First off I want to say that if Steam allowed me to leave mixed reviews that dont contribute to score, I would be using that option. I want so badly to give this game a positive review but at this point I don't think its fair and would be more of a lie to myself because I want to say its fine because of some effective nostalgia baiting.

I've played most crafting survival games, early access and not that come to Steam that feature Co-op. Dragonwilds is yet another in that list and its so on the cusp of being a standout game in the genre, but at the moment its really lacking the depth to set it apart completely. I believe that the devs have focused more on adding content onto the game instead of really focusing on WHAT that content is. You will start out the game and see a number of features that either remind you of Runescape or feel unique in the genre such as the way that spells are cast or the spell system in general, and these are great systems dont get me wrong. The problem with these systems lies in how little they get expanded upon as you progress, your spells dont really evolve over time as you level up, you still feel like a novice when reaching max level in skills as you attempt to do basic tasks like watering your plants with a rain spell that has no size or distance increases. You will equip armor sets that have ZERO variance as you go up the tiers, they're all the exact same set bonus but with a slightly larger number, and during the first one-two zones of the game (Base+First expansion) these problems dont really get to you because you're grasping the game still. But by the time you've hit the third zone you see this system and how you're changing literally nothing but a number from a 5 to a 6 to not be one shot and you wonder why there isn't any variation.

I don't know if this lack of variation is known or has any plans to be fixed or if adding all the tiers into the game was the priority, but once you've finished the base area the game launched with you have genuinely seen it all, there is essentially no change to the formula from that point on and you're just going to be hitting the next colored rock to increase your gear number by a single digit for the next 40 hours. Which I guess has always been the point of Runescape, but its more barebones here and just isn't translating well into a crafting survival genre.

As it stands I haven't finished the game, I've gone through parts of Dowdun Reach before realizing that the game wasn't evolving at all and have decided to shelf it in hopes that things change in the future and I can experience the rest of the content for the first time while feeling like I have a reason to actually progress.

Such an underwhelming experience in every way.

I can't recommend this game. The progression is painfully slow and meaningless, the world is hollow, and it never gave me a reason (nor choice) to actually settle down and build something. As an adventure, it's simply weak. On top of that, it's incredibly unfriendly if you want to try it solo.

The entire gameplay loop boils down to this: move into the next biome where every enemy is higher level than you. For the first few hours in each new area, you'll spend most of your time running away from hordes of overleveled enemies, scavenging tiny amounts of new resources just so you can craft the next tier of equipment. Once you finally have that gear, the biome immediately becomes trivial, just so you could move to the next biome.

Player skill barely matters here. There are no particularly interesting builds that let you overcome stronger enemies through clever gameplay, only abuse of AI. The level difference works similarly to Borderlands: if an enemy outlevels you, you're simply not meant to beat it in a fair fight. Every new biome feels like your progression has been completely reset. Your damage suddenly becomes negligible, enemies are everywhere, and traveling through the world means constantly fighting through endless packs of enemies. If several high-level enemies gather together, your only realistic strategy is to run around collecting scraps of resources while abusing the fairly limited enemy AI, to upgrade your gear and come back later practically invincible.

Every time I unlocked a new biome, I found myself asking why I was still playing. Eventually the game simply became exhausting rather than enjoyable.

Progression is also incredibly slow and overcomplicated with many unnecessary steps. I was barely unlocking anything new. Everything I did felt meaningless. At best, I'd collect enough new ore to craft another armor set that would trivialize the current biome, while knowing the next biome would simply repeat the exact same cycle all over again.

Unlocking new crafting recipes and especially new building pieces takes far too long. The gap between building with basic wood and finally reaching stone construction is enormous - far larger than in any survival game I've played. After roughly 14 hours, I still wasn't really building anything. Instead, I was just wandering through increasingly hostile biomes gathering resources without any real sense of purpose.

The game does have different classes, and in some ways the class balance reminds me of Terraria - but it's implemented far worse. In Terraria, for example, melee armor generally provides the highest defense because melee characters have to get close to enemies to deal damage. Rangers and mages receive bonuses that actually support their playstyle, such as increased ranged damage or mana, energy shields, summons, etc.

Here, however, melee armor only provides strong protection against melee damage, while offering too little protection against ranged and magic attacks to remain competitive for its tier, ranger armor only provides strong protection against ranged damage, and so on. On paper that sounds logical, but in practice it creates a strange balance where I saw almost no reason to play a melee character, if my heavy plate armor offers roughly the same overall protection as a ranger's outfit.

Once I understood the game's balance, whenever I ran into enemies in a new area, I'd simply jump onto (or build) a platform they couldn't reach and shoot them until they died. It didn't suddenly make the experience less painful as overleveled enemies take dozens of arrows to die but at least it let me deal with the game throwing dozens of overleveled enemies at me as soon as I step into the new area.

Weapon and armor variety is also surprisingly shallow. There are different categories of equipment, but they rarely feel meaningfully different in terms of gameplay. In the end, your choices mostly come down to equipping the highest-level gear available rather than picking equipment because it supports a unique build or playstyle.

The world itself feels surprisingly hollow. There's very little incentive to explore. Once you've unlocked the crafting materials unique to a biome, there's almost no reason to keep exploring it. Points of interest contain no meaningful or unique rewards. You enter another repetitive dungeon only to receive more crafting materials from that same biome.

I could keep listing problems, but they all come back to the same issue: the entire game feels like leveling for the sake of leveling. You're constantly chasing the next gear tier, not because it opens exciting new gameplay, but simply because the previous one has been invalidated.

I really am trying to like this game, but I just can't. I don't think any of the developers who made this have play tested it at all. There is no balancing, the power creep is insane, you're constantly fighting for your life - I wish I knew what I was getting into so I could've made a custom server with different parameters before playing, because that's genuinely the only way this game could be considered fun. Anything else is just masochistic.

Buy this game if:

- You enjoy being only strong enough to kill 1 enemy at a time if you're lucky, yet having to constantly fight mobs of 3-5 at a time.

- You love constantly being behind the power curve, forced to go into a higher tiered area with stronger monsters who will kill you in one hit in order to get materials to progress.

- Running out of stamina constantly

- Being sniped constantly by arrows that have Angelina Jolie level bullet curves and lock on from across map and insane line of sight

- While running away from said fights and being shot by said arrows from things that are way stronger than you, dodging plantlife that ALSO has lock on ranged attacks, smited by a lighting bolt that tracks you from god, attacked by random wildlife, including ones that explode and are faster than you on foot. Oh, and you ran out of stamina again, so don't expect to dodge any of the attacks coming your way!

-Janky combat animations that freeze you in place for extended periods of time so you can't capitalize on counters and end up getting countered yourself!

There's so much more I could complain about. My favorite however is the terrible UI, which means I can't fix the settings on my server because that's only available on a custom server and not standard after the game is created. Nothing tells you this ahead of time, so now the 17.5 hours I have in with my friends has to be wiped clean in order to make a NEW world with adjusted settings.