Trying to enjoy this, but there's just too many problems for me to recommend it or play on any consistent basis. My main issues right now are visibility, mission design, and balance.

For me, the biggest issue is visibility. I don't know who is responsible for lighting/color grading at BF Studios, but they seriously need to rethink what they have done here. Any areas with light is just blindingly bright whilst areas with shadow are almost completely black. It's not only nearly impossible to see enemies, but it's also straining to the eyes. If you're playing this on an OLED display with HDR as I am these issues get even worse. The actual measurements of the HDR might be up to par, but it means nothing if the lighting itself is bad and not condusive to good game design. Lots of work needed in this area.

As with many other live service games, it has no consideration for your time. The mission design is a big part of this and in some ways I feel like it goes against Battlefield as a concept.

Progressing through the Battlepass is an excercise in frustration. It's constantly pestering you to play certain modes, use certain weapons, or just generally do things that are at odds with what I want to do in a Battlefield game. Choosing to ignore these missions means progression is painfully slow and unsatisfying. The design of the missions seems completely antithetical to what Battlefield is, which is combined arms warfare; people using a variety of weapons, vehicles, gadgets, and tools on the Battlefield. The missions force me, and the rest of the playerbase for that matter, into doing things we might not want to do or use things we might not want to use. It almost feels specificaly designed to stop people from really getting attached to a particular playstyle, and that's such a core component of the Battlefield experience; finding your playstyle and figuring out how you fit in. Instead of doing that, the game is always pushing you to do something different in a way thet feels intrusive. Doing otherwise means progressing very slowly, and I just really don't like this type of design mentality in a Battlefield game. It makes the game feel like a job where do something not because you want to, but because you feel like you need to.

I wont harp to much on balance since I would be here all day. What I will say is that the classes still need work in the balance department and vehicles clearly need some sort of overhaul as MANY people seem to be unhappy with them at the moment. Medics are completely OP right now since they can give themselves ammo AND heals at any time, can revive people, as well as being the only class that has access to smokes. Which makes no sense since smokes are an essential tool for pushing objectives, which most classes would and should benefit from. At the very least Assault should have smokes as well since that's the class that focuses on pushing objectives. I think Assault should get smokes at the very least, especially with how weak it feels in its current state. Which is sad to say since Assault is the main class I play.

Might be different issues from the ones everyone typically talks about, but these are the issues that stand out to me the most and why I can't confidently recommend it.

I'm kind of shocked at how well this game came together. I was worried that with all the additional mechanics at play, as well as co-op being implemented, that it wasn't really going to feel like Outlast anymore. That's a concern I see from a lot of other people as well. I'm happy to say that couldn't be further from the case.

The environments and characters are all still bursting with personality, the switch to co-op has not effected that in the least. People worried about that kind of thing are going to be happy with what is in Trials.

The ability to "defend" yourself with perishable items doesn't make enemies feel weak since you can only disorient them for a short amount of time. You can't kill enemies in Outlast Trials, so stealth is still important here. The environments of the trials themselves also allow for much more interesting objectives and progression. I'm confident in saying that, from a gameplay standpoint, this is easily the best in the franchise and Outlast 3 could absolutely benefit from borrowing some of the philosophies used in Trials.

Since it is early access, there are obviously some bugs, and the AI can be a bit finicky at times. But there is nothing here that ruins the experience. This is very stable for an early access game. I didn't lose connection once and everybody seems to be reporting good performance on all their machines (thank god, there's been so many bad PC ports lately).

There is a lot more I could say but we are in early access and I don't want to sink too much time into a review that likely not many people are going to see anyway lol.

TL;DR - If you're worried about the inclusion of multiplayer, put them aside. It still very much feels like Outlast, the gameplay has been built upon from previous titles in an interesting way, easily making it the best in the franchise. The game runs and functions very well overall despite some minor issues with bugs and AI.

I'll give an updated review when I finish the game. I'm 9 hours in so far and I gotta say, I'm kind of surprised by how enjoyable the game considering how it looked in early and even current previews.

There is a quite a bit of jank, and I am seriously hoping that Sonic Team gives this game the patches that it needs. I don't want this to be another case of a game getting abandoned after receiving only a couple small updates. If there are no updates to fix these issue, I think the modding scene will swoop in since there is already Hedge Mod Manager support for this game, and there is even a few codes available that fix some of the pace-breaking aspects. I'm confident more are on the way, so I would keep an eye on that.

I feel like this game is comprised of components that individually are not all that deep, but when woven together creates a fast, satisfying, and addictive gameplay loop.

Once again I'll try to be more specific with everything in an updated review. But so far, game is pretty enjoyable even if it could be much much better.

more like battlefield 204-poo amirite fellas

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