It's definitely still an alpha and I'm not sure what the game wants to be. So far it's not amounting to much. The enemies feel generic, the environment feels a little copy/paste. Game features are literally copy/paste from other failed MMOs. No moderation in the community has lead to pretty awful things being spammed in chat frequently. Too much chaos is going on to recommend this to anyone right now. Save your cash, check back if it ever releases and try it for 15 bucks instead of 50. It is definitely not worth it to me.

It's just fun. Expect the rocks, they are frustrating. Overall, fun.

Update 9/15/2025: Changing my recommendation to a no. The shortcuts taken in the DLC maps just keep compounding and increase the frustration. Craftable cargo that turns into other cargo if you try to manually load it, eating all the ingredients and leaving you with something useless. Craftable cargo disappearing upon disconnect. Nothing is consistent, nothing makes sense on the maps. It feels like they put a lot of effort into finding arbitrary ways to physically slow your progress rather than design fun and engaging maps (looking at you blue glue-snow). This game is just frustration. More and more frequently I leave the game frustrated due to some dumb bug with cargo or with physics. It doesn't feel like beating a challenging obstacle rather than overcoming gimmicks meant to slow your progress. I do not recommend.

I know it isn't Snow Runner, but it still feels disappointing to come from Snow Runner to this. It feels like vehicles were an afterthought and added in a week before the game was released. It's like Crazy Taxi the Road Maintenance game with arcade physics turned up to 11. I can't unexperience Snow Runner enough to enjoy this game.

This was a great launch and I'd gladly give it a positive review. Unfortunately all purpose and risk at the endgame has been removed. Solo or PvE players demanded that the 10% of the game aimed at PvP is locking them out of content and therefore all players that desire the risk of PvP should have their portion cut. Now the endgame feels empty, boring, and without purpose.

Update July 1 2025: All resources and spice locations have basically been placed within walking distance of the PvE zone. There is no point in playing this game at all if you want any purpose in the end game. There is no market value as there is no risk in any resource collection at all. The game is dead. I solidly recommend DO NOT BUY.

Update July 29, 2025: Devs seem to only hear complaints from PvE players. They want everything and they want it now so that is what we have...risk free access to everything the game has to offer. As a result, the game has no endgame. PvP has no purpose, the market has no purpose, spice has no value, the war of assassins is fought by crafting crap. Whatever path the devs could have taken to fix the game is not the path they chose to travel. As such, the game has half as many players as the early access week leading up to launch. I want to like it but I don't.

If you enjoy the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books, you'll probably enjoy exploring much of the world you read about. If you only know Lord of the Rings from the movies you'll probably have no idea 90% of this world exists. If you're just playing just for the MMO experience...well it's average old school I guess.

I admit, I keep coming back to the game because I feel like it should be enjoyable and I like the way the game plays. I give this a thumbs down due to the apparent inability or unwillingness of snail to allow the game to be enjoyable at any given time. It feels like instead of creating some sort of balance all they do is seesaw back and forth releasing overpowered vehicles for one or two nations at a time while leaving everyone else with no options to not get destroyed instantly. Case in point, I'm currently stuck trying to force an F86A Sabre through the grind of constant uptiers against teams full of Harriers. Maybe a pro gamer can make it work but for a mere mortal this is frustrating and hopeless. I am merely cannon fodder for the enemy team to make SL off of at this point while not even recovering the repair cost of my own plane.

*Upate 7/28/2021* Premium has expired. I can kill 1 or 2 players in a match and still not break even on repair costs sometimes, making it impossible to even play at a given tier, much less progress through the tech tree. I still enjoy the gameplay but the "balancing" feature that is repair costs is making much of the content unplayable for me at this time. I think that is currently the most irritating feature of the game for me. Sure, don't let me progress if I perform poorly, but don't punish me to the point of not having the option to use the vehicles I like just because I can't kill half the team by myself (hyperbole). I still end up leaving a play session out of frustration even when I do perform relatively well. I still don't recommend this game to new players.

*Update 5/22/2023* It is still a fun game with terrible predatory business practices. Now my hyperbolic statement made 2 years ago is literal...you can't afford repair costs even if you kill half the enemy team. New players stay away. Veteran players seek addiction counseling.