The game is still in Early Access for a bit longer, and HUGE HEADS UP: THERE WILL BE A SAVE SCRUB BEFORE FINAL RELEASE.

With all of that said, I can't recommend this game enough. It's Tool (the band), Scorn, a little bit of Geiger and Skyrim all mixed into one. It's a double AA game, but gives you the content that most triple AAA games gave up on in favor of repetitive copy / paste slop quests. This is the only game I've played since Skyrim and Hogwarts Legacy where I actually got that old Skyrim / Oblivion feeling from.

It does have its shortcomings though, because it is still in Early Access. It's not just a slasher game, the enemies have a lot of health, hit hard, and you do feel the need to level up, explore, and get stronger tools to take out the enemies. However, if you give it a bit of time, I think you won't regret your purchase.

Studios these days care more about their cash shop or their battle pass than they do about us, gamers. For the first time, in a very long time, I feel this studio's passion and love for their game as well as desire to give their customers a huge fulfilling adventure. We shouldn't be punching down on those studios, we should be lifting them up. This is definitely one, imo, that deserves to be lifted up.

Wow this game really surprised me. I usually wait a year after a game has been released before I buy it and I would never buy one in EA but I tried the demo and was pleasantly surprised and bought it. I really love and I'm grateful for that it has different difficulty levels I can play on, I have brain damage and spent a good 40 hours on the easiest level learning how to play it then I made another character and was able to play it on a higher level and fished the main quest but not all the sides so now I'll do another one and try again even harder. There is a lot to explore so climb,swim,cook,brew potions and meet some interesting NPCs and just have fun. I look forward to when more content is ready to be released.

ADD. DEATH. ANIMATION. When you die, immediately opening "load last save" is boring, lemme see my dumb corpse fling 15 feet in the direction of bad decisions

Alright, I want this game to succeed so I'm going to share my long-winded thoughts on the first 10+ hours of this game. I lucked out when a dev dropped a key in Cohh's Twitch chat this morning (thank you!). I downloaded it right away and played for most of the day.

Overview: Obviously, the masses are going to compare this Skyrim, but I think it has enough of its own flavor to have a name for itself...it just has to nail a few things before launch. From what I've seen, the devs are already working on some QOL issues that will positively affect the game state.

What it's doing right:

• Interesting plot - I like the ruinous Kamalot/Avalon setting. I look forward to seeing where it goes with more areas released. Right from the start, you're told you're off to steal Excalibur, and I'm so down.
  
• Map/Locations - Some POI's are unique and well-designed. The colossal swords in the distance, statues holding up cliffs, abandoned mansions, etc. More of that, please!
  
• Combat variety - I've tried out archer, two-handed, and dabbled in magic. Wasn't a big fan of the magic because the mana runs out rapidly and refills at turtle speed, but the others have been going well for me. The unique weapon abilities are really fun (i.e. a dagger that gives gold upon kills, a giant's sword that deals double damage on charged attacks).
  
• Aesthetic - The overall dark, foreboding vibe of the game gives it personality. From the tortures in the dungeons, to the rotting dryad who was betrayed by her brothers, to the chained corpse in the center of the map screaming at your character - this game would benefit from more 'horrorific' elements like this.

Needs improvement:

• Bugs! - I can't even submit an in-game bug report, which is just bug-ception. I've had visual bugs which took away all color after leaving a building, black screens that don't crash the game but you can't do anything, and passing skill checks in dialogue turns off the voice acting and replaces it with a robotic voice....hmm.
  
• Performance - The tutorial area allowed me to play on High Graphics with low to no stuttering. But after leaving tutorial island, I went down to Medium...then Low. Even on Low, the game constantly freezes and stutters. It reminds me of trying to play New Vegas on a budget laptop back in the day. Brightness slider would be sick too.
  
• Dumb AI - The enemies get stuck easily and some just don't do what they are supposed to. In the Mistbearer fight, all of the skeletons that get spawned in are non-hostile until attacked. I did the fight twice over to confirm it wasn't just a one-off.
  
• Quest Quality - The vast majority of the quests in the game are 'hey, go kill this' or 'go craft this for me.' A little variety never hurts.
  
• Weight - Please just make crafting materials weightless. It's less immersive I guess, but I stopped looting pretty much everything because I have to choose between my potatoes and my armor (I choose potatoes). Cooking and Alchemy have been fun, but I've put them on hold because it's just so weighty.

Feel free to comment if you have any questions. I've been having fun, but as it is an Early Access game, it comes with some opportunities for improvement.

its crime that Bethesda slop pisses away millions of dollars and projects like this are just scraping by

It is good, but it is Early Access and the more you play it the more you notice it. There are bugs, balancing problems, unfinished story. I had a great time, but it is better not to spoil the experience and wait till release.

This game is great. A must for Skyrim fans. btw I know this review will not be seen by a lot of people so every thumbs up I do 2 push-up.

Reminds me of the good old days with Elder scrolls, Might and magic and other good RPG games. dono why, but it gives me the tingeling feeling of playing an old be back game. interesting enough story is fine, gameplay is to, and overall so far a good game. 75 hours inn, and still continuing to explore every single corner of the maps. thanks, keep up the good work. (Gamer from 1988)

This is actually the game Bethesda should have been making. Everyone who mods Skyrim (myself included) to be grimdark or gritty or extra bloody really should play this game because it's essentially what I'm after. The writing's consistently interesting and good, the gameplay has major improvements over Skyrim/Fallout, and the atmosphere is amazingly immersive, especially for Celtic myth fans like me.

For the nitty gritty people who really want to know how this game has improved over Skyrim:

Health does not regenerate naturally. This is a feature of Oblivion that a lot of us were sad to see go in Skyrim. You have easy access to healing items and spells, and can still do the old "I eat all the cheese" if something brings your HP low.

