For people that haven't played JC2, go play that. JC3 adds a few mechanics that are nice (plus better graphics), but somehow lacks the charm of JC2. You will want to 100% JC2. 100% on JC3 would be self flagellation.

For those that have played JC2, this isn't a terrible follow up, but definitely not worth the asking price because it feels so unbalanced. Some early parts feel lovingly crafted and you can see where this could've a been great game. But, the story falls apart pretty quickly, it's a technical mess, and there is no indication that it will ever be fixed.

On the non-technical side, the story starts off strong, has some great characters, and has a good amount of mystery. Unfortunately, all the story becomes incredibly boring and predictable, and the main plot missions (only side missions are from DLC) are stilted and repetitive, or a kind of tedious mixed with nonsensical. Also, if you enjoy liberating the towns and playing it as an open world game, most of the missions become trivial. Freeing a town means rebels move in, so when the game throws enemy troops at you, the rebels block them or they don't spawn at all. It's clear they want you to drive by a base during a few missions, which would attract attention, but if you liberated them, nothing happens at all.

There are a number collectibles that are okay, but poorly 'paced'. For example, there are some audio tape collectibles where you hear the psychology of the evil dictator and how he got into power, which are actually pretty well done. But, you only get 2-5 sentences, so following the timeline is difficult (especially since you don't regularly interact with the people discussed and forget who is who). On top of that, there are several tapes placed at the final objective in towns you liberate. Capturing a town sometimes sets off a radio message. so you have two audio tracks playing over each other. Not a big deal, but this is a good example of how the game feels slapped on top of the open world aspect without proper design considerations.

Like JC2, there are challenges - blow up this much stuff in this time, fly this obstacle course, etc. However, these are now tied to equipment and ability upgrades, and are given a rating tied to those unlocks. This is okay in theory, but here is where the run and gun sloppiness that makes JC2 fun is at odds with JC3 and the technical problems of JC3 start to creep in. First off, vehicle control is terrible, at least with keyboard and mouse. Same goes for the wing suit. It isn't a case of different vehicles controlling better/worse than others. They just all feel wrong; like the speed is too slow, but the objectives are made harder to make up for it. No idea how to explain it. After trying a dozen or so challenges a few times and failing all but 1, I simply gave up. They are beyond unfun. But they're CHALLENGES, you say? Yeah, but they're challenging in that "this was poorly designed or hinges on a particularly weak game play element" not in the "I want to get better at this to make the game more fun" way. I wouldn't even care that they feel broken if potentially fun upgrades weren't locked behind them. Also, there's no map HUD, so you're constantly referring to the PDA, where there are no markers for things like 'bases with a helicopter', so you never know where to go to get specific vehicles.

On the technical side, whoa boy. If you played JC2 and thought that was a bit janky, it is nothing compared to JC3. First off, it took a good 2 hours just to get this game running. There's a pointless intro movie that can't be skipped unless you use mods. Turns out all mods have been broken for months. Broken how? They break the online login system, so that you can't log in AND can't play offline. For a single player game. It's very clear that the totally superfluous online features were added to make the DRM less egregious (requires reactivation with hardware changes). Also, the game will pop up sudden disconnects randomly. And then there are the random crashes, the lack of and FOV slider, the graphical glitches, the targeting glitches, etc. During the first 15 minutes I got stuck inside the world geometry. Reload the last quick save? Well, there's no quick save or manual save, so that's a roll of the dice. There is a 3rd party program for changing FOV, but breaks the cut scenes slightly and further reduces stability). Load times on my NVMe SSD felt like HDD load times. In the PDA UI, the cursor was always offset about two full cursor sizes below the point I clicked.

Finally, the two story DLCs I played were about 50% just traveling to the location and back. They were good action-wise and the rewards for completing them were good, but they felt very detached from the main story and confusing depending on the order you did everything.

All these problems and it's been a year since the last patch, so it's safe to assume the game is dead. With the skill they've shown in handling online accounts and the rate of updates so far, I 100% expect this game to be unplayable in 5-10 years, either from OS/Steam/driver compatibility issues or online service changes (thanks to unwanted online features and Denuvo DRM). Oh, there's a whole abandoned island that was probably for DLC, but they apparently gave up on trying to milk any more money from players, too.

If you don't trust my review, go look at the discussion forum. Enjoy reading the 1,446 comments in ONE THREAD addressing what the community would like fixed or added. Or the Q & A thread with the devs that leaves half of the questions unanswered (that person has not been on Steam in 500+ days). I won't be buying another Avalanche game.

