Recent reviews by Hans

This game hits really well on the "quick matches with excitement" column. If I want to play chill, I go in during the day solo. If I want hot PvP action, go in a squad of 3 during prime time.

Graphics are amazing, even on mid-tier equipment. Sound design is OUTSTANDING, and worldbuilding is a lot of fun. Great replayability.

As good as the first one!

I am kinda "meh" on the Harry Potter universe after the last few attempts at movies, and am not a fan of JK Rowling's position on human beings who she dislikes.

However - this game is a freaking LOVE LETTER to the Wizarding World. Hogwart's is created in such incredible detail that I found myself just exploring for the fun of it. Meanwhile, the most compelling storyline in this universe for the past 15 years unfolds around me as I play and I found myself not minding the fedex quests and simple enough puzzles.

The magic in the HP universe has always kind of bothered me due to it's middle-school simplicity (I mean, yeah, the book was written for middle schoolers, so....) but in this game it works nearly perfectly. The skill points you can assign as you level up let you fine-tune your skills, and I found that the more I "studied" the better I got at the spell combos and the ability to be a very powerful wizard.

Add to that that the utilization of the game engine it is built on with phenominal ray tracing and distance rendering made the world never feel "small." If I could see something from the ground, I could go there in the world (up to the edge of the map).

I'm only about 40% through the achievements, but if this continues at this rate I'll replay again for sure.

UPDATE DEC 2024:

The game went on sale for half price, and I picked it up again and I'm glad I did. It's now running smoothly and not a single crash. It's amazing, the story is phenomenal, and the depth of play styles from encounter to encounter is a ton of fun. Recommended!

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I've been looking forward to this port for years - and here it is!

2.8 hours later, I had Steam process my refund. I have GB internet, so I spent the 10 minutes downloading the 80GB of content. Then I had my PC chew on the shaders for just over an hour, and the game crashed before it was finished. So, restarted everything and spent another hour building the shaders. 2.2 hours of time in game and I finally get to the prologue - FANTASTIC! First time I try to put an item down (the newspaper in the bathroom about 15 seconds in to the game) I accidentally hit F12 next to my BACK key. Game freezes for about 5 minutes, then goes belly up. 2.7 hours in the game now.

Every time I go to a cut scene, the game dies.

2.8 hours in, I uninstalled and Steam processed my refund.

I'll try again when it's fixed, but for now? This ain't it. Sorry.

For an early-access game still under development, this is an incredibly fun and valuable title. The gameplay is *fun*, the crafting is excellent, and the lore and mechanics really work. While there are some quality of life issues and some fairly minor annoyances and bugs, its still a work in progress. Kudos to our Swedish friends for this excellent game! May the Allfather look upon you with approval.

This game holds so much potential - unrealized. It is a grindy, boring game with amazing visuals that could be so much better.

I love open world games, and a massive multiplayer game based upon exploration of an incredibly huge universe sounds like my idea of game perfection. This game, however, does not have multiplayer and my actions make no difference whatsoever. In addition, bugs have made the game almost unplayable for me at times. The first bug I encountered stranded me many hundreds of thousands of light years from my starting point and no way to return there without hundreds of jumps and countless hours of grinding due to a bug with the way point system. The second issue (not a bug, but an issue) left me stranded on a planet unable to fuel my space ship to leave.

I want to love this game - it has all the ingredients - but the promised functionality just isn't there. At all.