Update after finishing the game: The main story starts kinda dumb and gets worse and worse, the plot is horrible and the endings are all so terrible that they ruin everything good about the game. Only worth investing time in to do sidequests and wander around. The sidequests are actually good, way better than the main quests, and some of the characters have interesting arcs. I wrote my review below after like 20 hours and I enjoyed the game up to that point, but it all went downhill from there.

To start with, this is absolutely worth playing. Frankly, it's way better than a lot of professional stuff I've paid good money for (cyberpunk 2077, for example). Would I pay $60 for it? Yes. Would I say it's on par with well-made modern games? Not completely, but that's almost entirely because of the limitations of the engine and the fact that it's free. This is a mod with more content and more soul than almost every other game I've played recently, at no cost! My only real complaints are that the intro is very slow, which could turn away some players, and that the first couple hours are really difficult. However, it only gets better from there. By level 7 I wasn't having nearly as much trouble in combat in the early game areas, which seems to be the biggest complaint in other reviews. The only thing about this game that doesn't feel triple-A is the voice acting, and that's because it isn't - given that they had literally no budget for sound equipment and recording, it's incredible. This feels like a highly polished, well-made indie version of Skyrim. It's gorgeous, the world is huge, it takes the systems from Skyrim and expands on them in meaningful and interesting ways, and the only times your immersion is broken are brief and completely understandable given that the game is free. If there's even a single person involved in this mod that isn't offered a job by a game studio, something's wrong with the world. Play this, immerse yourself in the characters, appreciate the incredible amount of work and love that was put into it, and support the creators. I have never seen any non-professional project as mind blowing as Enderal. This is truly a masterpiece of fan-made content.

Update after finishing the game: The main story starts kinda dumb and gets worse and worse, the plot is horrible and the endings are all so terrible that they ruin everything good about the game. Only worth investing time in to do sidequests and wander around. The sidequests are actually good, way better than the main quests, and some of the characters have interesting arcs. I wrote my review below after like 20 hours and I enjoyed the game up to that point, but it all went downhill from there. To start with, this is absolutely worth playing. Frankly, it's way better than a lot of professional stuff I've paid good money for (cyberpunk 2077, for example). Would I pay $60 for it? Yes. Would I say it's on par with well-made modern games? Not completely, but that's almost entirely because of the limitations of the engine and the fact that it's free. This is a mod with more content and more soul than almost every other game I've played recently, at no cost! My only real complaints are that the intro is very slow, which could turn away some players, and that the first couple hours are really difficult. However, it only gets better from there. By level 7 I wasn't having nearly as much trouble in combat in the early game areas, which seems to be the biggest complaint in other reviews. The only thing about this game that doesn't feel triple-A is the voice acting, and that's because it isn't - given that they had literally no budget for sound equipment and recording, it's incredible. This feels like a highly polished, well-made indie version of Skyrim. It's gorgeous, the world is huge, it takes the systems from Skyrim and expands on them in meaningful and interesting ways, and the only times your immersion is broken are brief and completely understandable given that the game is free. If there's even a single person involved in this mod that isn't offered a job by a game studio, something's wrong with the world. Play this, immerse yourself in the characters, appreciate the incredible amount of work and love that was put into it, and support the creators. I have never seen any non-professional project as mind blowing as Enderal. This is truly a masterpiece of fan-made content.