This game has established the go-to way for me to experience stealth games. The 1st person view makes sneaking, listening to your environment but also switching from cover to cover or shadow to shadow absolutely intense. Loved everything about it. Also the controller support is top-notch with almost(!) perfect force feedback. Lock-picking gives you the option to listen and look around with your right stick, while searching for the right spot with the left stick and resp. force feedback. When guards are patrolling around you, this creates an incredibly intense atmosphere. Besides the parcour movement, which is also present, feels great and reminded me a lot of Dying Light 2 - minus the Kung Fu Style Drop Kicks of course, LOL. Honorable mention for the puzzles, some were done great, with my favorite being the "Heart of the Lion". That's for the positive, which kept me coming back for more. Now the downsides, which almost made me uninstall and quit my playthrough: The story switches from intriguing and fascinating - chapters 3 and 4 were my absolute favorites with their memorable set pieces - to predictable and boring after the 5th act. Which is being amplified by bad pacing. Latter one is making the last 1.5 chapters feel kinda "irrelevant" and made me wishing for the game to end, which was kinda unfortunate. When it comes to story presentation: Some of the cutscenes, which are not presendet in-engine, but via videos, look kinda bad. Some are even interupted (or haven't been completed rendering during production?! LOL) which doesn't do the the main issue with the story any favors. You also have two boss fights, which feel out of place and kinda bad. From the tech perspective: XBox pads only. Having a PS4 or PS5 like pad? The did not work for me. But on the other hand the performace in 4k Is amazing with all maxed out, making the game quite amazing and radiating incredible atmosphere. Long Story short: Great game, bad narrative. If you like stealth game experiences and environmental puzzles, I'd highly suggest to NOT SLEEP ON THIS! Especially on sale.
