Well, this might be controversial for some — the hours played are just a cover of the book

After having played this game for that many hours I hope I'm qualified to share my honest opinion on this one. Starting off with the good things and one of those is surely the gameplay; it's very consuming and addicting, especially for someone artistic and creative in nature — you'll have plenty a room to showcase it. It's not a sandbox per se but a huge focal point was moved towards the customization and settlement management which comes with them various options. But once you proper your village to a high standard, the money you'll be getting will have little to no purpose since all that you can buy you can make yourself and be well off.

I'll mention the quests. Side quests fall under the seasonal category and they expire once the season changes and you can set up at which rate they'll do. Pacing of the game will heavily depend on the settings you launch at the start or midgame. Main quests along with the storyline have a slightly bigger wiggle room and give you time to return to them later. I'm not commenting on the quality of the said storyline though, the checkbox is marked and all's well.

This could go on with the describing of how addictive and well built the gameplay is if it wasn't for the bugs and other points I need to make. And bugs there are! I do get the notion that the developers are a small amateur team albeit with the luxurious backing but the work done does not correlate with the pricetag hung upon it. Now read it again as it's the main takeaway here. For the amount of bugs that it has, be it a silly, clanky animation or constant clipping into objects, failing scripts or terrible movement altogether this shouldn't be costing half as much. With such a greedy approach and seeming attempts to continue the trend (look up Sengoku Dynasty and other atrocities with this game still being in the state it's in), I obviously do not recommend this game a tiny bit. Surely not for the pricetag they offer it up with. The absolute maximum this, project, should be costing is 75% off the price it currently has, no other way near it.

If you catch it on the discount like I did — go for it, otherwise don't you even dare. Don't entertain the idea of buying it for the full price, don't agree to the terms the lazy rookie devs had the audacity to put out. Yes, the gameplay is nice and if you're that kind of person you'll be all but consumed and yes, the prospects of coop do be very tempting but look at a broader picture, this will continue and not far off the day your budget is squeezed to the last quarter for some questionable content. But yes, oh yes, the gameplay is nice and achievements are the sole reason I stayed for as long as I did. The possibility to build a manufacture and set it up right to rather quickly become a very succesful village leader is a cool way about it.

But you think for yourself, you gotta be a grownup. It's not a matter of low-life complaints, I got money, it's a matter of principle. They shouldn't be getting away with this and set up a manufacture of their own with these low quality products. If it was a few notches better and really thought out — it's alright by me here's the cash, but the thing they created doesn't cost nearly as much and oh boy, am I mad.

Great game in the Survival/community building genre. I love the realism as I feel the game parallels my life. I've been shot down trying to romance a woman for being too dirty, it takes me an entire season to complete almost any project, and I've spent hours hunting in the woods, only to shoot a dear with an arrow and have it run off for me to never find it again. I finally me a nice girl, get married, then I have to shower her with gifts and complete countless tasks to keep her happy. I knock her up, then spend another season tending to her pregnancy cravings and unstable emotions, just to finally have a kid that will completely change the game for the rest of my life. Top Notch!

The building and crafting systems is simple, slightly grindy, and more utilitarian then customizable. Combat is run of the mill, though I've been killed by more trees than bandits. Village automation can be tough to balance, which adds to the challenge; however keeping your people happy seems easier than some game, as this one has far less jerks to recruit, and most people, other than your wife, are less needy. A little more flash and brighter decorations would be nice, but the drab , dingy, overcast adds to the immersion of miserable medieval life take makes you feel as depressed as someone from that period, as well as your own life. Recommended.

Gameplay stuff:
I have not played oxbow map so i have no input on it or multiplayer.

Village building/decorating game that has farming, foraging, trading and combat to justify that village you have.
There is quite a lot of freedom on where and how you place/organize your village as well as general difficulty of gameplay. However the decoration itself is a bit limited as you can not place furniture inside buildings and wall customization is limited to predefined spots. Single peace inventory items however can be grabbed and moved around to the place that you want when dropped.
While there is no terrain editing the existing villages are using the already available building components so it can serve as example of what you could try to create.
Skill leveling speed is not made equal, especially for hunting and diplomacy. While diplomacy will rise over time by selling stuff I suggest using traps short distance from your village to level hunting.
Combat is usable but depending on difficulty can feel too easy or hard depending on settings and enemies.
The music is very fitting to the setting and overall to the activities too. My only biggest issue here is that i can not hire the traveling band to play in my villages tavern.
While the option exists to change season length I advise against making it longer as a lot of mechanics are balanced around the change of seasons, and while the initial impulse might be to do as much as possible each season it will become less important once your village starts to grow.
The story quests are not exciting but they do provide some context to certain aspects of things, and in the case of valley they somewhat also operate as tutorials.
The game does not initially explain this but what type of king you have has gameplay implications, so if the name of the king is something that could be considered "bad" it could be beneficial to start the game again.

"Unplayable" - Village children can sometimes complain that they have no toys, but there actually is no mechanic regarding this other than gifting since toys can not be made by player. The unplayable part however comes due to your blacksimth commenting from time to time that they are the best toy sword maker, even tho they are incapable of actually making them in your village.

Technical items:
Game would greatly benefit from shader pre-compilation before actually starting first new game as it can be quite stuttery initially.
Default TAA options provide suboptimal quality in motion so custom config is suggested, tho parameter HistoryScreenPercentage could cause visual artefacts so YMMV.
The building LOD distances could benefit from some tweaking as even the highest settings make the full detail version show up too close to player.