For people that haven't played JC2, go play that. JC3 adds a few mechanics that are nice (plus better graphics), but somehow lacks the charm of JC2. You will want to 100% JC2. 100% on JC3 would be self flagellation. For those that have played JC2, this isn't a terrible follow up, but definitely not worth the asking price because it feels so unbalanced. Some early parts feel lovingly crafted and you can see where this could've a been great game. But, the story falls apart pretty quickly, it's a technical mess, and there is no indication that it will ever be fixed. On the non-technical side, the story starts off strong, has some great characters, and has a good amount of mystery. Unfortunately, all the story becomes incredibly boring and predictable, and the main plot missions (only side missions are from DLC) are stilted and repetitive, or a kind of tedious mixed with nonsensical. Also, if you enjoy liberating the towns and playing it as an open world game, most of the missions become trivial. Freeing a town means rebels move in, so when the game throws enemy troops at you, the rebels block them or they don't spawn at all. It's clear they want you to drive by a base during a few missions, which would attract attention, but if you liberated them, nothing happens at all. There are a number collectibles that are okay, but poorly 'paced'. For example, there are some audio tape collectibles where you hear the psychology of the evil dictator and how he got into power, which are actually pretty well done. But, you only get 2-5 sentences, so following the timeline is difficult (especially since you don't regularly interact with the people discussed and forget who is who). On top of that, there are several tapes placed at the final objective in towns you liberate. Capturing a town sometimes sets off a radio message. so you have two audio tracks playing over each other. Not a big deal, but this is a good example of how the game feels slapped on top of the open world aspect without proper design considerations. Like JC2, there are challenges - blow up this much stuff in this time, fly this obstacle course, etc. However, these are now tied to equipment and ability upgrades, and are given a rating tied to those unlocks. This is okay in theory, but here is where the run and gun sloppiness that makes JC2 fun is at odds with JC3 and the technical problems of JC3 start to creep in. First off, vehicle control is terrible, at least with keyboard and mouse. Same goes for the wing suit. It isn't a case of different vehicles controlling better/worse than others. They just all feel wrong; like the speed is too slow, but the objectives are made harder to make up for it. No idea how to explain it. After trying a dozen or so challenges a few times and failing all but 1, I simply gave up. They are beyond unfun. But they're CHALLENGES, you say? Yeah, but they're challenging in that "this was poorly designed or hinges on a particularly weak game play element" not in the "I want to get better at this to make the game more fun" way. I wouldn't even care that they feel broken if potentially fun upgrades weren't locked behind them. Also, there's no map HUD, so you're constantly referring to the PDA, where there are no markers for things like 'bases with a helicopter', so you never know where to go to get specific vehicles. On the technical side, whoa boy. If you played JC2 and thought that was a bit janky, it is nothing compared to JC3. First off, it took a good 2 hours just to get this game running. There's a pointless intro movie that can't be skipped unless you use mods. Turns out all mods have been broken for months. Broken how? They break the online login system, so that you can't log in AND can't play offline. For a single player game. It's very clear that the totally superfluous online features were added to make the DRM less egregious (requires reactivation with hardware changes). Also, the game will pop up sudden disconnects randomly. And then there are the random crashes, the lack of and FOV slider, the graphical glitches, the targeting glitches, etc. During the first 15 minutes I got stuck inside the world geometry. Reload the last quick save? Well, there's no quick save or manual save, so that's a roll of the dice. There is a 3rd party program for changing FOV, but breaks the cut scenes slightly and further reduces stability). Load times on my NVMe SSD felt like HDD load times. In the PDA UI, the cursor was always offset about two full cursor sizes below the point I clicked. Finally, the two story DLCs I played were about 50% just traveling to the location and back. They were good action-wise and the rewards for completing them were good, but they felt very detached from the main story and confusing depending on the order you did everything. All these problems and it's been a year since the last patch, so it's safe to assume the game is dead. With the skill they've shown in handling online accounts and the rate of updates so far, I 100% expect this game to be unplayable in 5-10 years, either from OS/Steam/driver compatibility issues or online service changes (thanks to unwanted online features and Denuvo DRM). Oh, there's a whole abandoned island that was probably for DLC, but they apparently gave up on trying to milk any more money from players, too. If you don't trust my review, go look at the discussion forum. Enjoy reading the 1,446 comments in ONE THREAD addressing what the community would like fixed or added. Or the Q & A thread with the devs that leaves half of the questions unanswered (that person has not been on Steam in 500+ days). I won't be buying another Avalanche game.