I had my reservations about this game when it initially came out in 2018 I saw it and was like "Hmm this game looks interesting" and sat on it for years. Saw a few YouTube videos about it over the years most prominently Nodes 2 videos showing off the pure difficulty of the game. I finally picked up the game since it was $7 with all the DLC, and boy was that the right choice.

now while I'm not completely through the game at the time of writing this review I am having an absolute blast. This game is exciting, gritty, and most importantly hard and I mean HARD. I decided for my first play-through to play the game in hardcore mode and I'm still deciding if that was a good or bad idea. Without the weapon compass thingy in combat, it makes the combat just more challenging. The enemies doing the same amount of damage as you make fights more real and make duels last and feel frustrating yet fun, because one slight mistake and cause ur enemy to get a big combo and can cause u to die a painful death, and without the autosaves from quests that mistake can cause you hours of progress.

for the story, it is something I am 100% certain that it is one of the few games where your decisions matter. for example, I had to go to a trader to pay off debt and I saw a dialog option to learn to read I was intrigued and that decision led me to another town, and spent 3 in-game days not only learning English but Latin. I didn't think much of it but then a few hours later I was doing a quest where I got this letter that had important information and because I went out of my way to learn how to read I was able to save myself probably an hour of riding across the map to get it read to me. while this may be a minuet thing it made me appreciate how much my choices matter in this game.

This game is visually stunning. I have a pretty beefy pc so I am running on complete max settings and wow the game is beautiful. Since I'm playing in hardcore mode I can't fast travel and being forced to ride everywhere u get to see the true natural beauty of this game. ya ill admit the animation isn't flawless the facial expressions are pretty ugly at times sometimes ill ride past someone and half of their body will be invisible and cut scenes will not be at the right perspective and I can't see anything.

talking about pure combat which is the bread and butter of this game which I briefly mentioned earlier is rewarding that's the only way I can put it. having to think about what position ur going to strike from or if it's even worth fighting in the first place is something that this game does great. one of the biggest things I love about the combat is the armor. if your opponent is wearing something light like chain or padded then a short sword will do the job just fine but once you start fighting heavily armored opponents with plate armor when that sword might not cut it and funny enough just smashing their head in with a hammer will turn the insides of that armor to jelly.

This game is a 10/10 from me it's fun, frustrating, and rewarding if you like medieval games but like a challenge give this game a shot it's probably the most fun I've had with a story game in a long time.