Coming back to write another review for 2022 / 2023, after hitting prestige 100 and mastering every weapon in the book of weapons, the gameplay loop is still fun as long as you avoid some problems that have been lingering in the game for years now.

It is extremely difficult to give this game a negative review considering I have enjoyed a good percentage of my playtime, but between annoying exploits, bugs, missing features and promises, and a meta that continues to get more and more stale in the higher MMR ranges its also hard for me to see why I would continue to play after hitting prestige 100. Some of the problems I see with the game these days is:

1. Extremely difficult new player experience, its really hard to get buddies to enjoy the game with me without creating another account because I am 5 / 6 star. Even if I created another account, the new player experience is extremely tough considering how big of a difference it makes to just understand the map and basic gameplay concepts in this game. This has been a problem for a long time now.

2. The lack of content is expected as this isn't a extremely large team, but it still is a little painful when there are long spans of little to no new content to enjoy in the game, when new stuff finally gets added there is a bit of a player boost but if it isn't a significant update its unfortunate how little motivation there is to play. When there is new content, its usually new weapon skins / hunters (could be considered p2w hunter skins) sometimes, and that disappoints a lot of people.

3. Players such as myself who have been playing since early access / 1.0 were hoping to one day see a rework to the prestige system, as without the prestige system, there is nothing to really strive for in the basic gameplay loop other than killing people and winning games. Racking up kills and winning games is fun, but it would be nice if there was something to spice it up if you are racking up the hours.

4. The "camping" issue is an extremely contested problem with the game, aka the "shotguns campers vs sniper campers" debate which essentially will never end, Crytek talked about revealing a way to combat both ways of camping using teamwork in 2022 and it never happened, which is extremely disappointing. For people who don't have a lot of time to play, its annoying when you get in a 20 to 30 minute standoff with people who hold angles from 200 meters away and there is essentially very little counterplay if they know how to counter you running to extract.

5. The biggest frustration in the game right now for myself and many others is the way "trading kills" works in this game, right now the trading window is upwards of 800 ms (!!!!!) which is absolutely ridiculous. It should be at least dropped to 400 ms as a lot of close range fights and really close matches are lost to trading, and its extremely frustrating and disappointing. It also results in people playing a lot more passive, creating longer and arguably more boring matches. Recently, it feels like more fights result in a trade kill than they don't in my personal experience

6. The meta in 5 / 6 star mmr ranges is extremely stale, long ammo has controlled the meta for so long and medium ammo feels extremely neglected and underpowered up until recently. There is very little reason to not run the mosin / lebel every single match as it simply has the best ammo type and both of these weapons are the easiest weapons to use in the game with little downsides. Feels very disappointing when you feel at a constant disadvantage for not running the meta guns.

7. Very annoying bugs and even game-breaking exploits end up lasting way to long without being fixed or at least acknowledged by the devs. Bugs such as being unable to reload your gun / shoot your gun can last months before being fixed despite them being very well known by the playerbase, and even exploits that are essentially wall hacks lasted for years before being fixed. The people who abused didn't get punished nearly enough as well.

In the end, the gameplay loop CAN be extremely fun. There are many great experiences to have with a lot of the extremely fun to use weapons and strategies you can use to win, but these issues have been lingering for such a long time now and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I still can't give this a negative review because when you start to get used to the game it begins to get addicting and very fun. No other game feels like this and sometimes its frustrating and disappointing that Crytek doesn't focus on this game being their main game, considering it saved them from bankruptcy and financial problems. This game could easily be way more popular and receive more love from Crytek, but maybe I am wrong.

Its hard to beat hitting clean headshots with a rifle, blasting someone or multiple people with some of the best feeling shotguns in any multiplayer game ever, or just having fun messing around with friends. Please Crytek at least take a look at some of these issues or maybe throw some ideas out and see what the playerbase thinks, this game could be so so so popular but I think it is to late to get it even bigger.