This has been a fantastic experience so far. Obviously, it's beautiful, but way more importantly the systems you interact with while you play the game work together extremely well. Taking bounties in a location you haven't been in recently (so the enemies and loot have regenerated) points you towards resources that are more or less common depending on where you are. This even influences the food resources you find and you can only really heal quickly from food you cook or purchase. Why would I talk about resources before the combat or loot? Because you'll be improving the main town as you go and all of those changes improve your quality of life in town or give you more options to play with for your gear.

Combat is great. Controls are reliable and the weapons that I've used all play differently enough that it's fun switching between them in a given situation... for as long as my stats support this! I love the change to shields and it makes even the light ones way more useful. The rune system for special attacks per weapon is pretty flexible so far and modifying your gear with enchantments or gems is awesome. Big, tough enemies (including bosses) hit like freight trains and demand you respect them. I wish your beginning equipment load was slightly more lenient but even a couple of points there quickly alleviated the problem and as I find heavier armor that stat is became more of a choice instead of a requirement.

No story spoilers but the characters are actually interesting and I find myself being drawn in more and more as I play. Slowly learning more about who your character is and what the world is expecting of you. I haven't finished the story (or what's available, I honestly don't know if there is a finish currently) but it's been good enough that deciding between advancing it or going a different direction for loot & resources is a tough choice some nights.

If you were on the fence because of the negative reviews after the patch, I can understand, it needed some adjustments. Those adjustments have been made though and this is a damn good game and I enjoy it more and more as I play. Really looking forward to the co-op update!

Do you like action RPGs? Are you a fan of the Souls series but also want to tinker with your gear like it's Path of Exile? Have you ever wanted to play through a Souls game in "real" co-op?

Buy this game right now. The combat, character building and equipment systems are just superb. The difficulty can scale so high it's going to take me another 100 hours to see the end of the last difficulty after painstakingly tinkering with my equipment to make me buff enough to even try. Then on top of it all you can make a co-op lobby with a buddy (or random folks) and take on the entire game with extremely few exceptions.

I played the demo on PS4 a long time ago and kind of dismissed this game, just thinking it was a Souls clone. I totally regret that decision now. I will end up dumping a ton of time into this until Nioh 2 comes to PC as well because that is now an insta-buy.

This isn't just a fantastic Star Wars game, it's a fantastic game, period. It borrows exploration and combat mechanics from quite a few great games and adds some really good map design to make mastering traversal feel good. The combat has way more depth after an adjustment period and after getting a few good skills there are moments of feeling really incredible as you mow down squads of Stormtroopers and everything else they come with. You never feel flat out overpowered but if you play smart you certainly feel like a Jedi.

If you're using a Dual Shock 4 I really, really advise going into controller settings in Steam and turning off "PS4 compatibility" and "guide button focuses Steam." The game supports the DS4 natively and will give you correct button prompts (intsead of Xbox) and got rid of some annoying control hiccups that I would get from time to time. I played for about 20 hours before making these changes and I could immediately feel a difference.

I finished the game 100% on Jedi Master difficulty at about 42 hours and I am really happy with that length. There is no New Game +, which is unfortunate, and I hope that it gets added in the future. If you love Star Wars it's the best thing we've gotten in quite a while even after all the good changes to Battlefront 2. If you like adventure games it's at least a solid 20+ hours if you don't go for a 100% clear like I did. Play this game already!