A game that requires a playerbase should not have that barrier to entry. It's unfortunate, but that's the way the gaming landscape is. The devs/publisher really should have done their research before deciding to release at that price point. It's a really creative and fun game, and I would love to see it last. But unless it switches to free-to-play soon, it's probably not going to....

I'd really like to catch this game with a discount but I wonder if online is dead? Is matchmaking takes a long time? How many players are usually in a session?

Do something to save this game im playing bots. If you dont want to make it free to play, then atleast make it free to grab in ps plus next month or free week epic game to grab some players.

Or dead on arrival?

I played for a good while with Game Pass and got nearly everything. I was wondering if this game has a cross-save feature the way something like Sea of Thieves does, where all your progress and achievements carry over to Steam. Couldn't find it in the menus so I'm guessing not, but thought it was worth asking....