This popped up and I seem to remember hearing about it in my indie game channels, but I couldn't remember what I had specifically heard. But, man, weird flesh growing out of the earth? Ruined cities? Roaming robot overlords? Sign me up! So I bit the bullet and bought the early access.

Man.

I have a hard time maintaining focus on games, mostly because as a working father of two, I don't have a lot of time. But once I booted this up, hours flew away. I finished everything in the main quest, then figured I was done, and went and went exploring, only to stumble on about twice as much content as I expected. And I keep thinking about it.

This is a real gem. Stealth plays well, combat plays well (melee and rolls are a little sticky and could be more responsive, but I've seen worse). I focused on Animalism, Empathy, High Tech and Occultism ("explore the world") for my first playthrough and they feel really underdeveloped. You don't need more than Animalism 3, and I've only seen two instances where Empathy was used (a 2 and a 3), only two instances of High Tech (both at 2) and nothing with Occultism other than increasing my Focus. But I chalk this up to it being Early Access. These are things that tend to come out as you get into more and more story, so I'm not really bothered by it. Most of my subsequent development has been on Stealth/Blades. I wouldn't ignore these traits, though. A game like this is really going to attract lore-hounds, and playing "a scholar who pieces together the mysteries of the past" is probably going to be a popular way of playing the game.

I look forward to seeing how this progresses! I think I might reroll a bloodthirsty maniac. Just how much does the story change if you play through differently? Let's find out!

To be clear, I'm not criticizing this approach. You want the foundation of the core playloop to be in place before you start branching out into other stories and elements. Combat and stealth should absolutely be in place first before you start worrying about branching dialogue trees or a network of occult Easter eggs. It'd be interesting to think of a core occultism/high tech play loop but I'm not sure what that would look like, and in any case, the inspiration for this game was Fallout not, say, Cultist Simulator.