Abiotic Factor

There is so much to explore and do, even just sitting around in the base and tinkering is fulfilling. base building in a cool office/research lab is weirdly satisfying and with many good spots too. the crafting and amount of materials to manage, does become a bit much some ways in.

Good game with some minor complaints, with a warning for story spoilers when I talk about it Positives: A) Fairly unique environment, pretty much entirely taking place within an underground facility but with enough variety to keep it from becoming stale (Offices, manufacturing, labs, reactors, etc) B) Not too grindy. Necessary materials are hard to get for only a little before becoming plentiful enough to farm and have a healthy stockpile. C) Runs well enough, only ever had minor lag spikes when loading in and out of the Lab area specifically D) Game is in a good middle spot difficulty wise as a base game, but it has higher difficulty modes and adjustable settings. Negatives: A) Enemy variety is somewhat lackluster. There's some cool enemies sprinkled about, but most of what you'll be fighting are human enemies with guns. Most of the alien/scp type monsters you'll be fighting are all reskins of the same creature (The Pest, Peccary, and Exor). B) Gunplay can feel pretty bad until you get used to it/level a lot. You have to level your aiming skill, but until you do its like your character has Parkinson's. C) The last area (Spoilers). [spoiler]The Residence is pretty much empty and the Fragments is just...bad. Its a jumping 'puzzle', but if you use the armor you get in the Residences (the only armor added in that area) it'll send you off into your death. Or if you use the gravity cube which they let you attach and forget to your armor slots. Its very specific and any disturbance will kill you. Its frustrating, but easy enough to avoid if you know what the issues are.[/spoiler] Neither here nor there: A) You wont be building a base from scratch like you might do in Ark, Minecraft, Conan Exiles, etc. You'll mostly find an area/room and set up in there. Luckily there are plenty of decorations and items to keep things interesting, so base building isn't boring. Still, because of the way the game is set up, you'll pretty much set up in the very starting area since every other area in the game loops back to that main hub. B) Single player can be a little harder, since every enemy will focus on you (duh). Luckily you can have pets pretty early and two of the later game armor sets will summon a companion, which helps take heat off you. Even then I didn't find it super necessary. C) Weather events. Most of the time they just drop visibility down a ton, but they all have a condition to end them early which mostly involves pressing a button in a specific area. You can make this easier by linking personal teleporters to said areas later in the game. The Story: Simplified: You're a scientist who transfers to an SCP like facility, but the first day of your new job happens to be the same day a bunch of weird cultists decide to attack every GATE facility world wide. Chaos ensues. Spoilers for spoilers (again, duh) [spoiler]The story kinda sucks. The entire plot revolves around you releasing totally-not-evil guy from the containment cell, and then doing everything he says without question. The entire plot pretty much requires your super smart scientist to lobotomize themselves, and unsurprisingly leads into an 'end for humanity' cliff hanger ending.[/spoiler] All in all the game is super fun, and any downsides are made up for with art direction and general gameplay. Progression feels just right, and areas never feel like they overstay their welcome. The alternate dimensions you can jump through are fun, and you can build bases in them. Game has plenty of secrets to find too. I'd recommend this game even at full price, and I look forward to the upcoming dlc.