The shifting new gear update took away the game I fell in love with. I never seen such a update where the dev just removes a lot of their hard work to make their game more generic and dull.

So here good thing about the update:

They added base building to put it on par with other base builder.
Added railgun delivery service so farming and frontier has more relevance to the game.

Here the rest of the issue I have with the new update:

The story and quest is straight up deleted. Its replaced with railgun delivery that has no contextual story weight behind it. Its just flavour text to reach next tier of building. The lack of NPC, Dialogue at the start of the game is noticeably missing. The game feels incredibly empty and dead as result.

There are several overhaul to upgrade and progression but it doesn't feel like it changes anything for the better. At best its just a change for the sake of it. At worst it took away a satisfying progression system.

The map is made bigger but the design is lacklustre. You walk for ages at the start just to collect resources sparely spread out. This is not very enjoyable compared to the old map, where its smaller but much more intricate and well designed. The old map had some metrodvania element where paths and resource became reachable with mech upgrades. This gave additional incentive to make upgrade. That now appears to be missing from the map design at least in early game.

Each new area use to require cleaning up pollutant and weed. While that sounds tedious that was kind of the point. Putting the elbow grease in to clean up the area and being rewarded with access to resource is a satisfying game play loop, one of the main reason I bought into the game. New area require higher tier of equipment gives player new goal without outright stating it. I am quite fond of environment restoration in game but sadly this is now gone.

The old map had story related ruins and "dungeon" you could explore, Now you just get sorry excuse of ruins.

I'm just bewildered by the dev decision. I had played many sandbox game with story quest and there are many ways to address pain point of story element being intrusive but never have I ever saw the solution was to outright remove it and the npc. Subnautica and Satisfactory are such example of successful sandbox game with story element. Imagine if the dev of those game ripped all the story, parts of gameplay, all story related map feature, voiceline and you start to get why some reviewer are unhappy.

In the end you still get a game about farming with mech but now its missing so much charm that made it special in the first place. I miss you Pip3r.

I loved this game before the update. The hand designed map with clear step by step progress, along with a companion that provided dialogue throughout your time playing so you didn't feel so alone. The early on interactions with NPCs plus Pip-3r made the game feel wholesome and like a small community. Now, after the update, it doesn't feel the same. The map feels more tossed together with resources intermingled so there isn't a clear sense of direction. Pip-3r is practically gone, and because I wasn't vocal in my opinions on liking the intermittent dialogue, they along with the established premise to the game I loved is no longer there.

Edit: Just noticed the ambient dialogue option, but not everyone is going to know about that being a thing as it isn't clearly established somewhere that players can easily learn about Pip-3r, especially newer players.

I really really enjoyed this game on it's first release. I had been waiting for so long for it, and got it on launch. It didn't have a whole lot of content, wasn't finished in general, and the updates weren't as frequent as many would like but I saw all the genuine love and care that went into it, and I knew how great the game could become.

So I played when I could, I know I don't have as many hours as others, but I enjoyed walking around the handmade world, I enjoyed the companionship of PIP-3R, and then not long after I reached the end of the available content. But I was happy, so I waited, played the new updates when they dropped, build my farms bigger and better, decorating lots and was glad every time to see it and the game grow. And I do still think it's a well made game with an amazing team.

But, suddenly, the Shifting Gears update comes out. And it's no longer that little game I loved. The world is bigger, yes, but so bland and, at least to me, missing that love that went into the original map. The mountains in general just look... I'm sorry to say this, really, but bad. Not to mention the amount of clipping geometry I saw, directly from the new spawn too. You have more control over building with custom buildings, yes, but are so much more restricted on how much you can build with the new farm base system. In the time I've played the new update, progression in general seemed now far more tied to saying at the farm exporting goods rather than exploring and fabricating your upgrades like before, but I don't believe I gave it enough time to truly comment on that.

But honestly, truly, all of that I can forgive and forget! It's a major new update! It takes time to figure things out, and with community feedback things will be tweaked, and further built upon that you'd honestly ask yourself why you ever thought the old systems were better! Really, I would have come to enjoy it I know. Except for one change that truly, genuinely has hurt my enjoyment of the game to the point I don't think I can play anymore.

