This review contains spoilers
It's not quite the "explore the maps and work everything out by yourself" game that many were expecting. It's more of a "explore the maps and you'll find things the game will then tell you how to use". I don't mind it too much. At first it seemed way too hand-holdy, but honestly by the end of the game there's just SO MANY notes, audio logs, eternalist conversations etc that I doubt most people would be able to piece this game together by themselves.
It's also hard to tell exactly how much the game tells you where to go. Through exploring I found a ton of things that the game made notes of, which were then later important parts of a quest. Would the game have told me where to find this step 4 part of the quest if I hadn't found it before, or would I have still had to look for it myself? You just find so much stuff out of order that should feel rewarding, but instead it makes you think "did I really find it myself, or did I just find it earlier than the game would tell me where it is?". It's that kind of thing that makes it hard to judge exactly how immersive this game truly is.
Gameplay is extremely fun though. After a slow tutorial, you start being able to customise your loadout. There's not a whole ton of stuff to unlock, but it's always nice finding a new trinket that fits your playstyle, and the slabs are consistently exciting to get. The problem comes from how limited the loadout slots are. There's only 3 weapon slots, so chances are you'll find your preferred weapons early enough that every other weapon will just be left on the ground since you have would have sacrifice one of your main weapons (for the rest of the run) in order to pick up this new weapon and infuse it.
The game does seem to hint at a different loadouts for different missions idea, but I found using a versatile loadout that kinda does a bit of everything but master of nothing worked for 90% of the game, only requiring to be changed for specific trophies or optional missions.
I did really like the maps. After playing through them all so many times they felt like home. The little touches done between times of day to make the maps feel different are nice, but honestly the majority of the time it still feels like the exact same map as any other time of day, just with enemy placements switched and certain quests only being available now. There's a few exceptions, the one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the complex at night which strips away most enemies and instead turns the level into a booby trapped obstacle course.
The one thing I wish maps had more of was environment variety. I get that the plot of the game kind of requires a lot of laboratories and big imposing areas full of science equipment, but the most fun places to explore were always the one-offs, like Charlie's live action role playing game, or, well, most of Fristad Rock. I wanted way more of that.
The visionaries had some effort put into developing them and making them stand out, but most of it falls into "tell don't show" as it comes in the form of notes, email chains etc. I do appreciate the ones that they put the personalities into the actual locations they're at though, like, again, Charlie's role playing game, or Aleksis's mask party. I guess that's a problem that goes hand in hand with the idea that most of the visionaries had to be scientists though, since labs are where you'll find a lot of them.
I also wish more of them stood out from regular enemies, rather than just being slightly stronger versions. Wenjie is the only one who gets any kind of real mechanic implemented into her battle, as she's cloned herself so you have to kill all the clones. For other characters it's just a case of fight/stealth your way to them and then kill them. So the worst visionaries are by far the ones that have no mechanics AND are just in boring lab locations (like Fia or Egor). If you wanna know anything about them other than "they're scientists" you really need to look for it.
Basically I found the game super fun to play, it's fast paced, full of fun details, a ton of content spread across relatively small maps, and I even grew to enjoy Colt and Juliana's banter. It just feels like it missed its full potential.
Also the online mode is garbage. It uses the concept of invading other players games to try and kill them, but like...most people are going to play in single player mode to avoid losing all their progress from having someone invade their game and kill them. I really can't think of a worse thought out mechanic in my life. Nobody WANTS to have other players come and reset them back to the start of the day, devs?? Why would you think people wouldn't just turn that off as soon as possible?
It's also hard to tell exactly how much the game tells you where to go. Through exploring I found a ton of things that the game made notes of, which were then later important parts of a quest. Would the game have told me where to find this step 4 part of the quest if I hadn't found it before, or would I have still had to look for it myself? You just find so much stuff out of order that should feel rewarding, but instead it makes you think "did I really find it myself, or did I just find it earlier than the game would tell me where it is?". It's that kind of thing that makes it hard to judge exactly how immersive this game truly is.
Gameplay is extremely fun though. After a slow tutorial, you start being able to customise your loadout. There's not a whole ton of stuff to unlock, but it's always nice finding a new trinket that fits your playstyle, and the slabs are consistently exciting to get. The problem comes from how limited the loadout slots are. There's only 3 weapon slots, so chances are you'll find your preferred weapons early enough that every other weapon will just be left on the ground since you have would have sacrifice one of your main weapons (for the rest of the run) in order to pick up this new weapon and infuse it.
The game does seem to hint at a different loadouts for different missions idea, but I found using a versatile loadout that kinda does a bit of everything but master of nothing worked for 90% of the game, only requiring to be changed for specific trophies or optional missions.
I did really like the maps. After playing through them all so many times they felt like home. The little touches done between times of day to make the maps feel different are nice, but honestly the majority of the time it still feels like the exact same map as any other time of day, just with enemy placements switched and certain quests only being available now. There's a few exceptions, the one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the complex at night which strips away most enemies and instead turns the level into a booby trapped obstacle course.
The one thing I wish maps had more of was environment variety. I get that the plot of the game kind of requires a lot of laboratories and big imposing areas full of science equipment, but the most fun places to explore were always the one-offs, like Charlie's live action role playing game, or, well, most of Fristad Rock. I wanted way more of that.
The visionaries had some effort put into developing them and making them stand out, but most of it falls into "tell don't show" as it comes in the form of notes, email chains etc. I do appreciate the ones that they put the personalities into the actual locations they're at though, like, again, Charlie's role playing game, or Aleksis's mask party. I guess that's a problem that goes hand in hand with the idea that most of the visionaries had to be scientists though, since labs are where you'll find a lot of them.
I also wish more of them stood out from regular enemies, rather than just being slightly stronger versions. Wenjie is the only one who gets any kind of real mechanic implemented into her battle, as she's cloned herself so you have to kill all the clones. For other characters it's just a case of fight/stealth your way to them and then kill them. So the worst visionaries are by far the ones that have no mechanics AND are just in boring lab locations (like Fia or Egor). If you wanna know anything about them other than "they're scientists" you really need to look for it.
Basically I found the game super fun to play, it's fast paced, full of fun details, a ton of content spread across relatively small maps, and I even grew to enjoy Colt and Juliana's banter. It just feels like it missed its full potential.
Also the online mode is garbage. It uses the concept of invading other players games to try and kill them, but like...most people are going to play in single player mode to avoid losing all their progress from having someone invade their game and kill them. I really can't think of a worse thought out mechanic in my life. Nobody WANTS to have other players come and reset them back to the start of the day, devs?? Why would you think people wouldn't just turn that off as soon as possible?