Jeff Metcalfe

Really underwhelming release from Raph Colantonio, of all people. Never thought I'd have to say that. It feels like it's abandoned most of the immersive sim principles they had envisioned and instead focused on making it a twinstick shooter with narrative reactivity. It's a cool premise, and I can definitely get behind the way the narrative continues to unfold fairly naturally regardless of what you choose to do, but it's such a bland narrative that it often doesn't matter to me. I don't care about any of the characters, nor can I relate to them in any meaningful way. I don't enjoy the powers, I REALLY don't enjoy the combat. I think there are a lot of QoL features that are entirely missing. Inventory management is atrocious and the vendors are tedious. If the inventory management was going to be so uninspired and clunky, the least they could have done was added a junk trader NPC to buy absolutely anything from you, maybe at a discounted rate (that you could mitigate with a skill upgrade or trinket, perhaps). Overall, it's a pretty disappointing game in my opinion. I'm glad others are enjoying themselves, but I didn't buy it because I wanted a twinstick Fallout, I bought it because I was curious to see how immsim principles translated to a top-down isometric perspective. At least I got my answer: Not well. I still love Raph Colantonio, and I still intend to buy whatever his new studio puts out next, but I intend to do so with a healthy degree of skepticism next time. Even he isn't above using terms like "immersive sim" as a marketing gimmick, it seems.