So ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. So fantastic. GOTY.

Although I am a magnet to bugs far and wide, my experience was fairly limited with them in the game. A handful of weird/impossible combat problems such as being targeted and shot through walls, and only 2 real issues that required either replaying the part of the quest via autosave to unclog or searching forums for a workaround. In the ~50ish hours of actual playtime, it was pretty clear of bugs with only occasional flickers of the roughness that existed.

That being said, at the end of it all (if you can get there), what you will remember is the story, characters, and voice acting. It is easy to get sucked into finding empathy for characters and wanting to help them. The script, character animation and voice acting are all impeccably human and relatable. From one quest line to the next, questions of morals and where the line is drawn will progressively become more blurred, challenging you to either rigidly maintain your own morals, or allow them to be changed by the ever more complex situations.

The combat is a little more rough in places, as although there are a lot of different ways you can go about it, you aren't always afforded all of those options, or it takes time to work up the paths you really do want/those you might fully enjoy. By the end of my play through, I had a type and spec I LOVED and that was ignoring at least 2/3rds of skill trees. Asking myself if I'd still like the game as much if I didn't have that type spec available in the game, it's hard to say. It at least has me curious enough to find out.

The early game is a LOT. As in, if you remember seeing footage of a baby horse or deer or giraffe or whatever being born and then being able to walk and follow the heard within a matter of minutes and wondering "Wow, that's crazy how it just knows and adapts so quickly without any help!" This is the opposite of that. You will be annihilated by the incoming messaging, tutorials, UI and general information. I almost feel like I need to replay it now just so it will make sense to me. At the same time, I would love to watch someone else experience this pain, if not only because of my german heritage of enjoying other's pain.

All in all, I would say that if your system can run it and you are looking to play a solid single player story game, this is a quality buy. It is worth the original sticker price if you do not experience the deal breaking bugs off the bat or feel the deep pang of regret when it will go on sale for less. At its heart, it is worth it, even if it might not currently.

7.5 / 10

(Would be 1 point higher but docking a point for initial rollout/bugs)
((Actual play time to be about ~50-60 hours))