Recent reviews by Fentanyl

Ok, for anyone who is interested in playing the game but sees all the negativity surrounding it lemme start by saying this:
The game is good, and has plenty of potential, BUT it IS an early access game, so SHOCKERS, it has a long way to go.

PERFORMANCE:

The gameplay and movement is extremely impressive for early access. Everything flows well, and the animations aren't choppy or sudden. Framerate and performance honestly blew me out of the water. Never got any frame stutters or drops, and network issues never occurred during my gameplay. Kind of makes me sad that the developers went through the trouble of making sure their game ran smoothly on launch to the public, unlike 95% of games these days (early access or full release).

GAMEPLAY MECHANICS:

So far, whats in the game offers a good amount of diversity for differing players, although not as much as there should and likely will be upon full launch. The fighting itself is solid, and like a dumbed down For Honor. Im not going to compare to Chiv because they are nothing alike IMO. There are moves and abilities, similar to For Honor, but I would honestly say the game plays closer to a MOBA (multiplayer battle online arena) than what most people compare the game to. Each character has certain move and abilities that have predetermined strengths and weaknesses. Reading your opponents and making on the fly judgement calls is what is going to win you battles, NOT REACTION TIME. Think more strategical, and less fast paced whoever mashes first wins. Certain characters will be harder for your character to approach, while others are easier to pick off and take duels effectively with. This, to me, leads to some pretty fun moments playing with friends and opens a LOT of teamwork opportunities since there are more hardcore crowd control abilities in this game.

WHAT NEEDS WORK:

People say squad size used to be bigger, and I would like to see the game go larger than at least 3. 4 is kind of the magic number but I can settle. And my biggest gripe with the game:
It NEEDS ranged characters. All out melee battles are fun, but the game obviously is balanced around ranged characters being in it, with certain characters having abilities to deal with them, yet having no one to use them on.

I would complain about the battle pass not being worth it or whatever but its 2023. If you havent figured out that you can WAIT (shocker I know), and level up the free version of the battle pass to see if:
1. You have enough time to finish it
2. The rewards are worth the purchase
3. The battle pass isn't purposely hard to level up to gyp you of your money
Then, by golly, you DESERVE to be gyp'ed. Wait until you level it up, if you dont like it, complain to the devs and wait until they change it. BUYING IT AND THEN COMPLAINING AFTER THOUSANDS OF YOU GIVE THEM MONEY IS HOW YOU GET THEM TO NOT CHANGE IT.

But yeah, if you have a brain, and like MOBAs, I'd give it a shot. If not, hey, itll hopefully be more fleshed out in 6-12 months.

Many people compare this game to Tarkov, and I would agree, they are similar. I have hundreds of hours in Tarkov and so far about 25 in this game. I will say off the bat, I enjoy what this game has to offer much more. Tarkov tries so hard to be so many things that it doesn't do anything great. It just has a lot. The gunplay has a lot of issues, audio is non existant, RPG elements are poorly designed, Realism elements are poorly done, game is grindy in the wrong ways, etc. Also, whether people like to admit it or not, the EOD edition is pay to win. Deny it all you want, its true.

This game fixes sooo many issues Tarkov has by dumbing the systems down but still keeping a complexity that you can love.

The gunplay offers longer engagements that allow for a higher skill gap or skill floor. Tarkov you can be a ♥♥♥♥ player, but as long as you know how to abuse their scav and market system you can get good gear. The rest comes down to sitting in a bush, and since its easy to get gear that 1-3 taps people, wait for your victim. In the cycle, killing someone fast means controlling your spray and landing consistent damage. If you get the drop on someone but mess it up, they still have a chance to fight back. The game feels less slow, people like to push because they dont fear getting one-tapped from Narnia.

Audio is better. Enough said.

Faction system offers a simplified version of Tarkov traders, with more fulfilling questlines and ways to upgrade them. Game also doesnt have elements of realism and RPG that contradict one another.

Not pay to win.

People complainging about cheaters every other raid but I have yet to see one in my 25 hours. Most likely people getting Gamer'ed on and claiming cheats.

Do I personally like the game? Yeah, I GUESS. Would I RECOMMEND it to OTHERS? Hell no.

Lets start out with an obvious reason. Game is optimized like dog piss on PC. Screen tearing, frames freezing, lower FPS, crashes, the whole sha-bang. Give it a couple months and maybe we'll have something more stable.

Second reason is simple. From ♥♥♥♥-ware designs games that are made to purposefully irritate the player. For a veteran gamer, or someone who really enjoys punishing hardcore experiences, they'll enjoy it. For someone who REALLY cares about tone, exploration, and general aesthetics, you'll like this game (hard maybe). But for the majority of people out there? Nah bro, this game is ♥♥♥♥♥.
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NPCs and quest lines are confusing to follow, and most people likely depend on wiki pages and youtube videos to even finish them. If you're playing blind or offline, it'll be easy to miss important figures or NPCs. Many are simple to find, but make one small mistake with exploration and you can miss someone and never find them, thinking you've been through that area.

