To those of you who expected an obliion/skyrim clone, I have bad news; It's not.
It's something MUCH better.
This game takes the beste elements from the Elder scrollsseries and combines them with the best elements from the gothic series. A very good match to say the least.
The terrain is varied and interesting. So are the items/NPCs etc. Feels more real than the ES series.
It's a game obviously made by gamers, for gamers. It's not loaded with unnecessary crap like many newer games. Just pure gameplay.
It's a perfect example that you don't need a 100+ team and millions of dollars to make a really good game. I wish more games would focus on gameplay and not everything else.
The game is still development - and this is clearly reflected in the enemy AI and lack of finished world areas.
However, even in its (currently) unfinished state there is still a lot of fun to be had, and numerous (almost all) fully voice acted interactions and quests. The characters, side stories, lore etc., gave me a similar feeling to my experiences with Fallout New Vegas... Surprisingly well done! Not just endless fetch quests.
There is still a lot of fleshing out to do. The world, while excellent in appearance and scale, still needs more interesting locations, things to find etc., to really get immersed in it. The graphics, and style in general, doesn't scream "unfinished" to me at all - though I suppose some will disagree.
I initially encountered numerous bugs, but they must have been fixed quickly as I haven't been able to replicate them since, and the rest of my experience has been largely bug free!
There's the potential for flexible combinations of playstyles when building out a character, specialising in crafting and similar. Again, these feel like they're just not quite finished. It's to be expected, it's still in development, but I'll be interested to see how they fine tune it.
Playing at 2k resolution with most settings ramped up I tend to get 70-90 FPS depending on the area. I've had the odd, very short-lived, instance of the frame rate suddenly dropping. Other than that, performance has been quite smooth. (My specs: Ryzen 5700X, 16GB DDR4, Radeon 6700XT, M.2 SSD, Win 10)
Personally, I'd highly recommend it. I had a great experience even with unfinished elements. Of course, just remember that it is still in development - so expect rough edges!
The fpRPG that skyrim ought to have been. The developers clearly took their time and drew inspiration from a diverse field of experiences. Definitely pick it up if you can find it on sale, however i'd say it's still worth it at full price. I may come back to this after I have much more experience with the game. Currently only at the beginning of act 1..
