It would appear that I am part of a small minority of steam users who are not suffering from random crashes and are able to run the game at max settings without any performance issues. I have to admit that the scenery is quite beautiful, but unfortunately beauty isn't everything. At the time of this review I have clocked about 1.6 hours on steam, and I am seriously debating at requesting a refund and purchasing this game again when they've fixed all the issues.

Now to get to my issues:

I started the download a few minutes after 1 PM EST, which lasted a mere few minutes before being completed.

I launched the game and was immediately thrown into action as soon as the splash screens ended. I received a neat notification that I had discovered the planet I was stranded on. My first instinct was to simply walk around and look at the gorgeous scenery of my newly discovered planet when a pop up notification alt-tabbed me out of the game. I tried to alt-tab back in, but was unable to resume my gameplay. Using the task-manager I performed the "End Task" action and simply restarted the game.

Upon re-launch of the game I was thrown onto a completely new planet, once again receiving the notification that I was the person to discover this planet. Since I hadn't really done anything with my initial launch I simply shrugged it off and started playing again. After an hour and 25 minutes of gameplay, I had explored a good amount of the planet's surface while simultaneously getting credit for having discovered a ton of species and fauna I had come across (One of the flying species required me to climb a mountain and wait for it to fly by in order to scan it). I could track my exploration progress by pressing the ESC button, which showed me how much of the planet I had discovered as well as my status as being "online". At this point I alt-tabbed (unfortunately I had forgotten what happened earlier), and was unable to tab back into the game. The only option I had at this point was to force close the program and re-launch the game for a third time. At this point I was a bit worried since I wasn't sure that I would spawn back onto the same planet, as my earlier experience with restarting the game threw me onto a completely new planet. Luckily, I was not thrown onto a new planet but instead was spawned back on the same planet. However, all my progress had been lost. To ensure that this wasn't a simple connection glitch, I decided to "Quit to Desktop" and launch the game again. Unfortunately, even after restarting the game and re-connecting to the online servers my past progress did not show up in-game.

I cannot stress how frustrating it is to lose all the progress I had made because the alt-tabbing feature doesn't work properly. It said that I was connected to the online servers my entire game play session, so I am unable to understand why my exploration progress was lost to begin with. Does it not upload our discoveries to the online server upon us getting credit for them?

I feel like a player losing all their progress is a potential risk in playing an early access game, but I honestly did not expect to have such an error occur in a finished product that was pushed back twice before being released.

At the current state of the game I cannot recommend it, but if you do decide to try it out be sure to stay away from the alt-tab buttons and manually save your game by jumping into the cockpit of your ship.

---Updated Review---
A friend recently recommended that I re-install the game and check out all the new content added to the game. I have to say, I am completely blown away at what the game has turned into! It feels like an entirely different game from the last time I played it, which technically it is since so many features have been added that didn't exist when the game came out. While there are still some issues while playing multiplayer, the overall experience is amazing and it's clear that the developers are very passionate about their work (it really shows!). I feel like the minimum I could do to show my appreciation of their incredible work over the years is to update my review, if you're into open world survival/exploration type games I highly recommend you check this game out. If you already own the game but haven't played in a few years, re-install the game and check out all the new content that has been added!

I have decided not to remove my original review to reflect my experience during launch, other game developers can definitely learn a lesson that even with a very rocky start you can still make a gem of a game.

It would appear that I am part of a small minority of steam users who are not suffering from random crashes and are able to run the game at max settings without any performance issues. I have to admit that the scenery is quite beautiful, but unfortunately beauty isn't everything. At the time of this review I have clocked about 1.6 hours on steam, and I am seriously debating at requesting a refund and purchasing this game again when they've fixed all the issues. Now to get to my issues: I started the download a few minutes after 1 PM EST, which lasted a mere few minutes before being completed. I launched the game and was immediately thrown into action as soon as the splash screens ended. I received a neat notification that I had discovered the planet I was stranded on. My first instinct was to simply walk around and look at the gorgeous scenery of my newly discovered planet when a pop up notification alt-tabbed me out of the game. I tried to alt-tab back in, but was unable to resume my gameplay. Using the task-manager I performed the "End Task" action and simply restarted the game. Upon re-launch of the game I was thrown onto a completely new planet, once again receiving the notification that I was the person to discover this planet. Since I hadn't really done anything with my initial launch I simply shrugged it off and started playing again. After an hour and 25 minutes of gameplay, I had explored a good amount of the planet's surface while simultaneously getting credit for having discovered a ton of species and fauna I had come across (One of the flying species required me to climb a mountain and wait for it to fly by in order to scan it). I could track my exploration progress by pressing the ESC button, which showed me how much of the planet I had discovered as well as my status as being "online". At this point I alt-tabbed (unfortunately I had forgotten what happened earlier), and was unable to tab back into the game. The only option I had at this point was to force close the program and re-launch the game for a third time. At this point I was a bit worried since I wasn't sure that I would spawn back onto the same planet, as my earlier experience with restarting the game threw me onto a completely new planet. Luckily, I was not thrown onto a new planet but instead was spawned back on the same planet. However, all my progress had been lost. To ensure that this wasn't a simple connection glitch, I decided to "Quit to Desktop" and launch the game again. Unfortunately, even after restarting the game and re-connecting to the online servers my past progress did not show up in-game. I cannot stress how frustrating it is to lose all the progress I had made because the alt-tabbing feature doesn't work properly. It said that I was connected to the online servers my entire game play session, so I am unable to understand why my exploration progress was lost to begin with. Does it not upload our discoveries to the online server upon us getting credit for them? I feel like a player losing all their progress is a potential risk in playing an early access game, but I honestly did not expect to have such an error occur in a finished product that was pushed back twice before being released. At the current state of the game I cannot recommend it, but if you do decide to try it out be sure to stay away from the alt-tab buttons and manually save your game by jumping into the cockpit of your ship. ---Updated Review--- A friend recently recommended that I re-install the game and check out all the new content added to the game. I have to say, I am completely blown away at what the game has turned into! It feels like an entirely different game from the last time I played it, which technically it is since so many features have been added that didn't exist when the game came out. While there are still some issues while playing multiplayer, the overall experience is amazing and it's clear that the developers are very passionate about their work (it really shows!). I feel like the minimum I could do to show my appreciation of their incredible work over the years is to update my review, if you're into open world survival/exploration type games I highly recommend you check this game out. If you already own the game but haven't played in a few years, re-install the game and check out all the new content that has been added! I have decided not to remove my original review to reflect my experience during launch, other game developers can definitely learn a lesson that even with a very rocky start you can still make a gem of a game.