Recommended for fans of open-world and survival games.
At full price? Yes, it is very much worth it. On sale? Of course!
Rating: 7.75/10

I've been following the game for more than a year before I decided to buy it just a few months before it went out of early access. Let me just say that it's a game I just couldn't put away!

PROS:

+GRAPHICS & WORLD: The graphics may look outdated, but please don't let it dissuade you from buying it. (If you've played How to Survive 1 and/or 2, the graphics can be familiar.) The environments are great though - despite the massive explorable world, the environments have their own variety and beauty. From lifeless deserts, to lush greens and even eerie deadlands. However, I have to say that you do have to have a decent machine to also have a decent experience.

+GAMEPLAY: The game has so much to offer. Starting with a cliché: you can become anything! There is no "measure" of morality here, just faction reputations. One thing I love is the availability of a stealth gameplay. The stealth aspect depends on the distance between you and the witnesses/target and their line of sight. How well-lit the area is also affects your success or failure of being seen. Combat-wise, you can also choose whether to keep blocking, to keep taunting, to keep running (and pray to Okram a band of holy order paladins are passinig by to smite your enemies if you're not fighting them :p) or to play dead (hoping the bastards won't notice and will eventually leave).

+MUSIC: The music is also great. There isn't much variety, but it sets the atmosphere just right that it captures the scenes and feelings portrayed. Kenshi's OST reminded me of This War of Mine's OST - both bringing depression and hopelessness in the game. Both illustrating the struggle for survival in a very harsh world.


CONS:

-IMMERSION: The game is already amazing as it is. But I find the gui immersion-breaking at times. I just wish it was possible to minimize chosen menus. It would also be great if some characters had voiced lines - say, some of the recruitable characters.

-SAVEFILE: The savefiles can be HUGE. At a 60 hour playtime, the average size for a single savefile can range from 20mb to a whooping 100mb! Yikes. If you're a player who saves frequently, this game will hog your disk space.

-BUGS: There are still several bugs in the game - showing empty squads, loading in a different place where you last were, some characters stopping for no reason... Just remember to refresh your vertexes once loading a save or you'll end up not being able to enter a building (CTRL+SHIFT+F11). Another thing I hate is the random crashing that happens every 2 hours or so. Usually when discovering/entering a new area or loading an old save.

All-in-all, an amazing open-world survival game!