These are my opinions as someone who has only experienced the game through a PVE private server with friends! I do not enjoy PVP games so if you're looking for opinions on that then this might not be the review for you!

Thought i would update my review since the major update came out! I've played about 30hrs plus since the new update and have been enjoying it a lot. I thought i would list some pros and cons i found with this game! (Also save yourself some time if you make a private server always have the option on for teleporting with resources, the game feels too tedious without it for the size of the map, also for optimal game experience set the amount of castle hearts a single player can make to like 3 so that way you can place castle hearts for teleporting reasons in areas that might not have them!)

Pros:
-New mount taming ability is pretty cool and allows you to have a permanent mount to respawn whenever you like and discard it for one with better stats if you see fit.
-New consumables like the stone that allows you to teleport converted humans back to your base is a life saver, having your 100 percent blood die while transporting it manually back to your base was the real struggle.
- the skills rehaul was pretty good, i like how you can customise them with jewels of different tiers to make them better or adjust them to your preference. Makes it a lot more unique depending on what play style you like to play as.
- the new areas were very interesting, i found the new mobs refreshing as it made the game less repetitive.
- the new bosses added were cool and i like how a lot of the blueprints you obtained from defeating the bosses mostly made sense with their lore etc.
- Introducing multi-levelled castle was a game changer, i love how much customisation it added to castle shapes etc.
- Seperating the boss/Vblood list into acts was really smart as it made it easier to pace your gameplay and know what you should be doing at current ur level.
- Having a way to upgrade the blood you can bottle from prisoners is cool, I didn't know it was a thing till I unlocked it so it may of been new with this update or something I just never noticed.
- I like how not all the people in the game have to own the DLC to use the unique furniture etc, having one person that owns them is fine and allows for a lot more customisation and themes!
- The addition of pistols to the game is amazing, they felt very powerful and fun to use. They almost felt too overpowered at times.
- Having the customisation settings for making a server now in game rather than having to change the game files is also very nice.


Cons:
- I found the new way they changed claiming territory kind of restricting especially playing in a PVE private server. The way they restricted you from claiming lands on different levels from each other felt very sad but i like how they somewhat balanced it by making bigger territories you can claim in the later game areas.
- Some of the bosses felt a bit tedious to verse rather than challenging, its hard to explain without spoilers but it felt like the difficulty of them varied a lot. Which isn't necessarily bad it just was just kind of annoying to gauge how much to prepare beforehand.
- I found this game is a lot better with friends, helps with farming resources and just generally having a better time. But don't let that stop you from trying it solo if you feel inclined to!
- I found that the RNG with getting 100 percent blood NPC's naturally felt next to impossible since this new update and I'm unsure if its just cause im insanely unlucky or they've bugged it somehow? Either way I'm glad you can at least use the bile consumable for the possibility of getting it to 100 percent if its close etc.
- They need a way to capture the animals or have a way of having a renewable creature blood source cause it feels kind of stupid that you can't.
- I really disliked how many patrols there were in the silverlight area, it just felt way too cluttered especially since the mounts only had 2 dashes to help them get through it. I would recommend maybe adding another ability to the personal horses you tame to balance it.
- It felt kind of sad that the later weapons that you build don't have unique abilities the higher the tier, they just had the same 3 abilities just upped the stats and made them inflict different status effects etc. It made getting the better tier of the weapon you currently have not as exciting cause you knew it would do the same thing.

Overall: I think its worth the playthrough! For a game thats still in early access I'm excited to see how much more they can add to this game and will be eager to see more content in the future. I'll most likely be updating this review again in the future but for now I'm pretty much experienced all this update has to offer!