NOTE: I received the steam key for this game by having purchased the alpha back in 2012.

I've spent most of my play time in this new version trying to think of a valid reason as to why Wollay would take every good thing about the Alpha and throw it in the trash when building this game's final version. I could not come up with anything,so my only conclusion is that Wollay is either a mad genius with an intellect far superior to the rest of the planet and we're the ones too dumb to see the genius of his game's design, or he's been emotionally damaged by the oppressive shadow of Reddit comments to the point of self-sabotage.

I was one of the people who never lost faith in Wollay, even as the other side of the fanbase called him a hack, a scammer, etc. so of course I was happy when the release was announced. I had been keeping a close eye on the trickle of information that had been loosely scattered by Wollay for the past 6 years since release, and I was excited for what I was seeing, as it seemed like it was all building upon the foundation of the Alpha, which I put several hundred hours into.

Of course then the beta came out, and then I was immediately disappointed.
Not only were some of the biggest issues from the Alpha not fixed, some were exacerbated and some features were even removed, making this final release an inferior product than the original in-progress Alpha build.

Here's a list of things that were removed from the Alpha:
- progression (levels, power etc.) was all removed. All your power is dependent on your current equipment, in your current region. Monsters grant no experience, making combat completely pointless except against bosses. Levels are tied to "artifacts" which are the end goal of each region, and only serve to increase ONE of your stats, chosen at random, by about 0.2 or 0.3 per artifact. I'm not joking. It would take several hundred artifacts on a single stat to even see a noticeable difference, and the random stat selection includes things like swimming speed or pet riding speed which aren't always useful (I once got a swimming speed artifact in a desert biome)

- the skill tree was removed. You start with all your abilities unlocked, and hang gliding, sailing and pet riding are tied to region-specific items. Namely the Hang Glider, the Boat and the Reigns, which need to be re-acquired every time you enter a new region. This is especially frustrating in ocean regions, since swimming is very slow and you're stuck with it for a while.

- You can no longer keep your equipment when you switch regions, including your boat and hang-glider, meaning you essentially start from 0 when you leave the region you're on. Your equipment remains in your inventory, but outside of its original region its stats revert to zero, making it useless. Why Wollay thought it was a good idea for an exploration driven game to actively PUNISH the player for exploring is something that will baffle scholars for centuries to come.

- You can no longer generate several worlds with different seeds. Every player is playing on the same map, No Man's Sky style. The map is still infinite and randomly generated, but nothing you find feels special since everyone else has a chance (no matter how infinitely small) of having seen it too. By the way, all of the map is revealed, so if you want you can just open the map, zoom in, and scroll infinitely to see what's around the entire, infinite world. There is no mystery and your curiosity is no longer tickled by the blue layer that once hid the unexplored parts of the map, thus making exploration feel unrewarding.

- Spirit cubes are gone. Sure in the Alpha they were mostly completely useless, but it was a good idea and a mechanic that was BEGGING to be expanded upon. I don't even remember if you can add wooden / steel cubes to your weapons AT ALL in this version, because since players can't get too attached to their weapons (as they become useless once you switch regions) there's no point in wasting cubes on them, so I never bothered checking if that's still a thing.

- I should also mention Wollay had published a roadmap including dedicated servers and other features, which he has promptly purged from the internet, along with his presence, after this disastrous release.

Also, the new hang glider sucks and is not fun to use.

So here's your average gameplay experience in Cube World 1.0:

You create your character and realize that you are unable to hurt even the lowest level enemies. The weapons you spawn with deal damage in the decimals and enemies kill you in 2-3 hits. You end up kiting them to friendly NPCs and letting them kill the enemies, hoping that they drop any loot that can hopefully get you started. You open the map and scour the region looking for something that you hope is a city (cities aren't signaled on the map, though you can see them on the map, but they can be easily confused for certain dungeons and vice-versa). After you go to the city and notice you can't afford any of the better equipment, you go back to kiting enemies into friendly NPCs hoping one of them drops equipment that just so happens to be better than yours and for your class, or gold. Once you feel strong enough, you wander aimlessly through the world talking to NPCs so they can mark the important points on your map. You go to the one point of the map that has the Harp (the only item that really matters) and then wander aimlessly some more looking for the towers that the Harp is used on that can either include the best equipment in the region or useless bags of useless gold since the golden 5* equipment is now better than anything the stores sell.
You clear every dungeon, getting the hang glider, reins, climbing claws, boat, etc. Eventually you find a super epic artifact that gives you a whole new level (that doesn't mean anything) and about 0.3% faster swimming speed. But hey, you have cool gear so you're ready to take on the entire world! You pat yourself on the back and move on to the following region only to realize everything you found is completely useless when you cross the border and you're essentially naked again. Going back to the region you were in is useless since you've cleared everything, so there's nothing else to do without essentially starting over. Game Over.


All in all, Cube World went from an RPG where progression and exploration went hand in hand, to a game where there is no progression and exploring punishes the player. The game went from having potentially infinite playtime to being worth about 4 to 6 hours.
All I have to say is, I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this game again. Was the Alpha a complete, polished experience? Far from it, but I got my money's worth of fun from it, where there is an actual game to play. This release is a fraction of the Alpha in both content and enjoyability which is baffling and completely backwards.

I'm really sorry Wollay, but you dropped the ball. I'm afraid it was all for naught.