There are some quality of life things they could, and should, add to make the overall experience less painful. Not that it's bad by any means, it could just be better. The reason I'm ranking it so high is because I have yet to succumb to the grind.

There is no late game content. The closest we get is spiral abyss and it's just designed to funnel you into the grindy parts of the game at this point. The devs are releasing updates that are slowly making certain things easier but a lot of new players will be blindsided by certain things that only become a problem once it's too late to fix them without sinking tons of time into the game.

One of the first characters I ever pulled was a character from a region that was locked behind a level gate and a questline. I could not level him until I was about 40 hours in. This problem is really only felt by characters from a specific region at the moment but it does still mean that a lot of characters have materials that are locked behind quests and story. The game is far from a botw clone, it's a gorgeous game that clearly has a lot of time and effort sunk into it by a passionate dev team. There are just some glaring issues that need to be addressed before I can give this game a better score.

I played on and off, trying to get back into the game from time to time. The gameplay was always fun. I had a good time with the combat, quests were usually fairly easy to understand and objectives were exceedingly clear. The naked waypoint run was an experience, and staring at people with cool mounts was motivating when I had to waddle my way across the frosty wastes on foot. I had fun with this game. Right up until I reached the point where interacting with the community was unavoidable.

I play games differently than the correct way to play WoW. That made onboarding a problem when I got to the point where I needed to find a guild to progress. I avoid grinding where possible. I like listening to, watching and playing through story. This was not the game for me. I hear it has only drifted farther into the grind-from-dawn-til-dusk territory over the years. I'm sure people still have fun, but the onboarding process demonstrated pretty clearly that this is not the game I should be spending time with.

I played this game multiple times on two different platforms. It hit just as hard every time I played it as it did the first time I finished it.

There are elements that aren't going to be for everyone and if you just like to play to collect achievement and hate actual story and dialogue getting in your way, don't play this game. It's story and dialogue. Call it a walking simulator all you want, it had moments that genuinely made me question what it was trying to say and what message I was supposed to take away from it. I came away with my own understanding of the things that happened, of how events were connected, and I'm happy I let myself experience it without looking into the theories behind it beforehand.

This is easily one of the most fun stealth experiences I've ever had. It was also the most painful experience I ever had. My first attempt at this game was a ghost/clean hands run.

The detection can be a little wonky at times, but it's leaps and bounds better than a lot of other games at the time. The art style is gorgeous and manages to look flawless to this day. The multiple approaches an paths mean I don't get bored replaying this game every few months. I can literally do anything. I still haven't gotten a kill with every weapon in the game yet. Genuinely recommend if you want a fun stealth game that will let you become a human blender for an entire city if you just hate stealth. Don't expect to get all the achievements if you hate stealth tho.