Graphics for this game are great.

Support for Ultrawide screens and other strange resolutions,

Multiplayer is seamless and fun.

I think the quality of this early access is exceptional and I really look forward to seeing what comes next.

Game is visually appealing with a decent frame-rate for the most part (Get into that later) and a consistent theme.

The big 'but' is the actual gameplay & QOL the game provides.

The graphics although very colourful, consistently themed and appealing to look at; it also has a very... Monotone look between restaurants, themes and cities. Compared to other games like 'Chef' the game almost feels flat in its theme, between the graphics and models and can feel a bit strange to decipher what furniture is what.

The actual city life doesn't feel nearly as fulfilling as the original game did, people spawn at a much reduced rate so you don't see the 100 people pour out of a sub-way during rush hour when they've finished work which was half of the environment in the last game.

Frame-rate issues. Out in the open-world, the game does have decent frame-rates, although the graphics aren't that different between low & high, mainly shaders. For some reason, even after uninstall and reinstall there seems to be huge lag spikes when transitioning from restaurants/warehouses to cities which although a small issue, can feel very frustrating and immersion breaking as it is a full choppy mess, not a single solid freeze. (It's on an M.2 in Raid 0 with a GTX1080)

The conclusion is, personally, the game doesn't fill the void that Pizza Connection 2 left nearly 22 years ago and it's unfortunate.
Instead of feeling like a ghost of the previous game, it feels like a complete spin-off, introducing different themes, graphics styles & more arcade style gameplay moves it to another target audience while tagging along the previous one instead then wondering where it all went wrong. (Saints Row & Dawn Of War)

I played this game a few years back when it was just a silly little demo in a small world, terrible graphics and I had a god awful computer, I'm absolutely amazed to see how far it has come and what the community has developed into.

And our first two hours went flawlessly, no crashes, disconnects, a frame drop here or there, but lots of fresh fun, we became more and more confused as time went on as to where the crafting was, we didn't look up much, just the info on the store and what the trailers displayed.

We would've happily settled and understood if it was simply displayed on the store, a trailer, even a message on the main menu. Better yet, there is a big awaiting middle finger as you slowly lose your patience as to where the buildings are.

Unfortunately, I'm the only one left with a copy of the game as all my 4 friends refunded it due to the someone scammy nature; but I have my hopes up.

Is there a road-map? A possible date for improvement; a specific build? Even game mods? Or have we been entirely left in the dark and it 'fixed when it's fixed', To that, so far, I haven't found an answer?

So for this, I will leave my negative review; I would say that I'd play the singleplayer, but I didn't purchase it for that, I wanted to enjoy many hours of fun with my friend, until I see a change, even a glimpse of hope, I'll consider updating my review.

I'd love to hear what other people have to say.

(P.S I have combed through some of the latest updates, and as previously stated, there is no glimps, only small patches here, mission fix there, but no teasers.)

I never fully got a chance to sit down and play this for a long term.

At the time of release, reviews and creators were full of optimistic, but wary reviews about bugs and aims development with the game; juggling between SE & ME would've proved too much..

The whole game was feeling more like a dedicated tech-demo to the 'Planets' part of Space Engineers, unfortunately, it seems that theory proved true, as the game received less and less updates, with very little attention to the underlying bugs; people were beginning to become impatient and break.

Having played for a handful of hours, I can confirm that I felt a terrible fatigue from the ugly quality of life and constant underlying bugs; ones that I read on intital release, and some that I'm still reading to this day.

On top of the dev's saying they are finished with a 'that's all folks.' ending post declaring the last update; it feels like a massive '♥♥♥♥ you', I know I wont be purchasing any DLC or another one of their games.

It feels like they abused the idea around 'Early Access', the notion you're getting Alpha access to a game because of non-fully implemented features and bugs, as well as a possible shift of development. but you get to play and test the game which can still be fun.

But the immediately releasing it fully, putting their hands up saying 'Okay, we're done.' is the biggest stab in the back.

If I could leave a neutral review, I would.

I'm very happy, but beyond disappointed with this game, I remember when the Kickstarter went up, I was 12 / 13 at the time, I wanted to back the game with my paper round money, but I didn't have enough, but I quietly held my hope for the game all this time.

Initially, the Alpha's were buggy (Obviously), the gameplay experience was there, but the graphics were very jarring, a singular set map made the multiplayer very awkward to play as it was 'I got here first', people had usually based up all the Gun-stores, because players B-lined for them, it'd take seconds to get your bearings and know where to run, hackers were plaguing the scene with dupe bugs, aimbot & rare teleportation, I rarely played.

Fortunate to say, that era is long gone; but in the process the game has seemed to enter an eternal state in of development, constantly changing major game mechanics seemingly on the fly, without an absolute goal insight, personally, I've been 50/50 with them, each iteration has had it's upside and downsides...

Just to raise a couple...

