I picked this game up on sale and, honestly, I almost refunded it after the first 30 minutes. The opening is rough, and it doesn’t do a great job of selling itself early on. I’m glad I stuck with it though.

At its core, the game takes the Left 4 Dead formula and builds on it in a smart way. Instead of just shooting and moving forward, you get passives, active skills, weapon builds, dodging, and distinct classes that actually change how you play. It feels deeper without losing that co-op chaos that made the original formula fun.

The learning curve is brutal at first. You will get absolutely destroyed, no question. But once it clicks, it starts to feel like a rhythm, almost like a song or a dance. When you learn enemy patterns, manage your stamina, and use your kit properly, everything flows. At that point, you stop surviving by luck and start feeling genuinely powerful.

There are six classes, each with clear strengths and weaknesses… well, except for Arbites, but I won’t complain too much. Teamwork is non-negotiable. If you go into higher difficulties thinking you’re the main character and try to solo everything, the game will humble you very quickly.

That said, the game isn’t without issues. Enemy variety is lacking, and instead of meaningful variants, you end up fighting the same types over and over. Maps are reused across multiple missions, which makes runs start to blend together. Worse, there are bugs that can straight up ruin a good run. The Boxburster enemy is a perfect example. You’re supposed to push him to stop the explosion, but sometimes the push just doesn’t register, and you’re instantly dead.

Another big downside is how much the game relies on mods while refusing to add basic quality-of-life features. Things like a proper scoreboard, clearer UI information, enemy health type indicators, and fixes for input delay really should be in the base game by now.

Edit: I forgot to add that optimization sucks.

Despite all that, I still recommend it. Just don’t pay full price. Pick it up on sale and you’ll get a lot of fun out of it. If you can grab the Arbites class, even better. And whatever you do, skip Hive scum when you’re starting out. It’s not beginner-friendly at all.

Editing this review after 127 hours.

When I first started this game, I was amazed by how big and rich the world felt. You’ve got a bear teaching you martial arts, a goose ready to kick your ass, and NPCs begging for mercy only to stab you the second you turn around. It all felt fresh (at least for me). I also loved the minigames, they actually add to the experience. You run into NPCs who challenge you to their own game, and if you beat them, you get rewards. The variety is great too, everything from Guitar Hero-style rhythm games to card battles.

The scenery and graphics are awesome. They nail the wuxia vibe perfectly. Since I read a lot of manhua and manhwa, I immediately got the references, themes, and direction they were going for. They also did a great job making the world feel deep, every area has meaning, lore, and unique hidden quests.

What I didn’t like was the overuse of the same NPC models and outfits. Yeah, it’s a free-to-play game so I get it, but it still breaks immersion when you see the same guy you killed two zones ago suddenly alive with a new name.

Combat is great. The game perfectly captures that flowy martial-arts feel, and I really like the deflect system. Dodge, though, feels underused. Sure, some attacks can’t be deflected, but 70% of the time dodge feels useless (I didn’t try PvP so don’t crucify me). Builds are somewhat varied, but of course there’s a meta DoT DPS build and everything else right now feels like a cope build. Tanking is fun and takes skill in my opinion, but the whole point of being a tank gets ruined when a random matchmaking leader decides to give the aggro buff to the DPS or healer. I’ve literally tanked as a DPS in some runs, which sucks. Tanks should automatically get that buff.

The menus and UI are just awful. I keep discovering new systems and features I didn’t even know existed. And the chat system? Straight-up terrible. They really need to overhaul this.

One thing I liked, but others might absolutely hate, is that many events basically force you to go online and socialize. Weirdly enough, I ended up having a lot of fun with those. It brought back old-school MMO vibes that I’ve been missing for years.

Now for the controversial part: people say the game is free-to-play and funded mainly by cosmetics through a gacha system. That’s fine, but the gacha rates are insanely low right now. You basically have to hit pity. At least release the actual rates so players can decide if they want to pull or not.

TL;DR: Great game with huge potential to become one of the legends in the genre

• Horrible optimization.
• No widescreen support.
• Repetitive gameplay.
• Weird achievement design — “get revived 100 times,” “spend 10 million gold.” Am I supposed to intentionally feed in co-op or log in daily just to farm gold and waste it on drinks? Everything in this game combined doesn’t even cost 10 million.
• Stat scaling feels broken.
• Some boss drops are bugged, blocking weapon crafting.
• Always-online requirement with lag even when opening menus.
• Co-op is completely broken.

All of this in a $40 game.

This game, as many have said, feels like an Xbox 360-era title. It’s very linear, and enemy assets repeat a lot. You can always tell when a fight is coming because it’s the same big round arena. The premise is good, but the writing feels like what I thought a “cool cowboy” was when I was 13. Combat is fun and has plenty of variety, but it only starts to feel varied near the end of the game.

Pick up when on sale.