This game is a mix of Subnautica and space engineers... without all their qualities.
You can create vehicles, but without proper understanding on it work (especially about thrust vs mass).
There is a story but it's average, and since vehicles are anoying and very slow, there is no pleasure in exploring the planet.
You can try this game but be aware the beginning is the only part witch is fun.
That's the thing: the game **is** unfinished, but is still fun to play as long you enjoy sandbox games.
The history and missions are the weakest part of the game, if you like a mission driven game then this is not for you for sure. But it's there to give some purpose for people that like it.
But if you thing is survival and building, than you may find this game enjoyable for a long time. I essentially play it twice an year, mostly on seasons, because I literally spend days planning and building and exploring - I'm playing my first planet for 3 years by now.
The survival part of the game is challenging, and you will die a lot until you get your grasp on the game. But once you reach a level in which can build machines to automate the trivialities of survivability (and upgrade your suit and tools to the max levels), things get easy and you will spend your time building and exploring.
The building part of the game is pretty good. Really, really good. There're some caveats (don't break a large construction in two by accident, you will never be able to merge them again without mods), and you will find yourself spending a serious amount of time finding a nice place and building your castle there.
Forget about Multiplayer, this game is solo. Some Community features would be welcome to GoG users though (there're people sharing crafts on Steam Workshop, that community is quite active!)
If you are a Mac or Linux user on a somewhat limited hardware, this game will need some trickery on the settings to be playable, but it will be playable even on potatos as long you have the patience to trim the settings right.
Overall, it's not the best game you will find around in 2023, but it's was a pretty decent game in 2019 and it's still a enjoyable game for sandbox lovers nowadays. The game is ageing nicely, the graphics are still nice even on 2023 standards. A Ray Tracing mod would be really a game changer here.
If you find it on a sale, I strongly recommend a try.
The game has very limited basic mechanics. In the videos, the game seems to be a lot more fun than it really is. In addition, it is apparently abandoned by the developers. If I could, I wouldn't have bought it.
I love the premise and potential of the game. Free ranging exploration, build your own vehicles and bases, etc. Building is a bit clunky compared to 7 Days to Die, the closest equivalent I have to this game. I have logged perhaps a dozen hours at this point and would likely do a lot more but...Performance. The game does not lag and playing is smooth which is how I missed the problem for so long. Like pretty much any playable big world game, Plant Nomads loads the world as it comes close enough to be relevant to you. To further reduce the burden they load lower resoluation placeholders for things that are within your line of sight but not close enough to really interact with. The problem is that I could easily outstrip the loading speed and so find myself walking first in a distorted version of the actual landscape then in a featureless landscape for a minute or so before the game caught up. Then I could find myself standing next to a hostile life form or some other hazard. This behavior is a gamebreaker for me.
I plan to keep an eye on development of the game they have already performed a lot of optimizations but I will not be trying again until I hear that they have improved it further.
System Specs:
i5-4210U
16 GB
Intel HD Graphics
I truly enjoyed the early access several years ago when it came out, and played over 50 hours.
However devs stopped development and left the game in a state that to me feels incomplete compared with other games in the space survival genre.
Instead of this, I recommend you get an alternate game that's in active development