Recent reviews by Vats

Too many people changing to thumbs down after playing an UNSTABLE release for an early access game.

Pay them no attention.

The factory must grow to meet the demands of a growing factory.

Co-op players: this game is unplayable if your connection is patchy.

You are only supposed to save using specific buildings or when quitting, so if your connection to the host is lost frequently, you will lose all the progress you had since the last save before you are able to build those save buuildings.

Game feels unpolished and the networking code is appalling.

- Controller support is just controller input mapped to keyboard input. To run, you need to press the stick button all the time because the left stick button is mapped to the shift key.
- Items like cups and bottles disappear randomly when refilling water evaporators.
- If two players open the same chest, one of them will be permanently stuck in the inventory screen, requiring them to log out to fix it.
- Being stuck in an enemy animation may get you stuck out of the normal game boundaries.
- Recipes are arbitrary (e.g. nutrition from a 3 potato failed recipe feeds less than a baked potato) and most of them can't be used because you either get the recipe too late or it's too much of a hassle to get the ingredients.
- There is no early warning when you are getting dehydrated or hungry, so once the gauge starts blinking, you instantly turn into a cripple.
- Economy system is pointless and so it 75% of the fish.
- Client and server desync sometimes, so you can't butcher a dead animal because on your client, the animal is still alive.
- I and my homie finished the campaign and moved on. We didn't see a point in trying to continue playing. If the game is supposed to have some sort of endgame content, it's never told to the players.

Game is quite fun, but I experience too many disconnections on high-latency multiplayer sessions. Sometimes items can't be picked up too, which makes combat and resource gathering frustrating.

For the game's price, I would expect better networking performance.

Game is a matter of who stun-locks the other first. At least I can take a sip of my drink while I get hit for 10 seconds straight.

I see that there are hardcore fighting game players who see the appeal of doing complicated combos and chaining them but I don't think this is going to motivate a more casual crowd coming from the Vtuber community who doesn't have the time nor the willpower to practice a combo for a dozen hours and then proceed to repeat it all day every day. There is no room to play in any other way.

Given the current game mechanics, I would anticipate that the PvP queue will eventually have the same half a dozen people fighting each other with little room for newcomers or alternative play styles.

Buy the game and get some help.

Hoping there will be major performance improvements.

Also, raids spawning anywhere on the board is infuriating.

Game is a minimum viable product. The idea is good, but the execution is unpolished.
- The UI is horrid: you can add ingredients to a pot, but if you have different types of mushrooms, good luck guessing which one you are adding. Armor levels glitch on reload, clicking exit game does not ask you if you really want to quit even if you haven't saved for the past 5 hours. You can't open your inventory underwater. You cannot use the D-pad to navigate the construction menu. You need to read a book to find out you are sick. Only some actions have controller button labels. You can only select 4 different items for the hotbar between melee and ranged weapons, healing items and utility items as well.
- Controls have no consistency: the controller button for equiping is sometimes the button to eat, so you will often equip meat and eat poisonous mushrooms. Attacking what is below you requires looking 90 degrees down to trigger a ground attack, often making you attack the ground when the enemy is standing right in front of you. You will often drink dirty water while trying to do anything else.
Combat is frustrating: You will often throw molotovs and flares without litting the fuse. Your controller feels like it has disconnected for 2 or 3 seconds when landing some melee attacks. Attack speed is inconsistent. Cannibals move like they have speed cheats enabled.
Performance: Combat is plagued by stuttering. Same when entering caves. Playing on coop has weird item multiplication bugs.

tl;dr
Game might have been innovative when it was released, but the quality of the final release is appalling. It's noticeable that once the game studio delivered the minimum, they just dropped further development/polishing. Your money probably deserves something else.

Don't get me wrong, the game is okay and HG has been pumping improvements since forever.

I'm only leaving a negative review because items still disappear inside refiners. Updated for the 2024 Steam game awards shizzle.

Bought the game thanks to Shiranui Flare and Yuzuki Choco. It makes me happy that a lot of Hololive members are playing it now.

Game is very chill, but could be a bit harder. It will take years until it can be something worth comparing with Terraria, but the foundation of the game is pretty solid to become a classic in due time.