As for early access: So far the game offers the first chapter with roughly twelve hours of gameplay and is pretty stable already. The only bug I encountered was some chopped off music at a certain scene. The devs want community feedback on how to continue development on the last stretch. If you don't plan to get involved, you might consider waiting for full release. How to best describe this game: It is to Elder Scrolls what Necromunda Hired Gun is to Doom. It's obvious where the game got its inspiration from, but it brings enough own content to have its own identity and brings new ideas to the table. The lore is set in grimdark early British mythology, with king Arthur and druids and all. You start as the classic clean slate prisoner, as there are no classes and you level up skills by doing. The skill tree has been streamlined, and you only have two schools of magic now. To make up for that, the actual combat was improved from the classic TES "step forward to hit the enemy, step back to avoid getting hit back" formula. You now have a sidestep, some time-related cantrips and can pull off some neat combos. It still is somewhat clunky, but already an improved experience compared to the original. So far the characters and quests range from unremarkable to intriguing. The choices are advertised to matter, whether that actually happens remains to be seen in 1.0. The wyrdness as both a story and a game mechanic is not entirely new, but still well-integrated. Graphics are passable. The sound is pretty great though, eery druidic chants or horns with lots of bass. Clubbing an unarmored enemy head gives. satisfying THONK, so that's neat. In conclusion so far very promising, will continue to monitor.
Early Access out of the way, should you get it now? There is plenty of content already, so you won't be bored until the 10-15 hour mark. There still are plenty of bugs, but none gamebreaking. The game is mostly missing side content, as the main quest is already implemented. Overall this game is a farming sim with a focus on exploration in the tropical Caribbean-like setting and tourism. You are able to explore different islands and earn money by making the archipelago a tourist spot and selling your wares to tourists. You can build crops, tend to animals and build a farm, but can also automate it later on in order to fully concentrate on exploration. There is a survival element to it, as you have to manage food, drink and sleep. Apart from that you have other farming sim classics like mines, fishing minigames, a town with townsfolk, and festivals. The main difference is the availability of other islands that you can travel to, explore for riches and free from pirate control via combat. The artstyle is cutesy and uses lots of warm colours. The music is fitting for the setting, but won't stick in your head. My only gripes are the astounding size of the maps (getting from your farm to the town on foot will take four or five ingame hours) and the somewhat shallow social system. Conversation with villagers is deeper than just talking to them once a day, as you have multiple answer options and have to pick the right option for friendships to deepen. But with not even 15 villagers the huge main island feels pretty barren, and there's not much you can actually do with them yet. If you want a game focusing on the social sim, try out World's Dawn instead, or maybe wait until this game comes out of early access. Overall it's a great game if you're looking for a chill farming and islandhopping experience. I haven't been this excited for an early access farming sim since Portia.
My personal regrettable purchase of 2020 over on Steam. This is a story sequel to XCOM 2, but an entirely different genre. This is probably best described as a puzzle game with some tactical elements and RPG mechanics. The gameplay loop consists of your team breaching a room or otherwise closed-off area, entering bullet time, and solving a turn-based puzzle of killing the baddies and clearing the room. Rinse and repeat in the next room. The gameplay is not terrible, but it's sadly not exactly good either, and it gets repetetive really fast. Unfortunately this is the strongest point of the game. The story starts with a promising concept (baddies from XCOM 2 leave, leaving hybrids and the problem of integrating them behind) but falls flat in the execution with a completely predictable "baddies want to kill all nonhumans, let's stop them with the power of friendship" narrative. The characters are now center of the story (so there now is no permadeath), terribly one-dimensional because they are exclusively defined by two or three character traits each, and especially the dialogue is just cringy. It's clear that someone tried to recreate colonial marines from Aliens, but didn't understand their social dynamic and just created Mean Girls with guns. Graphics and Music are par for the XCOM course. Not special either way. Overall don't bother unless you are really a fan of the series, or are in a serious slump. For everyone else, the gameplay itself can be fairly enjoyable if you manage to shoot the game for five bucks or less.
