The graphics are very nice, I appreciate the changing seasons which make the map feel more alive. The fighting is pretty good and fun. I love the new building system that does not involve blueprints, but unfortunately is limited, tried building a tent like house but found out I couldn't fill the holes in the sides of ramps so I'm missing walls.
I like that when getting killed, instead of a game over you get a second chance by waking up to find out you were captured by the cannibals and you have to escape which is really fun. The mechanic of digging things up is really cool and fun.
The game is missing the scavenging side of survival, you don't really need to hunt anything because everything is battery powered created out of duct tape or mushed together by other modern stuff, which can be found everywhere across the map so you don't really need to try because you have already everything in your inventory just by randomly picking things up.
Any steep angled hills or mountains are terrible, you can basically run up a hill that's almost vertical without even at least slowing down, the same goes for getting down from a mountain, you get down with the same speed as jumping down without taking any damage just by hugging the walls while sliding down.
The map is very big, which I don't mind all that much but makes it very tedious when you find out you missed something and have to go back across the whole map.
Stuff respawns after reloading the game which makes it very unsatisfying finding anything after couple of hours because your inventory is already stacked, you don't have to worry about food at all in the game because why bother when there are snacks respawning all the time. You could genuinely play through the game without eating from your inventory and just eating what you find at camp sites, which makes the whole hunting part and thus animals useless. I see how non respawning items could become a problem if you're focused on building but it would need at least couple days respawn cooldown.
The story is terrible, there was no story in the first 14 hours of the game and suddenly at the end some guys just show up for couple of seconds and then you immediately get knocked out, it wasn't even hinted that there are any other alive people from outside the island (with the exception of Kelvin) on the island, they just showed up out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly while you have no idea what's going on.
There was no boss at the end just bunch of stronger enemies, which were very easy to kill with a shotgun and closer to the end I just sprinted through them because I got bored of killing them.
The story overall is very confusing and barebones, after reading on the internet I found out that apparently one of the guys who showed up in the cutscenes (which could use some voice acting) is Timmy from The Forest and the other is his father which we were playing as in the first game, which was not clear from anything presented in the game itself. The only story we get while playing is about some stupid golf course and how the balls are missing and they can't play, you get to read about 6 emails just about that.
The end was not satisfying at all, you didn't have to make any sacrifice, nothing to actually drive your decision to either leave the island or stay, you just get into a weird box where out of nowhere all the characters appear in and after seeing some unexplained weird stuff you appear outside with the choices presented to you. Like what was that about, is someone going to explain to me what just happened? I have no clue if we were trying to destroy the corporation running the island and succeeded, or we just wanted to get out and accidentally ran into these guys and now we get to leave, I have no clue what consequences had the main character on the island or the story, we just got into a box and then jumped into a helicopter, the end.
The story needs some heavy polishing. Other than that the game is really fun, some bugs here and there. The game mechanics could use some balancing to make it more like your fighting to survive and less like running around and killing anything that gets into your way, without ever worrying about running out of food or water.
I'm sure the devs will pull through and make an amazing game out of it in a couple of months or years. Take this review more as a report on the current state of the game and notes for the developers on what should be changed. At the time of writing the game is just couple weeks old and in early access so holes in the game were very much expected.
I like that when getting killed, instead of a game over you get a second chance by waking up to find out you were captured by the cannibals and you have to escape which is really fun. The mechanic of digging things up is really cool and fun.
The game is missing the scavenging side of survival, you don't really need to hunt anything because everything is battery powered created out of duct tape or mushed together by other modern stuff, which can be found everywhere across the map so you don't really need to try because you have already everything in your inventory just by randomly picking things up.
Any steep angled hills or mountains are terrible, you can basically run up a hill that's almost vertical without even at least slowing down, the same goes for getting down from a mountain, you get down with the same speed as jumping down without taking any damage just by hugging the walls while sliding down.
The map is very big, which I don't mind all that much but makes it very tedious when you find out you missed something and have to go back across the whole map.
Stuff respawns after reloading the game which makes it very unsatisfying finding anything after couple of hours because your inventory is already stacked, you don't have to worry about food at all in the game because why bother when there are snacks respawning all the time. You could genuinely play through the game without eating from your inventory and just eating what you find at camp sites, which makes the whole hunting part and thus animals useless. I see how non respawning items could become a problem if you're focused on building but it would need at least couple days respawn cooldown.
The story is terrible, there was no story in the first 14 hours of the game and suddenly at the end some guys just show up for couple of seconds and then you immediately get knocked out, it wasn't even hinted that there are any other alive people from outside the island (with the exception of Kelvin) on the island, they just showed up out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly while you have no idea what's going on.
There was no boss at the end just bunch of stronger enemies, which were very easy to kill with a shotgun and closer to the end I just sprinted through them because I got bored of killing them.
The story overall is very confusing and barebones, after reading on the internet I found out that apparently one of the guys who showed up in the cutscenes (which could use some voice acting) is Timmy from The Forest and the other is his father which we were playing as in the first game, which was not clear from anything presented in the game itself. The only story we get while playing is about some stupid golf course and how the balls are missing and they can't play, you get to read about 6 emails just about that.
The end was not satisfying at all, you didn't have to make any sacrifice, nothing to actually drive your decision to either leave the island or stay, you just get into a weird box where out of nowhere all the characters appear in and after seeing some unexplained weird stuff you appear outside with the choices presented to you. Like what was that about, is someone going to explain to me what just happened? I have no clue if we were trying to destroy the corporation running the island and succeeded, or we just wanted to get out and accidentally ran into these guys and now we get to leave, I have no clue what consequences had the main character on the island or the story, we just got into a box and then jumped into a helicopter, the end.
The story needs some heavy polishing. Other than that the game is really fun, some bugs here and there. The game mechanics could use some balancing to make it more like your fighting to survive and less like running around and killing anything that gets into your way, without ever worrying about running out of food or water.
I'm sure the devs will pull through and make an amazing game out of it in a couple of months or years. Take this review more as a report on the current state of the game and notes for the developers on what should be changed. At the time of writing the game is just couple weeks old and in early access so holes in the game were very much expected.
