I had just gotten back into the game back when expedition 5 was juuuuuuuust about to end, and my joy at doing the new expeditions (the first one I did since they implemented new expeditions) was cut short after only a few hours.

Even though I didn’t make much progress, I thought it was really fun. I got distracted and completely missed the sixth expedition, but I was right on time for Leviathan. I didn’t think much of the permadeath mode as they said it was going to have roguelike elements, and roguelike is one of my favourite genres (over a thousand hours in Binding of Isaac).

I died a handful of times as I’d never played on survival (or permadeath) before, but those deaths were all around the beginning, no more than an hour in. I learned that I had to play much safer if I was going to progress.

And progress I did. I got all the way to the third phase and was having a lot of fun. Until I landed on a toxic planet and realized I had no toxic protection. Dead.

Allllll the way back to the starting planet. And what progress was saved? Basically nothing. Three of the optional mission rewards, giving a handful of upgrades to ship and exosuit inventory. That’s it.

Progression on everything else, gone. All the data for the missions wiped (save for the final optional ones). Was it a glitch? Probably not. I guess I overestimated the “roguelike” elements that they made for this expedition. I would honestly say that they have no business using that term because the “progression” that is saved is nothing more than a hollow shell of the experience I had.

I had fun up until that death, but not enough to do the whole thing over again. I think I’ll just start up a new save and play like I used to, and hope the next expedition is better. Would have loved to have played the previous expeditions, too. I think it’s a little disappointing that they’re limited events.

Thanks for reading my rant, I guess. Hope everyone else had more fun than I did this go around. Cheers.

Pretty much the title. Guess I will have to wait until next year to actually see this game go somewhere.

We got spaceships but no true variation, or even modding/crafting. Not even species/faction related ships.

We got freighters but they are a flying inventory box combined with an annoying-to-access timer management minigame.

We have factions and races, but there is zero interaction between the two.

We have crafting, but literally zero use for hightech components.

We got derelict freigthers, but once you see two you have pretty much seen them all.

We got expeditions, yet I completed the last one in a relaxed weekend session so that’s essentially nothing for now.

We got combat, but effectively 4 mobile enemy types and maybe the same number of hazardous fauna which is the same on every planet. Why even have shooting when there’s nothing to shoot at?

We got bases, but nothing to do in them aside from stacking biodomes and placing a large refiner. Settlements are even worse in that regard: you expand it so you… can expand it more? Purely cosmetic changes that aside from eating some resources change nothing in how I interact with the game.

And after 5 years there still is no worthwhile lategame activity. There is no hunting for ship parts/gear. There is nothing rewarding you for the grind for the species/factions. There are no possible mammoth projects one could try to tackle, like expanding your settlement to the point where you can (extreme example) have them start building your own custom freigther. There is not even rare “fashion” to chase down to flex on others in the anomaly with your surpreme sense of aesthetics (or shameless lack thereof, Warframe’s fashion game sure was one crazy mess sometimes).

Every part of this game is just another weird isolated extra-piece that barely fits with each other, and somewhere someone has tried to cram in random story beats with a crowbar or something. The potential is definetly there, this car could definetly go super-turbo-speed with a right do-over of the engine and the gears. But instead watch them install a bluetooth-capable cupholder. It’s so infuriating to see all this potential and HG doing effectively jack shit with it.

I’ve played the game for at least 5 years now and have followed it activly ever since next.
I adore its lore, the worlds you can find, the mysteries you can uncover.

I was disappointed at first, just seeing an expedition, some random new ship and a some sort of overhaul of the recording system. Was that all?, i thought.

But I came to the conclusion that this is a lot when we look at the whole picture.

This is no AAA company with many employees, these people managed to pull of a switch port and a vr overhaul in a short amount of time, so getting anything beyond a vr update, much less an entire expedion and new items for the shop it seems…that is impressive.

I do hope now that only the apple port is left that they can focus on content again, on lore and maybe work on the custimisation of my beloved Korvax…but I am still very grateful what we received.

So please…don’t speak too ill of them, i believe they are trying very hard.
(I could do with less grass rewards in the store though XD )