It's great. Frustrating at times in a good way, but great.

As a fellow game developer, this game gives me such conflicting emotions. I love it and hate it and wants more of it but also understands the current situation and the previous decisions.

The difficulty in the beginning feels unforgiving, but it's where I find myself liking the most. Shivering in a snow storm not knowing where to go. You can feel the chill and despair in your bones, but just when you thought you are dead for sure, you find a small cabin. You go in, start a fire, boil some water, and your mind finally relaxes. You thought to yourself, maybe I can just make it through another day. That's one of the best feeling I've felt in a video game.

But when you start to learn the map and mechanics, you find yourself acting purely with the goal of progression. Better gear, better clothes, the survival instinct is gone. Everything is predictable, you have the route and loot in mind, you go there, you get it, that's it. There is simply not enough variables or late game challenges that can put your knowledge to the test. Your hard earned lessons serve you only the dread of emptiness. You know not why to go on, where to go, everything just becomes a chore.

It's such a shame. This game builds such a beautiful world and atmosphere, but it lacks some actual characters, story, mechanics and challenges. The wintermute story mode has a lackluster story and doesn't involve enough survival mechanics or player immersion. Tales from far territory is promising but requires you to go through much of the early stages that by the time you reach the new content, you are too burnt out to care.

The slow pace of development and communication paints a picture of burnt out devs with low interest of improving this game. I'm a game dev myself and I totally get their frustration. This game had been through some rocky periods and significant goal shifts, probably due to financial and staff change problems. So I will not judge them too harshly, it's just unfortunate that it has come to this.

So here are my suggestions to the development team.
1. If you have abundant resources but got lost in the tunnel vision: Have a serious discussion about a total revamp of the current map, AI and loot system. Add more variables to the map to make shelters unpredictable, but utilize clues like roads and power lines to guide players to potential shelters. Add move-sets and behaviors to make the AI more unpredictable, maybe even give them the ability to break shelters so you can't just cabin cheese a bear with no risk or realism. Nerf the bottle necks like rifles and prolong each battle, make the hunts more difficult but rewarding. Decrease and vary the punishment for a failed hunt. Give players more tools to approach a hunt like traps or melee options, not just QTEs. Make the crafting system more accessible and in-depth to increase the incentive to craft rather than looting for the better alternatives. There are many more ways to make this game more fun, especially for the late game.
2. If you have few resources to continue development: Finish what you've started. It's too late to revamp the structure of the core mechanics. So at least just give the players what they've paid for, then move on to the next project with the knowledge and lessons you've learned from this game.
3. if you don't have the resources to continue development at all: Try everything to gather resources. Communicate thoroughly and routinely with the players. Let us know where you are and what your obstacles are. Ask for help either in donation or just to spread the word for the game. Lay out new plans for monetization, new dlcs, new game modes, whatever to give us and investors hope. Give it a last ditch effort to turn it around.

Immersive survival game.