What a massive downgrade from Steel Titans 2!

No free-roam or arena mode to just mess around in.
Only over the top, unrealistic races and barebones arena competitions.
And then there's the physics, or rather lack thereof. Trucks float across the arena like they're made of cardboard.

Stick to Steel Titans 2, especially if you have a kid who just wants to drive around an arena in whatever truck they fancy. I refunded this mess.

For what it is (a repetitive bash, cut and slice game) it does a lot of things well and if you need a game to chill out to and listen in on a podcast or have a stream/video running while you play, this game is perfect.

You get into a very nice rhythm of dismantling giant vessels and it's really quite relaxing.

The support for this game is also awesome. I imagine this is a fairly small team but they consistently patch, update and expand the game, so to the devs: great job!

I was expecting a small passion project that is ok but not going to grab my attention for too long.

I was NOT expecting this level of quality, polish, and fun! 12+ hours in and I already know that as long as new content will be released (hopefully) I will continue playing and supporting the devs!

A+, BUY IT!!!

In a world full of loot boxes and half-baked AAA garbage, titles like these give me hope that the gaming industry hasn't completely gone down the deep end yet.

This is one of the most gorgeous and artistic games I've played in a while and I wholeheartedly recommend it! Everything is done right: visual, soundtrack, story, gameplay.

My only complaint would be that there wasn't more. I beat the game in 5 hours (relaxed play, searching for collectibles and just taking in the views) and wanted more. 2-3 additional chapters would've been the perfect length honestly.

20/10 - would climb again!

This a very lukewarm recommendation. I spent about 90 hours, completed the story, faction quests and most side quests, and I'm done... at least until some DLC releases.

This is a classic example of quantity > quality. I've explored a couple of dozen planets and have no desire to continue exploring. The Ctrl C Ctrl V is so obvious and painful. I would've gladly traded 1500+ worlds for a single solar system with 10 handcrafted worlds. There's plenty of criticism on this already so I won't go into further details.

The main story is passable (although NG+ is honestly just dumb and I have no desire to NG even once).

Here's why I still recommend this game ON SALE ONLY:
- ship building is fantastic. Easy to use and you can build almost anything you can think of. Same goes for base building (although outposts are completely pointless tbf).
- gun play is fun and the AI is ok.
- 2 of the 4 faction quests are great (UC and SysDef/Crimson); Ryujin is different but may be boring to some; Freestar is whatever; hoping to see a House Varuun DLC in the future as they seem to be quite the unique faction.
- dogfights in space remind me of Freelancer. I just wish there was more to space than fast travelling and the occasional battle.

Now for some more criticism:
- It seems like Bethesda released the game half-baked, knowing that modders will fix what they didn't. Game stability is all over the place, unless you use mods. The UI is hot garbage, unless you use mods. So many QOL features are missing, unless you use mods. It's great that Bethesda games have such a dedicated modding community, but the devs shouldn't rely on that to fix the game.
- Companion quests are uninteresting and unmemorable. So are the companions.
- Choices don't matter. You're railroaded into the same outcome no matter what path you decide to take.

There's probably a lot more than can be said, but it's already been said in a thousand other reviews.

TL:DR it's ok, get it on sale!