The Gold River Project

I avoided this game for ages because of all the negative comments. Then I tried it and I am so glad I did. I have played hundreds of survival games and this one is easily my favourite. Yes it still has some bugs. I haven't found any yet that are game breaking but they do exist. What I would add though is that I have never played an early access survival game where the developers were this involved with their player base. The devs are in constant communication with their players, they really listen to what their players want and they patch this game all the time. If a YouTube video is more than a month old then ignore it. They patch this game so often that old videos are out of date. As for the game itself, I won't spoil anything. I will just say, this game is a huge mystery. You go on a camping holiday with some friends to the Gold River. When you get there, your friends are gone and you will start finding lots of things that are hard to explain but make you want to search to figure out what the hell is going on. This game does not hold your hand. Besides a few scattered notes and maps, it is up to you to explore. If you like survival games, then do yourself a favour and give this one a go. I have never played a survival game that had me more intrigued to see where it is going than this one.

it makes the game pointless when you have collected, created lots of items then save the game only to return to find all those items gone.

not enough food sources throughout the game

Has lots of potential, has plenty of content. Fixing the bugs and optimization should be the real focus for this dev team.

I want to like this game because I can see there is definitely a lot of thought put into it, however in it's current stages I can't really recommend it. I have a medium-high end PC (i5-11600k, 3060ti, 32gb ddr4, nvme ssd) and can barely get 40 fps on this game with everything turned on low. On top of that, clicking "save changes" on the settings doesn't even work because after i close the video settings, when i go back in it shows medium for a couple of things. It'll take me like 4-5 tries before everything is actually on low, and even then I can't really trust what the settings are telling me they're set at because the performance varies a lot. My other big gripe about the game is the lighting. The contrast is super heavy and running through the forest gives me a crazy headache because the brights are too bright. There's a lot of cool content that I can see on the surface and from the few obscure youtube videos that exist about this game, but until it's better optimized I can't really recommend getting it

This game is fantastic! I will start by saying of course there are bugs as it is still super early in development (less than a year). But from my experience the bugs are not super significant, and certainly not game breaking for me. As a father of two kids, and someone who is totally sick and tired of zombies everywhere, this game hits all the right points for me. It is beautiful for starters, intuitive, not grindy, and I don't feel stressed every time I leave my boat parked by the shore. I can pause it to play with the kids, they love watching me play and I'm not scared to make a save file and let my kid just bang the keys and look around. Worst case I just reload the last save, best case he figures it out a bit. For being a team of only 6 devs, I am beyond impressed with the quality and quantity of the content in such a small window of time. Please do keep up the good work, and I will be doing my best to help report bugs as I find them. Maybe CIG can learn a few things from these guys lol

After playing for just 22 hours in single-player mode, I feel comfortable saying the following: - The game has minor bugs, but since it is in Early Access, the developers push out hotfixes quite quickly. They don't wait a month to address issues, and their communication is very honest. (For the record, I have no personal affiliation with them.) - It is a relaxing survival, puzzle, and exploration game. You set your own pace and decide where to go. While there is no rigid direction, there is plenty of hidden content, which encourages exploration. The game has a lot of potential to become an epic experience. It just needs time for the developers to iron out the kinks, and I am confident they will get it done. - I do not regret buying it in Early Access. It is already fun, and I expect it will only get better over time. br. from Denmark

Game has potential but is in no way ready to play without getting frustrated. Save files suck. Loose half your stuff if the save file is even playable. When playing co-op 2nd Player loses everything when coming back into game. Glitches everywhere. Can not fill water bottle in Lake (sometimes, then works sometimes) but then when you dont want it to happen you drink water from the lake and get sick. I got this game on release date and have been playing off and on since then. I guess i will just give it another 6 months and try again... STUPID.

In its current state, the game is unplayable. Keys can disappear, forcing you to load older saves just to progress. The health and hunger systems are inconsistent, as are deaths and respawns. The game has great potential, and I love the concept, but playing it in its current state will likely ruin the experience.

I'm only in for about 5 hrs an the game isn't terrible an quite fun to adventure an grind for the clues an achievements , but as of now i have to stop playing the game till my friend is able to play with as well. Because now if i load into the saved game solo all the doors that have been unlocked by my friend are now lock an to get the key to open the locked door is behind the locked door an the loot doesn't respond.... so now i am just stuck an cant continue i really hope the developers see my bug report an this comment. Cause as of right now i don't wanna recommend this game. :(