Valheim

This is hardly a game although it provides massive pleasure; it is more of an experience, one that is as highly addictive as it is fun to play. Beware that you can spend hundreds, even thousands of very satisfying hours playing the "game". There's lots to learn yet no book of rules, no specific pathways to take, etc etc.
At my fine old age of 72, I have been playing PC games for longer than most of you have been alive. The first PC adventure-style games consisted entirely of words on a screen and a choice of a few actions. This game is at the extreme in terms of being virtually boundless. Only your creativity, or lack of it, will hold you back.
For me, Valheim is the perfect blend of exploration, building, skill development, resource development, survival and FPS.

Valheim really nails a lot of things that the survival genre sometimes struggles with:
The sandbox gameplay that never rushes you is balanced with a meaningful progression system that keeps you fixed on certain goals and milestones.
Acquiring and consuming better food makes you more capable in combat and exploration, but you will never simply drop dead due to hunger, making sustenance feel more like a reward than a nagging requirement.
The building system is rewarding. Your shelters must be constructed with adequate support and ventilation of smoke in mind, and interior comforts increase the amount of rest you gain, incentivizing you to not just build a house, but a nice house.
You can construct paired portals to fast travel across the map, but certain raw materials cannot be carried through them, which creates interesting logistical choices between shipping materials over long distances by cart or by boat, and building outposts to process and craft your materials closer to where they are mined. Additionally, certain crops can only grow in certain biomes, which further incentivizes setting up multiple bases. Thankfully, the rewarding nature of the building system makes the prospect of building a new base an opportunity rather than a burden.
Like most games in this genre, a good amount of time is spent gathering resources, but the amount you need never seems onerous. It can be time consuming, but this is often because you will get interrupted by monsters drawn to the sound of mining ore and chopping trees, which breaks up what could otherwise be a monotonous task.
And lastly, the game's unique graphical style is gorgeous. Low polygon counts and simple textures free up resources that are spent on beautiful lighting, atmospherics, and color composition.
This type of open-world survival/building game isn't for everyone. It's heavy on atmosphere, but light on story, and there are some routine repetitive tasks involved. But if you've ever enjoyed another game in this genre, or are curious and looking for one to start on, Valheim strikes an amazing balance that accentuates the genre's strengths while minimizing its inherent flaws.

Let's get one thing straight. This game is incredible. Even with it's clunky UI (made much better with mod support) and terrible multiplayer support, I've never been so engrossed in an open world survival game. This truly is inspiring to every indie studio out there on what true vision for a game can get you.
However.
Valheim has sold over 12 million copies at the time of this review.
Let's assume they sold those at an average of $15 each.
That's about $180,000,000.
Let's also assume that Valve and Coffee Stain (the publisher) take roughly half.
That still leaves them with $90 million dollars. (I understand this is complete conjecture and not all substantiated but I'm upset so let me do this)
$90,000,000 for a team of somewhere between 11-50 employees according to their linkedin page is an unimaginable number. Reminder that they also started with 5 employees.
I'm left here wondering... where did all that money go? Because the game is obviously not finished. There are so many things left incomplete and broken. I can't tell you how many times I've restarted this game only to find that there is still the same amount of content and fixes that there was a year ago. Even their new "updates" come out broken and unplayable. I've resorted to playing the game with the many many mods available to fix and add to the game where the developers seemingly cannot.
It is astounding to me how something can be in early access for so long and have so little to show for it.
So please, Iron Gate, after you've had your well deserved post release break, I would expect at least some marginal progress towards a 1.0 launch.
Thanks for no micro transactions though.

Great game, but if you die an hour via boat away from a spawn point, be ready for the most tilting experience of your life.

Great game. Moderate learning curve. Steep progression curve. But worth every minute of gameplay.
Better than most AAA games.

I've put a fair bit of time into this game now and still love it. Nothing beats that first time you see a troll while sailing near the shore... and then speeding away as fast as I could! One of my all time favourite games, if not the best.

I've never played multiplayer, so can't comment on that aspect but it would appear lots of peeps love it. SIngle player is just wonderful, I get lost in just "living" in the game world. The graphics are stunningly beautiful and it's so relaxing just pottering about. Take the game at your own pace, explore, forage, hunt and build. And when you want a challenge, sail away and it's there.

I will add I have about nine QOL mods and they really make the game that much more enjoyable for me.

And the absolute best thing about this game for me? Building! I started with a basic wooden hut and now I'm constructing yet another castle, this time in the Ashlands. Happy hunting :)

A game that expects you to go back naked to a place for your stuff where you died in full armour.
A game that wants you to believe that after you've defeated an ice dragon that even the gods themselves fear, you'll be killed by a mosquito.
10/10