It’s been a problem for awhile. The media needs clicks so saying something is 7.5/10 doesn’t really drive engagement. Gamers have especially fed into this narrative because the media surrounding new products is always filled with hype and billed as the next greatest thing. It’s caused justified pushback from the community, but I think the pendulum has swung a bit in the other direction now. It’s tough feeling lukewarm about something when you’ve been told it’s supposed to be great. Additionally, the publishers, and some developers, in this industry are greedy cutthroats, which has made them easy targets for people’s frustration. The problem is now that frustration is focused on EVERYTHING involving the games industry.

I played this about a month ago after it was on sale. I genuinely like the survival/crafting genre and this was a fun way to experience settings from a series I’ve loved. I also had a lot of fun playing through this even with the “floaty” combat and optimization issues. As long as the developers continue to update the game to help it run a little easier, it’s definitely worth picking up if you’d like a new spin on the genre. Played on PS5 and it got very warm.