The game that I really tried to enjoy.
Story is great, characters actually develop druing playthrough. The world changes with your actions.
But the system. Gods. The system.

First 15 or so levels are basically victim simulator. All progress is done by doing talk-to or bring-to quests, and running from 90% monsters. Power scalling is off the bat - from running away, to sudenly killing everything.

Weapons and upgrade system leaves a lot to be desired.

Attribute points doesnt seem to do anything on their own (they are used only to unlock skills and weapons) - a despite pumping 40 extra points into STR, using same weapon, it takes exactly same ammount of hits to kill same monster (tested on 5 different monsters - STR/DEX do not increase damage from mele/ranged)

The grind gets harder after stats 30, 60, and 90 values, needing more points to boost each attiribute. Why?

There are elex potions as a great way to boost your character - but they mess up your coldness (semi-morality system) - if you abuse it, you will lock away your 'good' endings. There could be super simple solutions for that - like similar potions made of mana instead of elex (as it was said that mana is purified elex and has 'healing/curing' capabilites) or even putting this huge temple of mana to use - paying a fee to have your coldness reduced. No. If you want to avoid really mudane and annoying grind - prepare for 'bad ending'.

I remember playing this game years ago.

And again it looks like people from Piranha Bytes have best writers, and worst designers/coders.

Fighting is annoying and slow. Terrain fluffs you over (if you happen to push enemy on 'lower' platform, all your attacks will miss, as you swipe over their heads, and they would always land their attacks - for some reason, if situation is 'switched, you still miss, enemy always lands strikes)

Traveling sometimes get boring (esepically if you look for those monsters alone for quick level up).

You have 'skill checks' every 5 minutes in converations - but you wont pass them unless you over-grind your character.

This game could have been made so much better. It breaks my heart to see it seemingly rushed and unfinished around every corner.

Playing this game feels like toxic love-hate relationship, when you know it could been wonderful, but are left with abuse, but you still stick hoping for it to get better, which - in fact - it does, but only to drop back to the punishing system.

Only time you get to 'play' the game, is last 1-2 hours, when you already did every quest, killed every monsters, and upgraded every piece of gear.

Giving it a negative, feels bad, but it truly does not deserve more.

That's a good Piranha's title. They had unique concept to create a world with technology, mutants and pure nature. And the final result is between medium satisfaction. The graphic is okay, beautiful. The story is also fine, the most interesting on the ending. Big + for an open door for the sequel. You get an information about 'maybe' the future main anstagonist / story.
But - as i see in almost every Piranha's games - unbalanced xp rewards for defeated enemies.
Dialogues between characters become boring in the middle of the game, probably are too long. Unfortunately half of the world is completely useless, enough Edan and Frozen Lands to finish the whole game :/
I don't like combat system - for close and distance range :[
I want to play the sequel tho.
6/10

If you want to enjoy this game: get a CE table and max every stat and unlock every skill, then you will be able to roleplay, this is not an RPG this is a GPG: grinding playing game.


Everything that came after Risen was a downgrade, but somehow this game brings more downgrades.
- Simplified inventory with 1 tab for misc items, it's weapons, armor or other stuff you can buy form merchants and store into chests.
- Bow combat is point and click and most of the times it will shoot above the target unless you are at the same level or higher.
- The WHOLE range combat is bugged as your shots will pass through the enemy when it moves.
- One major quest was bugged due to bad coding and you don't have console commands to get the quest stage or advance it like in skyrim, so good luck finding what is wrong with it, but there is a method of enabling some dev tools to move around.
- Bugged items inside objects or ground (it's annoying and sometimes not even with no clip you can get them).
- The voice acting in the old world recordings is kinda low effort most of the times.
- highlighting items is done via head armor slot, equipping eyewear. So no head armor if you want to see bugged items (or items at all)
- bugged indoor lighting (sometimes it will get pitch dark, light up really bright for a second, go dark and return to normal), also the sun will pop-up through textures like a square (very annoying)

But the game is not that bad, it has some pros too:
+ MC is not a ♥♥♥♥♥
+ 3 factions to choose from, each with their own skill tree
+ lots of loot and places to explore
+ cold value: a stat that tracks your actions and allows you to pick certain dialog options at turning points
~ unlike previous titles, monsters respawn

None to little bug testing was done on this game. You may want to pass this if you come from Risen or get it at +85% discount