Recent reviews by Cobalt Phoenix

This game is a breath of fresh air amidst current competitive multiplayer titles. I played both betas and have seen great improvements and an open mind when it comes to criticisms. Embark will go far with how they have been treating the player base.

The Ascent is a great short story, good solo and even better with some friends. Definitely worth a grab on sale for sure.

What I enjoyed;
+ Great combat.
+ Enemy AI is quite good at pressuring and flanking to keep you on the move.
+ Great character designs.
+ Fantastic key character dialogue.
+ Absolutely beautiful environment, complemented even more with Ray Tracing, though expect heavy frame loss on lower-spec graphics cards.
+ Pretty good story, a few twists to throw you off.
+ Music is very very good if you like the cyberpunk style of synth and rock.
+ Well optimized game, no issues with performance aside from a random crash.

What I had issues with;
- The story started to decline in interest for me towards the end, seemed like there was more to tell but the developers ran out of time or had thoughts of a sequel (post credit scene depicts the latter).
- Lack of unique enemy types towards the end of the game, however for how short the game is it makes total sense.
- A little disappointing that a few of the boss fights with key characters were simple bullet sponge fights, would have liked to see unique enemy abilities for said fights.
- Not a lot of replay-ability. A tower climb similar to the Division 2 would have done wonders for the game.
- Some balancing with skills and abilities would have be necessary if there was a reason to build craft other than completing the story.

Over all I enjoyed my time and it is worth a play through, just keep the expectation that this is a one and done kind of game. Looking forward to more offering from Neon Giant