First and foremost if you are going into this expecting Viking Minecraft, stop now because this is not that thing. Yes you can build your own base but this game is incredibly linear. Unlike Minecraft the bioms for example are essentially content gated. And the answer to pretty much any hangup you encounter is "you need to beat the next boss". For some that will be a selling point.

Secondly while is a fine base game but I wouldn't recommend it without mods.

I've also lost some faith NOT because of the apparently contentious stamina changes in H&H, I really didn't notice those nor do (I believe) any of the mods I use roll those food changes back, tho it is possible I'm running like 22+ mods, most of which are solidly QoL.

Where I actually lost faith was the Obliterator, which was essentially the implementation of the long asked for "trash can" which instead of being a simple base recipe, instead requires jumping through several layers of hoops. Including finding a randomly spawning vendor NPC somewhere in the world. Then can't even be place near your stockpiles (read inside your base) because for some reason it has an added AoE that will damage/destroy structures.

It took the simplest of QoL asks and cranked over complication to 11.

That more than anything else is why I worry for the future of this game.

First and foremost if you are going into this expecting Viking Minecraft, stop now because this is not that thing. Yes you can build your own base but this game is incredibly linear. Unlike Minecraft the bioms for example are essentially content gated. And the answer to pretty much any hangup you encounter is "you need to beat the next boss". For some that will be a selling point. Secondly while is a fine base game but I wouldn't recommend it without mods. I've also lost some faith NOT because of the apparently contentious stamina changes in H&H, I really didn't notice those nor do (I believe) any of the mods I use roll those food changes back, tho it is possible I'm running like 22+ mods, most of which are solidly QoL. Where I actually lost faith was the Obliterator, which was essentially the implementation of the long asked for "trash can" which instead of being a simple base recipe, instead requires jumping through several layers of hoops. Including finding a randomly spawning vendor NPC somewhere in the world. Then can't even be place near your stockpiles (read inside your base) because for some reason it has an added AoE that will damage/destroy structures. It took the simplest of QoL asks and cranked over complication to 11. That more than anything else is why I worry for the future of this game.