Recent reviews by iAbstract

It's like they took all of the worst elements from modern day MMORPGs and stuck them all in a singleplayer game. NI feels like a really cheap version of WoW... honestly WoW is a step up from this game, and I don't even like WoW.

Now, I'll go into a bit more detail here from a design perspective:
Combat is dull, gear dependent, and requires zero skill.
Sound design is low effort, and honestly so bad it's funny. Music is nice though.
UI is a cluttered mess, and is far too busy. It has that low-effort "generic MMO" UI layout.
Character controls/mechanics of the character controller are extremely low effort MMO-tier. Animations are pretty smooth, and transitions are done well though so there's that.
As far as mechanics go it's bloated with generic features like foraging everything, and the game's overall mechanics aren't really focused on anything in particular. It "seems" to be going in the direction of a survival exploration game, with MMO elements thrown in there, but honestly I can think of quite a few games that do this way better (without those features feeling "slapped in").

To go into more detail on that last bit, because honestly it's the main issue I have with this game, is that it suffers from a strong case of "feature bloat". This is a tell-tale sign of a developer who got a strong wiff of feature creep (implementing any idea because it "sounds cool"), and decided to stay the course of the dewy eyed idealist despite any detriments to the enjoyability of the game. My direct suggestion to the devs would be to take a few lessons from the developers of Ico, and study the design concept of "design by subtraction" (removing the unnecessary, streamlining the necessary, and working those necessary mechanical systems into a whole that flows in an intuitive harmony). NI would be keen to - at this stage - borrow some concepts from this approach to design, and take a good hard look at what they've already created; with the explicit goal of making the experience smoother, FOCUSING the direction of their mechanics, and cutting down on the fluff. These developers are surely talented to of made a game as grandeous in scale as this, but, it's clear that they would better serve the player - i.e. the enjoyability of the game - if they stopped adding features, and refined what they already have.


Overall, it's an unfinished "game" (more like a tech demo) that's far from polished, and lacks direction in terms of game mechanics. Unforunately, I waited quite awhile to actually try this game out, and sadly can't return it.

An exhilarating experience, a must play for anyone who enjoys sandbox/survival games.

Even for Alpha this game is wonderful, and highly addictive; it'll only get better as time goes on.

Also if you're having issues with cheaters, hit up the community servers... where there's ACTUAL admins, unlike the official servers.