Recent reviews by Gum

This is a great game. I was hesitant about getting it because of the bad reviews, but I am glad I didn't let them stop me.

The writing is not bad, and the characters are also not unlikable. There is a distinct shift in how the lore/ story feels, a bit more like a campaign of a ttrpg and more of a 'we support each other as a team' overall feel, than the previous titles, but it has been enjoyable so far.

The bad reviews are mostly people crying about it being "too woke" whatever that means. There is one non-binary character and it gets mentioned a handful of times. That's it. Unless you decide to romance them, it is not an important detail to the story at all.

The game is varied, ties into the established lore well, has great environmental design and graphics, great combat and quests. It fits well in the line of Dragon Age games.

The game is great. It is everything you expect from a Bethesda game.

For people who never bought Bethesda games before, they are never perfect at release, and get better as updates trickle in. But people who love these games also never buy it just for the base game. You buy it because these games are little boxes of unlimited modding potential. This one is no difference. Once creationKit hits, you will be able to turn this game into anything you want with the amount of mods coming out.

It is a fun, good 4x game. It is different enough to stand out and to feel new compared to Civ or Stellaris or others in the genre. I personally love the city building aspect.

I have had zero issues so far. Game booted in one go, I played for 7 hours straight. It did not crash or lag once. My setup is an i7 with gtx 1080 running on 2550x1440.

The UI is easier to 'learn' if you have played their previous titles but I don't think that the reviews calling it cluttered are correct. Everything has its place and is easily found by glancing over it. All you have to do is learn where to find it. But I much more like this layout than having to click through several menus to find it.

The reviews saying they don't understand the religion or political influence systems have just not read the game's popups or tutorials. both are explained, and both are relatively simple systems.

The AI is the only part that I am not happy with for now. They are a bit too easy on the default setting. Their different characters are fun (war like, peace like and so on) but once you get the upper hand, you can keep the others down relatively easily. In the game that I played, they never really worked together against me.

As for bugs, I only have had a few minor ones. The one that bugged me the most is that the Civs that had been killed where not greyed out after a certain turn. So nothing game breaking.

All in all a great game and I recommend it. Aside of the mechanics the game art and audio are also relaxing and fitting.

A fun creative game for now, but I think it will be simply amazing once it is finished and polished. Buy now if you enjoy the creative mode in games, buy later if you need the survival aspect.

One of the best 4x games that I have played. Immersive, replayable, and every update has been great so far.