I just keep going back and forth updating this once positive review but it is honesly infuriating just how badly designed this game is for the singleplayer experience the large majority of players have at this point.

The singleplayer experience of my >40 hours on Guerrilla mode (the hardest difficulty) can only be summed up as being mind-numbing repetitive, immersion-breaking and absolutely pointless (even for a videogame). You have side-objectives and collectibles but the world's persistence is the Achilles heel of the whole thing as you don't have save points, you just instantly respawn at a fast travel point with the world, loot and enemies in the exact same place which in turn makes combat a pointless chore as you die (quite easily since a single gunshot takes a large chunk of your non-regenerative health away), respawn a mile away and run back to the place where the enemy is, rinse and repeat with absolutely. The only proper consequence of getting what this game passes as a failstate was me getting annoyed at having to make my way back to the location as well as having to find more ammunition since ammo count also persists after respawning.

The initial enemies, the wolf-like Runners, are fun to take on. The larger bipedal Hunters are also a good challenge when it is one or two near a place where you can take proper cover from their infuriatingly accurate and long-range bursts of gunfire. But everything else above that is simply a pain as you have to pump them with so much lead and explosives, while also doing the aforementioned "respawn a mile away and walk back to the location", only to get... more ammo or the ocasional rare component that only drops if you have certain perks unlocked. Brilliant. It is simply not worth the effort to take down the larger machines.

After dozens of game-playing hours, it is honestly hard to figure out how this game wants me to handle encounters. If I take them head on, I get downed with 3-4 shots of ludicrously accurate gunfire or an unavoidable volley of mortars from larger machines (which I guess is destined to the diversion of the coop group as the other players take advantage of this to flank and shoot), and have to respawn if I don't have an Adrenaline Shot (which is spawning much less than during the early days of this game). If I sneak around the machines and avoid encounters and the game gives me zero experience to level my character up. Reducing the difficulty makes the player tougher, the enemies weaker and looting seems to yield more healing items but the core problem remains.

The game has fantastic production values (it is beautiful even 2 years on and it sounds amazing) but the gameplay itself, unfortunately, feels like it has been the afterthought of this whole thing, especially when it comes to the singleplayer experience which, again, is what awaits any new or returning players of this game. Still, the existence of this revised review is proof itself that there is hope that the still quite active development team behind this game makes the necessary changes for this to be a genuinely fun and engaging experience.

I just keep going back and forth updating this once positive review but it is honesly infuriating just how badly designed this game is for the singleplayer experience the large majority of players have at this point. The singleplayer experience of my >40 hours on Guerrilla mode (the hardest difficulty) can only be summed up as being mind-numbing repetitive, immersion-breaking and absolutely pointless (even for a videogame). You have side-objectives and collectibles but the world's persistence is the Achilles heel of the whole thing as you don't have save points, you just instantly respawn at a fast travel point with the world, loot and enemies in the exact same place which in turn makes combat a pointless chore as you die (quite easily since a single gunshot takes a large chunk of your non-regenerative health away), respawn a mile away and run back to the place where the enemy is, rinse and repeat with absolutely. The only proper consequence of getting what this game passes as a failstate was me getting annoyed at having to make my way back to the location as well as having to find more ammunition since ammo count also persists after respawning. The initial enemies, the wolf-like Runners, are fun to take on. The larger bipedal Hunters are also a good challenge when it is one or two near a place where you can take proper cover from their infuriatingly accurate and long-range bursts of gunfire. But everything else above that is simply a pain as you have to pump them with so much lead and explosives, while also doing the aforementioned "respawn a mile away and walk back to the location", only to get... more ammo or the ocasional rare component that only drops if you have certain perks unlocked. Brilliant. It is simply not worth the effort to take down the larger machines. After dozens of game-playing hours, it is honestly hard to figure out how this game wants me to handle encounters. If I take them head on, I get downed with 3-4 shots of ludicrously accurate gunfire or an unavoidable volley of mortars from larger machines (which I guess is destined to the diversion of the coop group as the other players take advantage of this to flank and shoot), and have to respawn if I don't have an Adrenaline Shot (which is spawning much less than during the early days of this game). If I sneak around the machines and avoid encounters and the game gives me zero experience to level my character up. Reducing the difficulty makes the player tougher, the enemies weaker and looting seems to yield more healing items but the core problem remains. The game has fantastic production values (it is beautiful even 2 years on and it sounds amazing) but the gameplay itself, unfortunately, feels like it has been the afterthought of this whole thing, especially when it comes to the singleplayer experience which, again, is what awaits any new or returning players of this game. Still, the existence of this revised review is proof itself that there is hope that the still quite active development team behind this game makes the necessary changes for this to be a genuinely fun and engaging experience.