Updating this review as of February 2022, the mass influx of negative reviews miss a huge glaring thing. Old review from 2018 is here for reasons: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G4JmvbQQoke6Ev-oMlvQRbfZEWFBoXNSaxigbNRj8Bs/edit?usp=sharing

The Definitive Edition has been out a few months now, and I've had a chance to fully explore it, so here are my thoughts, as a longtime player and supporter.

First, the big thing everyone missed: The Definitive Edition is the dev's last ditch effort to save this game. Server hosting costs a lot of money, when you do it on the scale Playful did, and it really adds up. Creativerse was never profitable with the F2P model. Not even one year. The company was dumping thousands and thousands into it while the player base slowly evaporated. 2020 helped nothing, and between layoffs and player base problems, the devs were in an extremely tight spot. They had a choice, either make it available independent of their servers, or shut the game down FOR GOOD. So they did what they could, which was The Definitive Edition. This brings the costs of maintaining the game down by a huge margin, while allowing them to keep working on their passion project. They no longer have to pay for your servers to stay up and ready to run at a moment's notice. I rarely see devs that love this game and its community like these devs do. By making it a buy once, play forever model, they did the only thing they could do to keep the game running. The F2P/Pro model was never my favorite anyway, but it turns out my suspicions were right, it was never profitable. The game still might have to be abandoned, it depends on us to help this game and this community out. The devs do not have to keep maintaining the game, they are not obligated to keep paying for your servers. That's the model they tried to keep, but it almost bankrupted them. So they gave plenty of warning, made all the big announcements they could, announced it on every single platform possible, talked about it in live streams, published videos, everything, months in advance.

So it really annoys me to see these reviewers who did not pay attention to the multiple announcements, who could have bought the game for like 1 USD while the store was still up, complaining that they no longer have the game. You had your chance, the devs made every effort to tell you, and you ignored it, and now you're mad that they did what they had to and did what they told you. You didn't even support them at all, you didn't help them out, heck, you didn't even PLAY the game, or you would have known this was coming and had the chance to buy it for hecka cheap. Pro even went on sale before the release to make it more accessible to you. Heck, they even PUSHED launch day back by almost a month and gave you extra slack, and on top of that, they extended the migration period. They even offered to migrate worlds for us and make worlds publicly downloadable (with proof) so our friends could download them. They did literally everything they could, and here is everyone trashing on them as if they did nothing. Nobody is obligating you to play the game, just like nobody is obligating the devs to pay to maintain the server you created and then abandoned, leaving it to still suck up server time, space and money. You had every opportunity, and you did nothing, because you didn't care about the game, and that's fine. But now suddenly that they did what they told you had to happen, and NOW suddenly you care, NOW suddenly you worry about it, NOW you were "blindsided". Now that the devs are actually updating the game, saving it and its community from total wipeout, now you're pissed. You can't just play both sides of the chessboard. You don't care? Fine, don't play the game. You do care? Fine, BUY THE GAME. It's not expensive, it's really not hard, most people spend way more on other games, and this game removed all the aspects everyone was complaining were "pay to win". It's the devs' product, not yours. You had sufficient warning. You don't need to review-bomb the life out of a small studio struggling to stay afloat. Good heavens, people!

Okay, rant over.

Here's the bad stuff
--Performance. The game performs much better on the original view radius of 16 chunks, which is awesome, but the new 24 chunk radius runs quite poorly. Gotta work out some kinks there guys.
--Loading. I've noticed the game has issues loading in interactable objects, so frequently when I enter a new area and go to interact with a chest or something, I have to wait over a minute usually before I can actually use the chests. This is quite annoying.
--Blueprints. I've got a bunch of blueprints that weren't published to steam because I wasn't ready to do that yet, and bam suddenly my most recent ones were just gone. It really sucks. I have no idea why, but it's reaalllllllllly frustrating having to redo the blueprints. If you read this, upload your blueprints and set them to private if you don't want them public.
--Camera. The camera now resets all your settings to default every time you leave it. This is quite annoying.
--Automation. I still really think this game could benefit from proper automation. If you play and you do a lot of bulk tasks, a macro is your friend, as well as an autoclicker. You'll save yourself carpal tunnel from interacting with hundreds of processors or forges or anything else.
--Logic. For some reason the game runs 2.5 updates a second, making it almost impossible to make a reliable clock. It also throttles logic after you hit a certain barrier. I get it, performance, but I need a toggle to turn those things off/adjust them. Big logic things are now much harder.

And the good stuff!
--Glass. Oh. My. God. They FINALLY FIXED THE GLASS! I loooove the new texture so much! you can actually SEE out of windows now!
--Loading. The new 24 chunk radius is really nice for big projects and screenies, just not ideal for gameplay. Lots of fun though!
--Ore farming. You can now farm up ore using super extractors and beeswax. It's actually pretty intense to do en-masse, so definitely surprisingly balanced. It's a gameplay loop that solves all the major balance issues that the crafting recipes had before. Farming iron is super possible now. If this is the game's take on farming resources, then I'm actually not opposed, even though I thought I would be.
--New variants. I appreciate the parity changes and the processor tree/recipe adjustments, it makes everything feel like one game, not like a few styles mashed together. Much more balanced. Plus, I get to make lumite bases now.
--Creatures. Not only did the old creatures get a lil love to look nicer, they brought in new creatures! OHMYGOD THE TRUFFL IS SOOOOO ADORABLE! The new baddies look awesome at night, they now have variants for more mobs than just Leafis, yay!
--Settings. Oh baby, I love me some settings and BOY did they deliver! They gave me so many settings that my little shriveled up gamer heart might burst! More are promised in the future, which I really look forward to. I was able to make a server-wide difficulty tier system, that will be super fun to play with friends! Gone are the days the game felt too easy, that's a slider now! I have a few things I wish they would let us adjust more easily, but honestly what they have now is quite amazing and perfectly adequate for the vast majority of needs.
--And of course, tech support. This game has some best-in-class tech support, and that's because of Entuland. I may not always get along with him, but I will always acknowledge that he probably single-handedly saved the Definitive Edition on launch day.

Overall, pros still outweigh the cons. Don't listen to the salty concern trolls who never gave a damn about this game through all the announcements, through all the big signs, until the day after the devs took action and updated. They weren't playing before, and it's not like any of them were planning to start. They shouldn't be review-bombing.