Certain core mechanics are confusing and unclear, for the SHEER SAKE, OF BEING UNCLEAR. When an NPC gives your character a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ disease that lowers their vitality, the best the game can do for you is give you a small symbol below your health bar. There are no descriptions in the status page that tell you what the debuff does. IF MY CHARACTER KNOWS THAT HE HAS A DISEASE OF SOME SORT THAT IS LOWERING HIS HP, THEN THERE IS NO REASON THE PLAYER SHOULD NOT KNOW AS WELL. This is design intentionally made to be cryptic when there is no reason for it.

Enemy animations. Many, many attacks in the game feature an aspect where the beginning of the animation is very fast, but then towards the middle or end slow down drastically, where the enemy is almost in slow-mo. This, is designed to get the player to roll anticipating a threat, and then be struck by the slowed attack. Once again, it can be adapted to, but many enemies you'll find yourself dying to, simply because their animations are made to trick you. Dying 1 or 2 times to an enemy simply because their attacks are MEANT to be unreadable, so that way you HAVE to die a couple of times just to learn them, is not fun, it just wastes more time.

Speaking of enemies, lets talk about the bosses. Yeah.... most are ♥♥♥♥. This game features the most 2+ enemy boss fights I have seen. And if there's one thing From ♥♥♥♥-ware can't do right, it's boss fights with multiple enemies. Many times you're fighting 50 feet tall giant enemies that you have to awkwardly look upward to while fighting, and then there's a good chance the second or third gigantic enemy will attack from behind, making any sort of read or counterplay unachievable. Additionally, their attacks dont follow a pattern, they do their own combos and strings whenever, so often times their attack can sync to where: Player dodges incoming attack --> Player gets struck by attack from second enemy out of their roll, therefore impossible to dodge or avoid. This introduces unfun elements of RNG into fights, and makes summoning a MUST if you want to beat certain fights. So far, there are a total of THREE bosses that I left going, "that was cool / fun". Besides the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ animation design and the amount od 2+ fights, the bosses in general feel samey, or lackluster. Only TWO bosses in the game have actually made me go, "wow, that boss is really interesting".

ANYWAYYYY, yeah. Exploration and world are cool, character building and progression is fun. Gameplay itself is a spicy pickle in an old ladies ass on a hot Alabama day.

If you disagree with me go fight Preceptor Miriam and then come back and try to tell me otherwise with your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ torn open by 300 magic missiles by a "boss" that can spam magical spells and teleport away constantly while doing so. And if you still disagree go see a psychiatrist.

This game has the WORST developers I have ever seen in my life. This game has been out for years and YEARS, and is still the buggiest, glitchiest, most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game I have ever seen. 85% of the time I try to play this game, 2-3 hours of it is spent in the main menu trying to join a friend's game. The community maps are filled with game breaking bugs that make the game impossible to play on some of them.

Their newest accomplishment is updating the game for Thanksgiving and now players can not play with their friends on DLC maps on non-dedicated servers. And guess what? It has been a thing for weeks and the devs have YET to respond or provide any sort of communication on the subject.

These developers are here to milk their desperate community for money, and that's it. Their lack of passion and care for their players is apparent in the ways they serve the community (by not doing anything, and introducing more bugs). They know that their game fills a niche gameplay element in the survival genre, and because its the only game of its kind on the market, players will play it & mentally block all the things wrong with it.

Look, if you want a dinosaur training survival pvp pve experience, you have no other choice.
However, if you are looking for a decent survival game, I can PROMISE you that there are MANY other survival games out there that will induce 40000% less headaches.

Game is solid. Very fun and enjoyable

Server & latency issues everywhere. Cosmetic and progression system need a lot of tweaking.
Ranked Queue is completely busted and needs to be adjusted.

Bring back hard collision. At least against enemies at the very least. Walking up behind someone just for them to suddenly back-peddle and get a back stab on you as you melee air is dumb.

Great game. The atmosphere is perfect, the audio is some of the best design in any game I've ever played. The gunplay and intensity always keeps you on your toes.

As far as balance goes, it is genuinely probably the MOST balanced game I have seen. Any gun, any play style, is viable. Sure, some are more potent than others, as is designed with their progression system, but if you find a gun you like and really master it, you can take on anyone. Aim and positioning are the key to winning engagements, which is how shooters should be.

Overall, I give it a 9/10. It would be a 10/10 but there's currently a re-skinned AK-47 in the game called the Dolch. It is the reason I dont say concretely its the most balanced shooter I have played. Take the Dolch out and the game is a 10/10

One of the most satisfying single-player experiences ever, if not THE most. The gameplay loop is rewarding, and never gets boring. Bumping the difficulty up doesn't make the game a cheese fest, like many other single-player experiences ( Example: Divinity Original Sin, or any other game developed by Larian Studios. Im not salty, you're salty, stfu). Just get good or go home you f***ing loser. Any of those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ rogue-like mechanics where no matter how good you are you're destined to die? HELL NO! Either you're good enough, or you suck booty butt.

Exploring maps feels rewarding and challenging. Puzzles are good, but not dummy hard. Replaying the game is always gonna be fun because the skill cap is very high, meaning there's always room for improvement. 100/10 soundtrack.

One of the funnest Coop experiences you shall ever have. Truly a masterpiece if you set aside the greedy route they went with the DLC. But if you play the game a lot, the DLC is worth it to some degree. Hopefully you guys actually have decent friends who will play through the game with you.

♥♥♥♥ you Nicc, Troy, and Daboata.

Good game.

Good game.