Recent reviews by Tekky

Look, it's bits of Call of Duty and Battlefield slammed together and there's a Tarkov-like extraction mode that plays a little like DMZ. As somebody who grew up playing games like Combat Arms, Soldier Front, AVA, OP7, and various other Eastern F2P FPS games, this has a little bit of that DNA but it has much higher production value (and a lot of the microtransactions and gacha systems). I have found this pretty enjoyable so far, but I think you should be aware that you're going to run into some bugs, some bad translations, and a higher number of cheaters than you would probably find in other games in the genre. Still, I've found both game modes fun and I'm interested to see how the campaign plays; I fully expect it to be better than the MW3 reboot campaign because it would require genuine effort to make it worse.

I'm pleasantly surprised and I hope they can keep it going like this without becoming way too greedy. I will note that I believe some of the skin textures are AI generated (like the HAAVK pack having a bunch of different company logos for the same company), and that this will drive away some people outright. To be generous to the developer, the skins do actually include textures for all attachments, which is something that Activision is unwilling to do while still taking advantage of AI art to reduce costs.

On a final note, there are very clearly botted positive reviews for this game. I have read so many obviously AI written and/or copy pasted reviews that are poorly translated. I don't know why anyone but the developers would want to do this. This is clearly a shady tactic and it should be stopped, I don't really know why they would feel the need to do this given the otherwise decent quality of the game.

This might be derivative of several other games, but is it really just copying them if it manages to do it better than anyone else? I know I'm never going to touch Ark again after playing this at least (and I haven't played Pokemon since I had a Gameboy Advance). I haven't had the chance to really dive into this game so I'll need to update this later, but first impressions are very positive.

Yeah it's pretty good.

I like it a lot. I've been playing on veteran and I've been having a good time. The game is pretty (at a performance cost), the story is good, the map is huge, it's immersive, and the combat is perfectly acceptable. I think STALKER fans will like this game on average, and new players will probably have a good time (after they get through the rancid prologue).

However core gameplay-related problems:

no NVGs (at 90 hours in, if they do exist it would be insulting at this point)
no repair kits
no mutant parts or loot of any kind, and extreme mutant HP (high HP enemies in general*)

These things are actually pretty bad. The NVGs in particular is a glaring problem, there are many gunfights in this game that demand them and their absence feels straight up like somebody forgot to do their job. Enemies blend into the darkness very well and can see you perfectly (also NVGs are visible on many helmets...). I think this should be priority one for GSC to implement because the game feels incomplete without them, many fights feel astonishingly unfair. The worst case scenarios here are open, dark areas like outdoor night time and large underground spaces where the flashlight does nothing.

The lack of repair kits and mutant parts makes the economy suck. You have serious trouble supporting high rate-of-fire weapons that are expensive because you can't bank repair kits or purchase them to keep the gun at high durability outside of town. The lack of mutant parts and high mutant HP makes avoiding them always the correct option (which feels lame when people are out there hunting them, and there are NPCs that mention making money off of killing mutants). I would like to be rewarded for taking the time to kill them. On a secondary note, the bloodsucker nerfs from the early patches make them feel unnaturally weak in comparison to other mutants (though this makes the forced early-game fights much less frustrating).

Major anomalies are also not marked as they are in CoP, but that's really not an issue outside of being slightly inconvenient. Artifact hunting is easily the most effective means of making money early, later on you can make significant money off of well-equipped enemies as well.

*The high HP is definitely noticeable and leads to some very cartoonish moments with high tier enemies. Many weapons feel like a scam eventually because you must headshot everyone after a certain point (the revolver and bolt action rifle both feel very strong at the moment, since headshots are easy and are typically lethal). The underbarrel shotgun for the bolt action is also surprisingly good and does not damage the durability of the weapon on use, but the firing mode is constantly reset upon using a medkit or bandage, which is very frustrating.

Finally, immersion problems:

A-Life is either non-functional or simply not in the game.

Enemies spawn very close to the player. This is annoying and immersion-breaking. I have encountered only a single instance of meeting an NPC on his way to something and then meeting him again (and this was a quest NPC, so he might have been walking back to an idle location). Even events where enemies of different factions fight each other or humans fight mutants happen very close to the player. I've never spotted a far-off fight, and I have encountered plenty of instances of clearing a room and then being shot by a new squad that has just spawned. It really can't be overstated how tragic this issue feels because I think it represents the loss of a major core experience in the STALKER series. I hope they make the decision and take the time to fix this.

The developers do not know what they are doing and are flailing while trying to restore a completely collapsed player base.

If you are not experiencing technical issues, the most recent update makes fights feel much more varied and matches much smoother and faster overall. The new map is excellent and the projectile drop ranges are long enough that they do not change most fights unless you frequently snipe. The UI update is not overall negative, there are certain aspects of the new UI that are better and several that are worse, but I think people need to be realistic about the old one being just as garbage as the new one, and the proposed updates look good. I know some players are experiencing crashes and other graphical problems and those suck, and I think are legitimate reasons to be upset about the update.

It just works.






Mostly.

It's AC after 10 years. I think a lot of people wanted it to be something different, and I agree somewhat with the complaints about the stagger system. Balance is certainly all over the place too. I also still can't play online due to the black screen crash and subsequent bypassing of EAC. I hope they get that figured out soon. UPDATE: This was an issue caused by Process Lasso and EAC, so if you're running into this problem you will need to turn off the governor, or if you use a similar program you're probably going to need to disable it.

Regardless, I've had a great time. I'm also very happy to see such a huge response from players for this series since I can pretty safely assume that AC is back and we will be seeing more of them in the coming years. This is a game that I think will only be loved by a very specific sort of person, and since it's the only one available on PC it's hard to gauge whether or not you will like it. I suppose people who enjoyed Daemon X Machina will understand the fundamentals of this style of game, but AC6 is a departure in that it borrows some of the mechanical systems from FROM's other IPs. I still think the vast majority of previous AC players will enjoy this game anyway, and I'm looking forward to a more multiplayer-focused entry in the future, like Verdict Day.

So, FROM, when are we getting the sequel to Chromehounds?

It's an extremely simple, goofy, fun, and inexpensive game. What more do you really want?

The playerbase is tiny and the monetization is extremely aggressive. Regardless of how fun the game can be, these things are too severe to recommend.