They removed PIP-3R, our wonderful companion and narrator. Our sweet and caring sentient satellite, with their adorable country accent. They gave so much life to the early-game before access to other NPCs, and truly made me feel like I was never truly alone on this planet, and like I always had a friend. And now all that's left is the most barebones comments that you have to toggle on in the menu. Not only that, they've remove narration as a whole for the main story, at least from my experience so far and their own comments on updates.

A bland new map. A weird shift in mechanics and gameplay loop. No narration. And no more companionship. It just feels so lifeless.

I truly hope it will improve, I do have faith in the devs, and I know they have their own plans for the future. I do think it is a well made game at its core, with a really solid foundation, but I just can't recommend it now that they're completely "Shifting Gears", because I can't tell how that's going to look in the future now. Maybe in a few months after some feature updates. After some more reworks and balancing. After several content updates. But not now. And even if I do for others, I don't know if it will ever be the same game I liked for me. The legacy branch is still there, but we know that won't be getting anymore updates, so that's probably it for me. I know there's several community polls that lead to all of this, so I know I'm the odd-voice out. But still, it's just no longer something I enjoy.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I do hope the game succeeds. This all comes from a place of love, truly. I hope if you do decide to pick up this game, despite my comments, you fall in love with it like I did, and that the new direction it's going in only increases that love. With all my heart, may you enjoy the frontier.

It was shaping up to be a great game with the perfect balance of exploration, farming, and base building all centered around a hand crafted story experience. The only downside besides the annoying AI companion hillbilly was it was a work in progress, so we had to wait for the next story bits.

Unfortunately they decided to scrap it and start over and in the process have just turned it into yet another farming simulator, but with a mech gimmick...but hey the world is bigger now for more farming so that makes losing everything else worth it, right!?

This is honestly now a completely different game from what it was shaping up to be before and prior to this it would have been a very highly recommended buy, now it's a very highly don't buy, forget it exists, chalk it up to a lesson on why NOT to spend money on the majority of early access games.

Loved the game before update but the update ruined the game. They changed so much stuff and made it more complicated than it needs to be. Intro in the game is unhelpful and u r left wondering what to do. I liked the robot helping us idk why they removed her. Exploration is ruined by the mech now needing fuel and it chews thru it very fast. U can't plow fields with the mech (at least so far, idk if that changes) I'm not having any fun so I probably won't find out.

I half agree with the reviews of the newest update.
The interactions with NPCs (even the annoying PIP-3r) made the game feel more alive, without them progressing the story it feels really lonely in single player.
I actually really like the new, bigger map. It makes it feel more like a planet that you've landed on rather than just a small region. However, the resources are so scattered it makes hunting them down feel really agonizing for the ones that are far from your base.
I dislike the addition of enemies, oil management, and damage. These elements take it from a cozy game to a stressful game, where I'm worried about taking damage and not being able to use my tools because I bumped into a tree or got too close to an enemy. The oil management is a nice concept, but the oil adds to your inventory weight which makes long-distance trips not worth it because you can't carry as many resources.
That said,
The addition of base building is awesome, it's just what the game needed! I was so sad when I never got to see the inside of my house and it was just a glorified bed. It is clunky as it is now, but the game is still early access, so I'm sure it'll improve down the road.
I do hope the lore takes a more prominent role in the future, as it felt like a key part of the game before and now it's just an afterthought.
Overall, I still have to say it's a good game and doesn't deserve the massive hate the update has gotten. I can tell the devs took a real leap with it, it's just lacking the soul of the previous iteration.

Newest update is a disappointing step backward. I played around 10 hours on EA launch and did everything I wanted to do at the time and enjoyed it completing the story and content at the time. It was a cute, cozy fun game with farming, exploration and a bit of a story. The map, while on the smaller side, felt hand crafted and packed with stuff to gather and explore.

