This is a solo player review.
Gonna be honest, I don't think I like it.
As a survival crafting type game, it feels very simple and very slow paced. The longer you play it, the more tedious it feels to get anything done. There are large areas to explore and gather resources, but there really isn't much to find as you explore except for the same resources as everywhere else or little pockets of mobs to fight.
The combat is not particularly good or enjoyable and in fact is somewhat janky. It's especially annoying if you're playing solo, because you just end up in situations where you have 8 to 10 enemies swarming you, for which there is no real combat solution, and if you try to kite them, the entire mob just chases you across the entire world map. It feels like it's going for a soulslike thing, but the combat isn't very good, enemy AI is dumber, and it really seems intended for you to have a friend or two with you ideally. It gives vibes of one of those games that you can play solo "if you really want to" but it clearly expects you to be co-op.
Even if you try to manipulate server settings to make the game more playable and balanced for a solo player (or even to just make it easier if that's your preference), you'll run into headaches here, too. While the settings do allow you to mitigate item drop on death, the devs of this game do not allow you to COMPLETELY remove item on drop on death. You can reduce skill point loss on death, but you can't COMPLETELY remove skill point loss on death. You can reduce the damage enemies deal to you significantly, but this doesn't solve the problem that one of the issues is enemies overwhelming you with numbers, which can actually still be a problem even if their strength is reduced and is one of the primary ways this game is not especially solo friendly. But even if you push through all of that and wander into a dungeon with those settings, you won't have a light source, because it's impossible for one player to hold a torch and a weapon at the same time. Moreover, your weapon will rapidly degrade with the number of enemies inside the dungeon, so you won't make it through even a fifth of the dungeon before you have to leave and run all the way home to repair your weapon, and the map is huge, so it takes FOREVER to run home, unless you want to build a new house outside of every dungeon. Or you could carry like 4 or 5 spears into the dungeon with you to alleviate the issue. The point is, it's made for co-op
Not only that, but if you try to change any of these server settings to customize the game to your preferred experience, the devs tsk tsk you for "not playing the game right".
Losing skill points on death is ass frankly. You already drop inventory. Why drop skill points? I'm a working adult and this adds nothing to the experience besides extra grind. Grinding up skills like "jumping" by hopping up and down isn't fun in the first place. This isn't "punishing difficulty" ; This is wasting my time.
It's got some pretty silly rules around workbenches and beds, like being unable to use your workbench if it doesn't have a roof over it (like an actual roof piece; you can't just have it under any old type of covering). Your bed doesn't work unless it is near a campfire, but a campfire can only be placed on dirt. You can't sleep in your bed unless the campfire is burning, but if it rains, your campfire goes out, so now you can't sleep, so if you wanted to wait for morning, just alt tab and go make a sandwich I guess. This all feels so much more convoluted than is really necessary and makes you rearrange your furniture in silly ways to try and accommodate it. It doesn't really add anything to the experience other than making you wonder why it's like this.
I've only played for 10 hours and it's possible it gets better, but just compared to other survival crafting experiences I've played like Grounded or Abiotic Factor or Enshrouded or Raft or Subnautica, this just felt very mediocre as a survival/crafting game and tedious as an RPG. I was listening to podcasts while I played because I was getting bored. Maybe it gets better, but I can't wait 30 hours for it to get better. Possibly it's better if you're playing in a group of 3 to 5 people. I'll defer to the co-op players on that. Otherwise, I don't really see the hype. At least as a solo player stuck in the first biome for 10 hours.
If you're a primarily solo player looking for a good survival-crafting RPG experience, I think there are much better solo-friendly options. If you're looking for one specifically with a soulslike feel to it, then Enshrouded would be a much better choice in my opinion.
