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I’ve played this entirely on a Steam Deck.

If you wish there was another Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, then this is probably the closest thing you can get.

It seems a bit more Oblivion-ish because it isn’t quite as overdone as Skyrim, and it’s also a bit more “old school” in the sense of not being too easy and dumbed down to attract a larger audience.

Technical implementation: I didn’t really have any performance problems but I was using a steam deck which is hardware the game is specifically targeted for. The only FPS problem happens when you summon 3-5 wolves. It seems like a problem specifically with wolves for some reason. Other people sometimes have problems but these are usually solvable by reducing 2 graphics settings like vegetation quality. The game is built using Unity but you can’t really tell when playing it.

Combat is a bit more difficult and action-oriented than Skyrim and Oblivion, though not complicated. The main thing is that you have dash (dodge), block, and parry as defensive options and parry rewards you for exact timing.

The design of the game mechanics seems pretty good and it seems like they addressed some of the weaknesses in Skyrim especially. Like in Skyrim you can get sneaking to the point where you’re practically invisible. In this game you can’t do that. Backstabbing is sometimes possible but not usually very practical. Sniping things with a bow from a distance can handle mobs maybe 80% of the time. (But beware that there are required “boss fights” where you are locked into an arena, so you have to be able to handle melee or short range combat.)

Unlike Skyrim, 2H (two-handed) weapons aren’t completely useless compared to just dual-wielding 1H weapons. You can parry and block with either loadout, and both equally prevent you from using a shield. Daggers have their own skill tree and are focused on speed; they’re not just some thing for extra backstab damage and they don’t usually give you a huge backstab advantage. (Generally speaking, the sneak attack damage bonus is about the same for all weapon types.) So all of this stuff is balanced out a lot better with no obviously useless or superior weapon types.

Magic is pretty simple and you don’t really have “schools” of magic other than summons vs direct damage spells. There are only four magic skill trees and the other two are wands/cubes (magic weapons) and a general tree for mana point bonuses and such.

Due to the lack of requirement for magic specialization, a ‘spellsword’ (referred to as a “battle mage” in the game) type character is more practical than usual.

There are still some weaknesses to the game which I think are mostly in the content;

- I think the game could use more side quests. There are a decent number, but only maybe 1/3rd of what Skyrim has, for example. (Skyrim is a bit overloaded with them compared to everything else though.)

- The character system is classless, but like similar systems you’re going to have to focus on two main skill strategies to be effective. This is fine, but there aren’t really any side quests dedicated to specific skill areas. Like there’s no “mage guild” or “assassin guild” or similar quest line that requires the use of certain skills to get associated rewards of some sort. The only ones kind of like this are for alchemy and crafting wyrdstone, but they’re rather underwhelming.

- Most of the “dungeons” seem too small and too few to me. The ones in Skyrim seem much bigger.

- The overland areas are divided into three maps instead of one big overland map. So it’s not really 100% open world. It’s more like 33% open until you unlock the next region, then it’s 66% open until you unlock the last region. This isn’t really that big of a deal though.

- The overall game scenario of “King Arthur needs to save Avalon” and such is a bit too closed to further expansion. It’s a bit difficult to imagine how a DLC for this game would work, and if I were developing a content add-on mod it would be difficult to fit anything into the narrow lore. Basically the world is too small and simple to allow for much creative expansion.

- There are a few awkward consistency errors. These are hard to entirely avoid where player choices make all permutations of choices hard to test, but they might have done better if they had some sort of dedicated continuity checker.

There are fewer bugs overall than the average Bethesda game.

So in short, this is not the “be all end all” FPS RPG and it doesn’t blow everything else away, but it’s pretty good given its limitations and I’d still recommend it even though I wish the world was bigger with more side quests and such.

This is probably the closest thing there is to a game based on “The Expanse” at least in the single ship simulation category. If you want to feel a bit like James Holden then you probably will.

Also, everyone will think this is a weird comparison, but this is a good relaxing game (after the initial learning hump) sort of like a more grown up Dave the Diver without the on-rails story, JRPG dialogs, or extra mini games.

Instead of diving into the ocean to catch fish, you dive into the A ring of Saturn and catch ore and other ships (which might be dead already or might fight back) using realistically speculative technology in an environment of proper physical behavior. No magic tractor beams and even your cargo hold is physically simulated rather than just being a table of units.

Rather than run a sushi restaurant, back on the station you can bring in money either just selling retrieved items, or you can do a little bit of other stuff like try to speculative invest in ore and “ship flip” (buy up, repair, and sell ships which isn’t that profitable but is great for training mechanics).

There’s no main story or anything to hand-hold you to where to go next.

The main shortcoming of the game is a lack of content amount and variety. There are “stories” but they’re rather slow-going, only found by accident, and not very plentiful. The game is in need of more things to do and objectives to pursue other than just make money, and it could use a better dialog system with more story type content.

But this is a game everyone ought to try if it looks the least bit interesting. I think the “demo” is actually still the full game so at least download that and check it out.