Mana does regenerate naturally, and you still have items to replenish it.

Stamina does regen, but it's been changed to help the flow of combat. In Skyrim, your stamina is mostly used to spam power attacks, shield bashing, or if you're late game, to spam knocking them over with the shield rush perk, because the only way to dodge attacks is by spacing the enemy's animations. It regens pretty slow and if you're a mage you pretty much ignore it. I'm simplifying, but that's the main things people use it for. In this game, light and heavy attacks consume stamina and it replenishes Dark Souls style; you use it up, and it comes back after a short delay.

They added a dodge. It works amazing, and to start with you have 3 charges. It consumes stamina just like your attacks.

All the combat is in first person. The animations flow great, and each weapon has a different identity (about the same as in Skyrim -- I haven't gotten too far yet). Some people might not like that, but the animations are at least on a Vermintide 2 level. The only complaint I have is that weapon ranges don't seem right -- as in, I'll have a longsword but have to be physically touching the enemy to hit them.

For leveling up and perks, you have a new set of attributes (not just health/stam/magicka -- think DnD stats with different names). The devs have done us a major favor and shown us everything that the level ups increase, so there's no need to explain them.

Perk trees are back, and though not as flashy as Skyrim's screen, they are way more powerful. You can specialize your builds or do whatever you want, and most importantly read what every perk does very easily.

The only thing I have a gripe with is the crafting, which I think they took notes on from ESO or other MMOs. Essentially, you can improve your chances of crafting a better item by increasing the amount of materials you use to craft the item -- guarantee you make a high quality sword by shoving more ore into it, I guess, but that's how it works. It takes me out of the game a little, and the enemies respawn to help you farm materials (I have yet to find a lore reason for enemies respawning so much after I routinely commit stag and wolf genocide in the first area). However, the devs have already implemented crafting from storage, so that makes it a lot easier.

If you care about visual fidelity a lot, you might be annoyed with the quality and some random issues (like pixellated faces or pixellated clouds in the distance), but it all works fine together. Some of the magic FX could use work, but they give strong Oblivion vibes and I like that. There's nothing wrong with visual consistency even when it's not in hyper-realistic 4k textures for everything. Not every game needs 100gb of textures, and this is one of them that really doesn't. The devs have made a lot of neat spectacles and I'm too focused on playing to care about how it looks.

The most major issue I've found is that the crafting station for "handcrafting" (smithing) is labelled "grindstone" and is not, in fact, a grindstone. It is a workbench with tools on it. In Skyrim, you used a grindstone to increase the strength of your weapon. In this game, the grindstone (which is located across from the aforementioned workbench) remains alone, useless, and depressed, just like me after realizing how much time I spent writing this review.

First and foremost, i do 100% recommend this game if you want to try it out.
personally i do wish i bought it when it was on sale, as it was an impulse buy for me after watching ESO play haha.

anyway to the actual review;
pros- 1.the Lore is amazing, whoever was writing it really put thought and passion in, very unique and interesting,
2. Feels super nostalgic, it feels like games we have all played before like elderscrolls, and as such is fun to get into
3. Ambience and Atmosphere, it has a really dark and eerie feeling to it, and the music and sounds offer a great deal in that feeling
4. Graphics, while not AAA the graphics look great and absolutely suit the Aesthetic of the game, there are some issues in some places, but overall the graphics are more than adequate.
5. Skills and Levelling, this is something that can make or break the fun for me, and Tainted Grail nails it, there are quite a few ways to level up, you gain experience when killing enemies doing quests and discovering locations, and you also gain XP every-time you level up u skill, which is great
6. Overall feel and difficulty, this game feels nice to play, the frames stay steady and loads fairly quick, and it is difficult enough to offer a challenge in the early segment of the game, you really have to attack sparingly or you run out of stamina, so strategy plays a massive roll in every fight, cant just run in and swing like a madman, the enemies hit hard. so make sure to utilise block and dodge, crouching is also a viable option.
7. Crafting, Cooking and Alchemy, all 3 of these are great, very well done, you will always find ingredients and all the food items are useful for health and mana, potions are good, haven't gone to much into crafting myself, but what i have is good.

Cons;
1. Repetitive, while the pros are great, in its current state the game feels very repetitive when you are exploring due to running around, finding location, killing enemies looting boxes. you will find some great lore though.
2. Empty Feeling, when moving from location to location the world feels dead, might see a couple wolves or some deer but thats it, while the locations themselves are brimming with detail, the paths leading to them are devoid of anything substantial, some of the dungeons are also clearly unfinished and can feel empty, and the loot pools are limited, again, this will change in the future of course.
3. Controller Support, Okay, this is just a personal observation after using my PS5 controller, the controller support is great, every button has a use, but it has some bad delay, and sometimes the game doesn't respond at all to the buttons, mainly in menu navigation, and especially when trying to exit the menu, sometimes it can be up to 3 seconds of delay.
4. Clipping and Structure Abnormalities, some areas have some crazy Clipping issues, like floating beds, or pillars, or in one case today, a structure floor that i walked through, while all these things can be fixed later, it kind of takes you off guard when you are walking through a dungeon and see a pillar just floating above the ground.
5. Combat, this isn't the biggest issue at all, just needs a polish and some cleaner animations, some variation would be nice as well some of the attack animations are copy pasted on weapons that should feel and act different . again, not a big issue.

For the most part this is all i have to say, i haven't personally encountered and Bugs or game breaking issues, i would like to see more enemy variations, loot and some more unique weapons and for the world to fill out a bit more. but that will all come in time i am sure.

if you read this far, thank you, if this game interests you, and you have the money, buy it, personally i suggest waiting till it is on sale, especially if you dont have the $ but it is a good, fun game.