame areas, might change. * Stability is also surprisingly great. 33 hours, only a single crash, and I think that was my fault as I alt-tabbed at the same time someone joined my squad and the game asked for access to microphone. * OST - instant buy together with the game. Overall - yeah, if the aesthetic is your jam - and you are willing to put up with early access teething issues - give it a go.