Tool Levels:

I personally loved this mechanic, you could focus your levels into tool smithing, if you did that and only that, after about 25 levels, you could be producing level 650 tools, they were better in every way, it added a focus element, but it meant new players would be severely disadvantaged just with stone axes, if you died, you could just make a stone hatchet and pull this amazing tool out of your rear, I feel that there could've been mitigations to this that the developers could've used to test run to see if it'd improve gameplay, but they instead removed it altogether in an attempt to move away from those kind of leveling elements, forcing you to scatter your level placement with level requirements.

Concrete & Crafting

This change was one of the first major changes to the game mechanics I believe. (If you know what Alpha it was, please let me know.)

The system went as followed, you could go to the 'wasteland' biome, and pickup the cinderblocks, mine the floor for stone, ect. and throw them into a furnace to be broken down into cement.

You'd have to find clay to create a mould, you'd place that mould into the furnace, throw all of your stone and cinderblocks in there and you could craft concrete till your heart is content, it was fun, it took a little bit of set up, but it was a strong block from an abundant resource.

But instead they removed the feature entirely, forcing into a level system for a cement mixer.

I see why they did it, as having strong blocks isn't really ideal for starters as it brings you to an end game quicker, plus it was little work for high reward, but like last time, I feel they could've found a balance for that cool system, the leveling and even enforce manual player labour or electricity into the mix.

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Moving onto the eternal development and why I brought those up.

They seem to be struggling on systems to settle with, now on Alpha 18, 19 well on its way... The game still feels rough around the edges, the graphics are still somewhat jarring but bearable to play with and personally I find the game mechanics and systems not complementing one another enough. (I will say all major bugs and glitches have almost entirely been fixed and that's great.)

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun, entertaining game, but only if you can look past it's flaws and some what inconstant systems, some people who initially backed the kickstarter all those years ago were backing it with the intention to play on a full release and just wanted to give it the funding it deserved... But 7 / 8 years later, we're still in Alpha, no clear end in sight and the game still feels too close to how it did when I had just started secondary school.

I do hope the game fits together, as I do see so much potential still there, but I saw that same potential when I was 13 and I feel the game hasn't come as far as I personally would've hoped, there needs to be a point where the developers just say... 'Okay, this is where we are heading and we are going to call it a day, and work with this template.'

None the less, I still try to enjoy the game and hope that things will only improve with each update, as of right now, I think my review is a general overview, but is missing out on so many details.

P.S I haven't even got near touching on the frame-rate issues people experience if you have anywhere near a 'sub par' computer.

The game has an amazing aesthetic 1980's Sweden with a nice music choice and great graphics, decent gun play and a compelling story. (At least for how far I got.) Despite small bugs, and mild banding on multiplayer, it was quite fun and unique experience.

Yet... It lacks any kind of purpose or side tracking interest, I.E, Basebuilding, Material Farming, Weapon Customisation System.

It's a looter shooter, without any customisation other than the clothes on your character, in which they do provide buffs, but 6 hours in and we hadn't found much more than anything above 1%

Crafting seems to have no depth; you collect obscene amounts of materials for seemingly no reason.

After a while of me and friends playing this game, we hit a brick wall, we realised that there just isn't that much to do... No miscellaneous tasks or challenges that will exclude combat, lack of vehicles and the unique weapons/attachments for both personalization and my specific play style made it some what frustrating.

It's a hard sell for us, even though all three of us have slightly different tastes, none of us found a reason to keep playing, it was good while it lasted, but I couldn't justify spending money on it.

**TLDR: Fallout 76 similar Looter Shooter, without camp building, nukes & crafting but with the ability to play Singleplayer.**

I've played the game for very little time, and although I have may not played the whole game / story, I feel I have experienced all the mechanics this game has to offer,; I will say I feel an incredible Déjà vu when playing this game, with a pure vibe of Space Engineers, the primary difference being the sheer feel of the game on it's single player focus, some how feeling more lonely than playing Space Engineers.

The game does feel some what, modern between the UI, movement, and the foliage, it's all great along with the terrain, but past that, the game doesn't feel unique in anyway, it feels very lack lustre after all this development time and feels like a shadow of what was initially promoted in the Kickstarter that I originally backed.

My main pet peeve with this game is a abysmal performance, having played Rimworld / Space Engineers, I understand what stress is like, but with a medium preset with object / terrain distance bumped to high, a GTX 1080 / 6700k / Samsung 512gb NVMe M.2, I was looking at around 30 / 35 fps, with quite disturbing stutters and general slow downs, even with those graphical settings, the game still looked quite a mess with low quality textures in the distance, and but a generous culling.

I can say with certainty that most in depth negative reviews I initially read before I dove into this game completely reflect how I currently feel about this game; as of right now, I would suggest a more fulfilling game like Space Engineers.

If I feel like adding a bit more depth to this review I might, but I have been left with a very sour taste of this game after many years of waiting and anticipation.

Good game