I'm really struggling to figure out how this game has so many positive reviews. It's basically the Wish version of No Man's Sky; a similar style of game but literally worse in every single aspect.
The gameplay loop is essentially just collect resources, print something so you can collect more resources, rinse and repeat. There is no discernible story at all. Even the ending is just a 10 second wordless cutscene that explains nothing, roll credits, then respawn at base. I wasn't expecting a brilliantly written masterpiece, but I did think there would at least be some attempt made to create a narrative reason for why you're doing what you're doing.
Ignoring that, even exploration doesn't feel rewarding because the only thing that changes is a bit of low poly scenery and what resources show up on different planets. Honestly, the only reason I kept playing as long as I did was because it was a gift and I wanted to give it a fair try. I kept hoping it would get better as you get further into it, but it does not.
The UI is TERRIBLE. Legitimately one of the worst attempts I've ever seen. It's so bad I actually questioned if this was originally a mobile game, but no, the devs have apparently just never played a crafting game before. They decided having dozens of categories that you have to arrow between one at a time to reach the items in the category, which you also have to arrow between one at a time, was a good idea. As an added bonus, once you actually manage to unlock a blueprint you then have to figure out which of four printers you have to use to print it because for some reason larger printers can't print smaller items (because that's totally how printers work). You then get to arrow between each item each printer can print while you're tracking down the one item you actually want to print.
Picking things up and moving with them is also infuriating. You have to angle the camera perfectly to get prompts and once you grab something it gets tethered a few feet in front of you by default which usually causes the camera to behave erratically. When you try to move with the item it causes even more awkwardness with the camera. You can click to put it in your hands or move smaller items to your backpack, but even this can be finicky and unresponsive at times. I tried switching to a controller, thinking surely the issue is just that the game isn't designed for a mouse and keyboard but that actually exacerbated the issue even more. I don't think I've ever encountered a game where 3D movement is less smooth with a controller, but this one managed it.
On top of all that, inventory space is also extremely limited and requires bringing along vehicles to have any reasonable amount of storage, which also require resources to power. This design decision only really serves to increase annoyance with the quantity of resources you have to collect while playing this game.
The art style of this game is very simple. That's not necessarily a bad thing as there are plenty of good games that use low poly assets but it is another cut corner that adds to the generic feel of this game. Sound design is equally meh.
The biggest offense though, is the player onboarding. There is no proper tutorial, just a handful of tutorial assignments that consist of "collect these things and/or print this thing" with no context and a basic controls splash page. These do very little to actually help you figure out where to find things or what to do next. I spent the first few hours frequently tabbing out of the game to google where to find things because it's impressively unintuitive. I didn't even realize there was a compass until I happened to see mention of it when looking up something else. There's no mention of how to get to said compass in the game, just a vague reference to the "Action Wheel" where it can be found. There's no excuse for discoverability being so poorly implemented that a player has to locate a major gameplay tool via google rather than discovering it naturally by playing the game.
As far as positives go, the Gastropods are cute... and that's pretty much it. They are also the only wildlife you encounter at any point of the game because making worlds that actually feel even remotely alive would've required actual effort.
I see the devs are still making fairly regular updates to this game which is nice, but that actually makes the glaring issues even more unacceptable. They've had a decade and can't fix the UI, create a proper tutorial, or write a story, but they have time to put out plenty of paid DLC? Ridiculous.
This isn't the worst game I've ever played, but it is certainly not a good one. I've been told this game is much more fun in co-op and maybe it is, but it is a painfully boring and tedious single player experience. This game feels like it's fighting you and any enjoyment you might've had with it every step of the way to the point where it's just an exercise in frustration. Don't waste hours of your life on this nonsense when there are significantly better games out there.
TLDR: This game is mediocre at best, go play No Man's Sky instead and thank me later for saving you hours of frustration.
