Recent reviews by Keystone

UPDATE 11 Jan 2023: With driver updates, the game crashes significantly less... thanks NVIDIA, seriously.

However, now, in the cosmetic shop, over half of the purchasable cosmetics have clipping issues that break them entirely, sometimes by hiding them almost completely inside your character's body. There is no preview; there are NO refunds. If you buy a broken cosmetic, you're stuck with it. And there's no way of telling which are broken.

The game forces you to run past the cosmetic shop to get to the weapons shop, usually eight to ten times per play session. You can access the cosmetic shop from anywhere in the game by pressing your pause button. The cosmetic shop has received several rolling FOMO updates throughout the vacation the devs are taking, but obviously since they were on a three week vacation, no actual functioning balance or bugfix updates have come out. WE ARE NOT UPSET THAT YOU TOOK A VACATION. WE ARE UPSET THAT YOU DIDN'T DELAY THE GAME AND FIX IT AFTER YOUR VACATION. This "you don't want us taking a break" talking point is disingenuous. Obviously devs deserve a break. But customers deserve a functioning product as well. The compromise is to delay the release. But you can't uncork that bottle, I guess. Swing and a miss.

One community manager has flip-flopped a dozen times on what is and isn't available, then acts condescending or defensive when called out on his passive aggressive behavior. Another community manager repeats the same tired corpo-speak "we're listening, we hear you, we're reconsolidating our efforts, we're observing feedback, we're paying attention, we're recalibrating," blah blah blah. Right when you start talking, there's nothing but white noise.

It's still missing core crafting and upgrade features. It's still missing the weapon customization that was promised six months before launch. It's still missing some UI and menu options. Some of the achievements you must do to unlock free cosmetics are unreasonable and force you to grief your team. It's just a train wreck right now. Maybe the game will be somewhat decent after a year. But holy crazy situations, Batman, it's still just a mess.

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Original review:
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BETA TESTER

Do not purchase this until it improves considerably. Horrible performance makes the game nigh unplayable. Beta test was MORE stable and performed better than the launch version. At least one person crashes in EVERY SINGLE MATCH. If it's a friend, the game will give their slot to SOMEONE ELSE because you can't set games to Friends Only, so your friend will lose all of their rewards for that mission TO SOMEONE ELSE who was only there for three minutes.

They have released an explanation blog post for why optimization is hard. Great, thanks for explaining the obvious. That doesn't explain why optimization wasn't ironed out before release, when multiple closed betas and one open beta gave enough feedback to explain why optimization was priority number one for this game to succeed. Telling us that it's hard doesn't excuse selling us something that barely functions. "We can fix it later, ship it broken" is horrendously unprofessional behavior, but it's also industry standard now, so whatever, I guess.

Review will be changed to positive when the issues resolve, because there is an amazing game underneath all of this. But I won't be covering that, because YOU, dear reader, do not deserve to slog and suffer through all of this game's issues to reach the decent quality at bedrock. This review is to warn you that you will have your time wasted if you purchase this game in its current state.

PROS:
I've played this on-and-off since its inception. It's a different game than it used to be, but it's no less entertaining and rewarding. This game is best enjoyed with a good squad, preferably one you hand-pick yourself in the field. You'll be surprised at how people will dynamically fall in with you. There's a lot of different playstyles and you will almost certainly find something that works for you.

CONS:
I do not like how the game automatically assigns players into squads upon log-in. Players are not invested in these squads as they rarely have leaders, and newer players do not leave these squads, meaning you cannot engage with them to invite them into your own squad until they learn how to leave their own. This adds an additional barrier against teamplay.

The ADF-01 Falken is a peak performance aircraft.

Full Band approved.

Rather than post a review, let me tell you a story.

With over 1000 other players, I watched a Twitch livestream of peace talks between five major clans of pirates, taking place at a literal round table. The subject of discussion? The ownership of Kerrocroft Island, a major logistical power in Region C10.

Days prior, a major clan named Enslaved had fought another clan, Death Day, for ownership of the island. In attendance of this meeting were delegates from both alliances involved in the conflict. Their host was a third party clan who had fronted the resources to build a meeting hall on neutral ground; built a harbor for the delegates' ships; and even provided translators for the clan leaders who didn't speak English.

Land is valuable in Atlas because it is so limited, making peace sometimes the better answer. So Enslaved made an offer to Death Day: Pay us a ransom in 50,000 gold coins, and we will sell your island back. This pushed the meeting toward an inevitable disaster. One delegate marched out, declaring that the meeting was pointless. Another suggested we go on a group hunt for whales to build unity before further discussion. But no one wanted to listen by this point.

By the end, an open declaration of war was made by both sides. The neutral host made one final request, that the warring parties allow each other to return home in peace, as a measure of honor and respect for the meeting held. And that's exactly what happened... they boarded their ships without violence, headed home, and sharpened their swords for war.

Two days later, under cover of darkness, the C10 alliance made their move to retake the island from Enslaved. We rode in on small ships loaded with equipment, deployed a forward operating base, and began our attack. This raid was timed with precision to coincide with an attack on Enslaved's main harbor to the East, intended to draw them into a two front war.

We set up on one mountainside. The enemy set up on another. After an eight hour operation - of sniping each other, of setting up and taking out artillery, of sneaking across or flanking with ships and fighting off enemy flanks and sneak attacks, of shelling our old shores with ships to weaken their resolve - we managed to finally retake the island in the name of our alliance.

We suffered artillery barrages on par with Saving Private Ryan, with chaotic deluges of mud flying every which way on every cannon ball impact, and we survived, standing tall.

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My enjoyment of this game didn't come easy. The DayZ SA zombie made me extremely jaded about Early Access games. I saw the reviews for this game, saw the articles, the Reddit posts, and turned my nose up at first. And despite this, I'm glad I followed my friend into this game. It's provided me with a hell of an experience. This is the survival MMO I didn't know I needed. Make no mistake, folks... this is a unique experience, one much unlike ARK. Don't let this one pass you by.

URRA-GAKTCH! Errer-ghuhk--uwuu--uwoooooo.

This game will make you feel desperate, cold, and alone. You will feel fear. You will feel anger and rage. You will feel cornered. You will feel triumphant. You will sometimes feel victory. You will always eventually taste bitter defeat.

Ration your meals. Conserve your energy. Consolidate your resources. Plan for every eventuality, for every emergency, and you will survive. I made it 200 days. You can too. And I highly recommend you try.

Old school fun. Shame about the servers being down though.