Great bones on this game, but it's only about half baked. Looking forward to more getting fleshed out over the years to come.

For an open sandbox survival builder, it's got enough of the right stuff to keep you busy for a while, and plenty of hints to the future. There's some legitimately stunning vistas to discover and build on. I prefer to keep survival settings for food and drink active, but enemies are a bit tough for my liking, particularly when they swarm you later in the game. Base building is fairly intuitive, but pretty barebones on functional decorations. Darkness is real dark, even with the gamma boosted, and base lighting options are really quite weak.

Permanent companion death, not a big fan. They can get knocked down, you can pick them up or they'll eventually get up on their own. But they can also just get killed while down too. Would much rather see this turn into a captured mechanic where you have to go rescue them whether that's a camp or a cave.

There's very little narrative to the story outside of maybe a dozen voice lines and about 20 random documents to give you a vague idea of what you're doing. You could accidentally complete the game just by looking for more loot. The progression feels pretty weird as a result. Like a lot of the weapons and tools don't need to be gated behind so many points of story progression if they wanted to lean into the open world side. That's clearly the side they do a better job at. Also, the further along you get, the more aggressive the enemies become, or at least the variance can be increasingly overwhelming particularly if you're low on supplies.

Oh, and do yourself a favor. Once you can, give the girl your guns. You can always go grab replacements, and she's a better shot than you are.

Great bones on this game, but it's only about half baked. Looking forward to more getting fleshed out over the years to come. For an open sandbox survival builder, it's got enough of the right stuff to keep you busy for a while, and plenty of hints to the future. There's some legitimately stunning vistas to discover and build on. I prefer to keep survival settings for food and drink active, but enemies are a bit tough for my liking, particularly when they swarm you later in the game. Base building is fairly intuitive, but pretty barebones on functional decorations. Darkness is real dark, even with the gamma boosted, and base lighting options are really quite weak. Permanent companion death, not a big fan. They can get knocked down, you can pick them up or they'll eventually get up on their own. But they can also just get killed while down too. Would much rather see this turn into a captured mechanic where you have to go rescue them whether that's a camp or a cave. There's very little narrative to the story outside of maybe a dozen voice lines and about 20 random documents to give you a vague idea of what you're doing. You could accidentally complete the game just by looking for more loot. The progression feels pretty weird as a result. Like a lot of the weapons and tools don't need to be gated behind so many points of story progression if they wanted to lean into the open world side. That's clearly the side they do a better job at. Also, the further along you get, the more aggressive the enemies become, or at least the variance can be increasingly overwhelming particularly if you're low on supplies. Oh, and do yourself a favor. Once you can, give the girl your guns. You can always go grab replacements, and she's a better shot than you are.