The strongest points of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 are its atmosphere, mysterious setting, storyline and high production values. It's not flawless, and there are some odd design choices, but it is a true and worthy sequel to GSC's original trilogy.
No quest markers leading you by the nose, which means you're expected to comprehend hints and information given to you in-game. If it's your first playthrough and you don't want to consult a walkthrough, you'll need to make notes.
Everspace 2 is highly polished and quite possibly the best game of its genre to date. There are some light RPG elements in choosing a ship type and customising its loadout. The campaign is pretty meaty and there are a sidequests and other activities to keep you busy. After completing the story, there are challenges available which really test your skills and loadout. There's no AAA slop to be found here at all - its all preem stuff.
Encased is heavily influenced by classic CRPGs like Fallout 1 & 2, and if the aim of the developers was to create a modernised successor, they have succeeded. The ruleset by which the game determines whether you succeed or fail is fairly stat-heavy, but transparent, which I appreciate. Unlike certain CRPGs, which give you a vague indication what something does or how a perk improves your character, Encased generally gives you full information. However, it's pretty easy to cheese one's way through the game by investing maximally into a particular ability, so if you don't like cheese, you'll need a degree of self-control to avoid exploiting it. Like some of its predecessors, the game has companions, but they're not well developed and don't have their own quest chains. It seems like a feature that was added to tick a box without being properly developed. I didn't bother with them on my second playthrough. As far as production values go, graphics and art style are not photorealistic, but are nonetheless of high quality, being fully 3D-modelled. For this type of game, they are more than adequate. NPCs are generally not voice acted, but there is a narrator who is. It works well enough, and for the small studio that developed the game, it's a sensible approach. The developers faced quite a lot of controversy and backlash for some decisions they made during Early Access, one of which was accepting funding from a major publisher. From the perspective of somebody who did not participate in Early Access, I believe the backlash was not justified and the developers have delivered a very good game.
In Kenshi, the player begins as a near-useless nobody in a dangerous post-post-apocalyptic world. The goal is simply to survive and become somebody, and how you do that is up to you. Strangers can be recruited, corpses can be looted for valuables to sell, animals can be hunted for food and eventually you'll build your own stronghold (and defend it). There is a streak of black humour in the game world and lore, with several interesting ways to meet your end. Combat is physics based, with an RPG-like stats system dictating how well your characters fight, with more advanced fighting techniques unlocked as they gain in skill. It's very different to pretty much every other game out there, and works pretty well. There are a number of fairly intricate systems in the game, like detailed tracking of limb damage and amputation, and lost limbs can be replaced by prosthetic ones. I predict that Kenshi will turn out to be quite an influential game, and even if not outright copied, some of its systems will be borrowed by other game developers. Graphically, the game is not cutting edge, but the world is original and can be quite scenic in the right place at the right time of day. Kenshi 2 is now in development, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
