Played for coming up on 20 hours now and I'm in the latter quarter of the game. I have to say I've had a TON of fun with this game. The systems are engaging enough to be interesting but simple enough to not be overwhelming. I'm not typically a fan of Roguelikes, and have dabbled in colony sims, but I'm very much an FPS player. I'm happy to say I find this game blends those elements spectacularly and I've been hooked since booting it up.
At its heart, it's an FPS shooter with Roguelike dressing. I've seen the gunplay be described as Doom, and I think there's definitely an argument for it, but to me feels more like Borderlands. It's satisfying to kill, and the fun really ramps up the more power you get.
Surrounding the FPS gameplay is a light colony sim where you track NPC's feeling towards each other and you. I've not experienced any dissident gameplay, but I might look into that later on. You capture most of your NPC grew through Pokeball-like gameplay duiring your FPS missions, and then put them in an incubator until they're ready to join you. Most of the buildings you will build in your base have upgrades that will aid you in your future FPS outings, and can be really engaging planning your next upgrades.
Typically, your time at base will be spent setting up upgrade paths, crafting, talking to NPC's to give them buffs, and managing worker output. In other games I'd probably find this tedious, but in this game, I think it provides some nice downtime between the frenetic FPS combat.
Once you get set at your base, you embark on a mission that begins your Roguelike Run. You'll be put into a galactic map, where you will choose your encounter. Time advances when you move your ship to the next point of interest, and as time passes, your enemy grows stronger. This puts a soft time limit on your adventure, as enemies can scale past what you can handle. Once you get into a combat POI, the FPS gameplay starts. After the first (and consecutive) waves of enemies, you get a random set of 3 abilities to choose from. To me, it seems like once you get started down a path, more of those choices become weighted toward that path. During these runs, you can gain materials for upgrades and crafting, and have the opportunity to capture more NPC's to work for you.
After completing enough Points of interest, youi're given the opportunity to do a final encounter that will advance the storyline. Each sector of the galaxy has 3 of these encounters (currently 3 sectors, so 3x3), after which, you will be rewarded handsomely, and can take everything you've gained back to the base with you.
Death in this game is a setback, but doesn't feel punishing. You lose some materials you picked up during your run, but it feels fair in that it at least rewards you for your time. If you're looking for Tarkov, this isn't it.
TL:DR Game's awesome. Worth the price, can't stop thinking about it, and I hope it blows up and the devs get the support because I think this is really special.