I've only played 3 hours of the new update but it feels so soulless. You're just a guy mass farming on a planet, shipping off your harvest so that you can eventually own the planet. I haven't encountered any semblance of a story aside from that. Progression is just shipping more and more crops to get unlocks. There's not really a sense of discovery or drive to move forward. Before there was incentive to explore, clean up an area and unlock things. Now its just mass grow crops to ship them to unlock stuff. The map, while 9 times as large is 90 times as boring. It feels procedurally generated and empty. Sure, there stuff to gather, but its just scattered around this huge lifeless zone.

That said, I do enjoy the earlier access to larger scale farming (I think). It's cool to be able to plow a large field and more efficiently grow larger amount of crops. I'm not sure how massive you'll need to build for unlocks, but it is less tedious watering and digging and planting than it was before.

We used to have PIP-3R yapping away, maybe a bit too much, but it added life to the game. Now it just feels lonely and as if my purpose is to produce crops for export. Sure you can turn the voice back on, but it just feels weird without any context and not being integrated elsewhere. I also really dislike the new fuel mechanic and the exploding things, at least you can turn them off, but it just feels anti-cozy.

I think there's still good bones here, just at the moment it's not going in the direction I personally enjoy.

This game had a chill game play cycle along with a sweet little satellite helping you out as you go. You got the feeling that you were helping the planet recover as well as unraveling the mystery the previous inhabitants left behind. Then the new update hit. They pivoted from a superb chill experience where farming was a mechanism to progress the story and your farm into another dumpster survival game. Your mech went from being a tool you could customize to look awesome however you wanted to a machine with limb health and fuel you need to baby sit. You're now a slave to a lame job board like so many other lame/mediocre farming sims. The map went from cozy and well thought out to a giant sprawling disappointment. No more unique sights to help you navigate without needing to open your map. If you already have the game you can swap to the legacy patch, but that's not getting any more updates. They took the entire cozy vibe of the game, dragged it out back to shoot it, and brought back a corpse patched together from survival and farm game slop. If they fix it I'll correct the review, but if you must, try this game on game pass or something and save your money.

TL:DR- Shifting gears update turned this wonderfully handcrafted cozy little relaxation space farm sim with into a soul-less generic farm game with a mech instead of a tractor.

Game was fantastic the 18 or so hours I had into it the past few days. Loved the handcrafted map, the lore bits you got from exploring, the neighbors you got to know and the farm that felt like it was constantly getting bigger and better all the time. I enjoyed the robot eye in the sky companion and just about everything the game used to be was shaping up to be one of my all time favorite hidden gem relaxation games and I would have had nothing but glowing praise to say about it.

However, now with the shifting gears update, and all of my time in this game being very fresh in my mind I have to say this opinion has done a full 180. The game feels like another Soul-less farm sim now. The map looks completely bland almost like it was thrown in an auto gen and populated with foliage. Normally I'm all for sim games and the micro management but this used to be a wonderfully handcrafted little escape of a farming game. Now its manage fuel, build your house from scratch piece by piece, manage damage on the mech, fight tornadoes (which seem to last the entire game day) that show up and rip you off your feet and send you flying across the map. The mission parts that I've experienced so far are literally just, Grow crop, sell to faceless nameless person on other rock. I could go on but essentially that cool and cozy little space farming game I found and got caught up in is gone. Better off playing Satisfactory or actual farming simulator. I hope this game can perform a turn around but only time will tell. Can't recommend this game with all the changes in this update, what should have been a *separate game mode* instead of a core game change ruined the massive enjoyment I got from this game.

the latest update was gonna add a lot, but it feels like a severe downgrade.

one example is that they had a map that felt like a beautiful handcrafted map,
in comparison to the new map which feels like a lifeless procedual generated map.

as someone who enjoys exploring, this alone was a terrible change,
but there are also so many other things that feels bad.
(like how you now change parts in a menu, rather than physcially replacing parts which was immersive)

Edit:
after taking a short break to realign my expectations, i went back in to try to give it a better chance.
but it just feels so soulless now.
its a generic farming sim, but with a mech.
the charm it once had, is completely gone.
and from what ive been able to dig up, the change in design is because some vocal players wanted larger flat areas for larger farms, and some players complaining about the story getting in the way of what they were doing / wanted to do.
the update just made me sad and ended up uninstalling the game.