This game is a mixed bag so I'm going with a simple pros and cons list. Pros: - This game is downright Gaaaahgeous[sic] the first time I entered an atlas interface I just about lost my mind. Its liking walking into a neo-synthwave album cover wetdream. Huge props to the set designers, all the stations are pretty, the ships and multitools are pretty, Space is pretty, setting down on a planet is pretty. - Music and sound effects are eargasms - Flying around anywhere I want, land on a planet and walk anywhere I want, mine rocks, tag animals, go spelunking, loot crashed ships. It really is an open world. - Procedural generation works alot better than I thought it would. Cons: - It's pretty shallow. Visiting new planets, scanning wildlife, rocks, and plants while searching for loot and scenic vistas is great for about seven hours and then you've seen everything and that's it, that's the game. There's no faction relationships, or commerce, loot is only in the form of blueprints and I got them all within ten hours of starting, the text adventure snippets that form lore start recycling super fast. - I got pretty awful PC performance. Stuttering everytime I opened a menu, crashing half the time I interact with a blueprint, and every couple of hours I drop down to like five fps and have to restart. - Combat is no skill just auto-aim and upgrade your gun eventually you'll be a god. - Bugs!!! My ship that I had to grind for hours for just randomly took off and flew away without me! WTF Opening certain blueprints crashes your game Warp speed crashes your game Typos I fall through the world every other time I reload a save Unminable minable rocks Mixed: - It feels like the devs wanted you to feel alone on the frontiers of space but they put an outpost every hundred meters and have ships fly overhead every two seconds so I don't really know about how the atmosphere works and whether I experienced what the devs wanted and didn't like it or if they failed. - Inventory management is pretty annoying, again is it supposed to be this annoying or is it just a bad job? Either way it's pretty annoying that your backpack can carry fifteen stacks of iron ore or fifteen beads. Overall I think that this game really succeeded in a chill open world exploration and even though I think the amount of content is more fitting for a $20-30 indie game or an early access then a full price AAA release I probably would have kept it and played occasionally if they had ironed out the bugs before release. As it is I returned it and will maybe take a second look in six months or a year.
