Played 70+ hours in the first Reus. Reus 2 builds on the original, giving more ways to play with more biomes and two rows of nodes to populate. It also feels it is even more accessible to new players. There's more control over how villages spawn and less aggression between them. A game in the original Reus game was defined by the time limit per planet. Reus 2 is bound by number of actions taken, which helps provide a more cozy, casual gameplay! Fantastic casual world-building game!

I started this game fresh on Steam, having never played it prior. The strategy and tactics of the gameplay are fun. The graphics and performance are good. The multitude of tanks available allows so much freedom in choosing how one wants to play and provides that positive feedback of progressing through tech trees. WarGaming also has incentives for new players with Steam gifts of various in-game items during the first two weeks and matchmaking against bots through Tier 5. The battle pass system appears to be good value, too.

While there are indications that the game is pay-to-win, I never got to the point of the game where that would have mattered, as I only progressed to Tier 7. What made me step away from the game is the matchmaking, which is based on +/-2 tiers of tanks in the same match. There is no skill-based matchmaking. The challenge for new players is not only regularly playing against users who have tens of thousands more games played, but also against tanks which are two tiers higher. There are so many maps to learn that veterans can ambush new players with ease. There are so many tanks that remembering vulnerable aimpoints are an immense challenge. Finally, being bottom tier most of the time makes it super hard to even damage the top tier tanks. The moments of intense frustration constantly outweighed the moments of enjoyment.

This game is systemically hostile to new players. It teams you up with high-level players, who demean you more often than not, against high-level players, who obliterate you and prevent you from learning to get better...