We Were Here Forever

So... I usually do not write reviews because I'm frankly not good at it. However, I've been looking through bad reviews and - although I agree with nearly all of the criticism - I do hope my 130 hours of playtime give me some degree of a grip on what this game is like. First off, narrative. Compared to its predecessors, this game is by far the most story-heavy. It contains cutscenes you are unable to skip through in order to clarify its tale to those who are interested and even has a puzzle focused around it. Those who don't want to play for the lore are very likely going to dislike those parts of it. Players like me who love snooping and piecing together a story, however, are going to find that this game deepens the story in ways many of us should be able to appreciate. Second of all, progression. Although progress can seem slow at times and the uncertainty of 'did it save, did it not' will hang over you on your first playthrough, the game is designed to save at the start of each of its 'chapters' and most of them will even have savepoints before the start of its puzzles. This can definitely make for frustration when you stopped halfway through a puzzle and find you have to regain part of your progress. However, keeping this in mind for when to continue playing and when to take a break will result in the save-design not quite impacting as much of your experience as some of the non-recommendations might suggest. Third; gameplay. What's about to come up is my personal opinion; I adore the puzzles in this installment. Some are unnecessarily easy and some get incredibly difficult. And I hear you ask; "Reviewer, then why do you like them?!" Well, the answer is simple. It's never the same puzzles that are difficult and easy when you play with more than one player. For me as a Dutch player, playing with a fellow Dutch person will make comms a lot faster, but we may start arguing over what to use for the puzzle and the solutions we believe a puzzle will have. To oppose that, playing with any English speaker who's not from a mainly English-speaking country makes communication a LOT more difficult. The puzzles themselves, although definitely feeling at times like one player's doing everything, tend to feel that way when one person has already found the actual hints they need. That brings me to the fourth point on my list; the hint system. Here's the only thing I genuinely did get pissy over first play. If you want genuine hints, you should either refer to the various YouTube video's that have now been made or ask about in the We Were Here discord if you can get a better hint. The hint system, although appreciated in thought, has not been well-executed and instead merely reminds the players to check every corner of the environment for their clues. Experienced Explorers who truly understand the structure of the series' installments will not need it for most of We Were Here's content. The ones that do are either new to the games or - and I will be offending some people with this - have not been paying attention to what the series has been doing plenty and consistently throughout its installments. For the nitpicks of the puzzle-community and those who cannot fathom what a communication-centered puzzle game actually entails, this videogame will not be a match. On the contrary, for the puzzlers who appreciate a game focused HARD on how to communicate clearly and effectively - which, let's be real, is a riddle in its own right in modern society - We Were Here Forever and the We Were Here series as a whole are a hidden gem between titles like A Way Out and It Takes Two. I highly reccommend you play through Forever fully at least once. However, you should decide for yourself whether you're the kind of player that just wants straight-forward puzzles or the kind that is up for the challenge of communication alongside it.