Feedback on 5-8 hours played:
Regardless of who started it, calling this game a "Diablo-meets-Cyberpunk" is going to lead to disappointment. It's not to say there isn't a good game here, but there isn't much Diablo to be found. There's some loot piñata effects, but the contents are almost exclusively uCreds, health and energy packs. When items do drop, they're typically a duplicate of something you already have or something that the shop sells, and as far as I can tell, there's no variance in the drop quality. When I reframed the game as something like 30% WRPG, 70% twin-stick shooter, I started to enjoy things quite a bit more.
The story so far has been interesting, but I've noticed a pattern of trying to understand an NPC, mostly failing, then being given the opportunity to work my way through five or so follow up questions to unpack what they just said. There's quite a few Veles/Ascent Group specific colloquialisms, often dropped in very quick succession making the dialogue pretty hard to consume. While I've taken some enjoyment working through codex entries to understand things, I could see it pushing some players away.
On the world - as beautiful as the game can be, navigation of Cluster 13 (and many other areas) isn't easy. It feels large and labyrinthine, and I ended up a bit lost every time I wanted to find a specific vendor. I'm getting better at opening my map, and I'm thankful for the red guiding light, but I'd have preferred if the level layout stuck better with a passive investment. It could be something to do with the verticality of the zone, cause I much prefer navigating the next vendor hub which I think is just after you arrive at high street?
Some other technical issues and oddities
- I'm playing on XSX and it's crashed on me at least 6 times. Nothing of note happening in game when it crashes. Once was just after loading the game.
- I've also run into a few too many dead-end side quests.
- A level 2 sidequest that led to the elevator to Arcology: highStreet that I couldn't access until later on.
- A similar sidequest later on leading to Stimtown(?) that I still can't access.
- And lastly, a sidequest marked as Level 13 (or 14?) that throws level 16-18(+) enemies at me in waves. They were initially almost one-shotting me, but I pushed through, acquired new armor drops from them, and made it to the destination. However, I was unable to complete it due to no NPC existing at the marked location. I don't have the game open, but I was supposed to be delivering a Bag to somebody whose name started it a "T". Anyway, they weren't there. I'm going to assume that similar to all of the above issues, the game is expecting me to do the quest later.
- When trying to create a second character and play through the intro (just past getting out of deepStink) for my wife so we could start local coop, the game didn't save my progress after quitting out. I made sure to check the time since last auto-save upon quitting just after arriving at the Warrens, which showed 5 seconds. I stubbornly replayed it all again
- Lastly - I said it earlier, but I cannot stand the NPC-speak. Apologies if there is an actual language behind it, but it sounds like it's been spliced, distorted, condensed so much that I legitimately cannot focus on reading anything until they finish talking.
I just want to say that despite all the criticism above, I really do enjoy what's been created here. Looking forward to playing more soon
It's like everything needs to be a GAAS these days.
I know what you're saying, but I do think that this game would benefit from leaning into the Diablo model a bit more. If they get the opportunity to build out a sequel (fingers crossed), having difficulty tiers, a large varying loot table, and being able to pick various major quests or chunks of game to replay would be a blast. They don't have to create an endless game, manage 'seasons' etc. Just build in a way for people that love their character to keep playing and become absurdly and comically overpowered.
If the developers don't want that from this franchise, that's fine. But I personally think it would be great.
