Recent reviews by Metalmine

On Launch:
Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10
Stability: 10/10
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Graphics:
The game is gorgeous. Every aspect of every region is meticulously designed. Details abound to levels beyond expectations. There's story in everything, every monster, every npc, every dead body. Hidden treasures around every corner. All accompanied by beautiful visual design of weapons, armor sets, and spells.

Gameplay: Fluid as fluid can be. You're given a simple set of tools and each new weapon, armor, and spells expand on the tool set such that you feel like you have everything you need to take on any encounters. They introduced grenades that you don't lose on usage, but have to recraft thereby making using consumables enticing. They introduced Ashes, or summons of all kinds to help with game play styles of different kinds. From tanks if you're a ranged player, to dps if you're more tanky front liner. Even if you don't have friends to travers the Lands Between with, you'll always have reliable friends in game.

Story:
As mentioned before, every npc you meet has a story, dead or alive. Don't rush through a road and ignore the details, there may be a quest you're running by, or hints of areas you may never go to if you just gallop by.

Stability:
UPDATE:
With Update 1.03, stability issues were completely resolved.

OLD: --Probably beating a dead horse at this point, but stuttering whenever the game loads things in happens a lot. Sometimes detrimental to being alive. I hope this fix this soon as this is the only thing stopping this game from being the masterpiece it deserves to be.--

10 years of civ. This will eat all your time. Do not play this.

Very good. I lost a lot of weight.

get out. get out before you lose years of your life having fun.

EDIT: Much more optimized. Feels faster than old MHW:

System setup:
Ryzen 3600
Radeon 5700 XT
16 GB 3000 MHz DDR4 Ram

Feels super smooth with less frame drops than pre-IB

Initial load has some noticeable lag. Unplayable for the first few minutes. I'll try again in a couple of weeks hopefully they'll have optimized it better by then.

The turns never end. Stop before you're trapped!

Good game. A lot of gold. Steal / merchant to gg. Very fun. Yes.

Good game. Good guns. Very good. Yes.

This is a game I have been waiting for since the console release, I've been keeping myself from knowing anything. Upon downloading this game yesterday I was immediately able to play the game online with friends.

Pros:
- Beautiful, living, ecosystems that feels real in this fantasy world
- The amazing fighting system the series is known to have with new innovations
- Wonderfully fluid combat

Cons:
- No lip sync attempt: As expected, no one cares
- Slight frame drops when max settings in the middle of an effect heavy fight. (lower it to your pc's settings)
- Servers not performing that well in the first few days. I hope it's because they weren't expecting the volume of players and will scale up soon to meet demands.

An actually engaging story not mired with exposition? Great RP opportunities and meaningful choices? This game is great!