Outward

I am surprised this game doesn't have a Overwhelmingly Positive rating. Here's why I love this game:
when you lose all your health, it doesn't have a game over screen where you have to load an earlier save. Instead, your adventure continues with a "defeat scenario" where you might end up losing some items or getting lost somewhere, or captured by bandits, etc. It's very good because I don't end up in a loop trying to defeat a boss and reloading the save after every attempt. Usually the inconvenience is rather minor and I could always get my important items back.
There are no levels in the game and your character's power depends on skills that you purchase from trainers and equipment you find, buy or craft. This means if you are lucky or smart you can get strong much faster, and there's no need to continuously fight boring enemies to do it.
The fights are super tough at first and I don't like souls-like games because they are too punishing and hard. But I ended up liking this game eventually: I read a bit about how the combat works given I was struggling, and learned it further by just playing the game, eventually my character turned out into a hunter-rogue guy that will shoot poison arrows and then get out his sword and dagger to slice and backstab enemies. Knowing the world also helps as you get a feeling for what threats you should take on vs run away from.
There's different factions for the main quest so you have lots of replayability. There's no quest markers so you look at the actual game instead of the minimap or compass while travelling. Travelling is dangerous and requires preparation so it's fun to go from point A to B. The different weapons and skills seem to play very differently, magic looks especially interesting.
You even have to go and do a whole dungeon at the beginning of the game if you want to even unlock mana. That's so cool that your character's path in the game will be different just because you want them to be a mage. And turns out there's at least three types of mage you can be, and you are also allowed to combine them as you wish.
There's a lot of downtime where you walk for several minutes where nothing is actively happening in the game, there's not fast travel. I actually enjoy this, but I get that it's not for everyone. However I have to say the game is full of weird places, dungeons with mysterious stuff and weird monsters to fight that drop all kinds of useful random loot and unique items.
I say go off the beaten path of the main quest, explore random places, get defeated, get messed up in a defeat scenario, and slowly figure out how the world works and get strong.
The game has timed quests that can result in bad outcomes if the timer runs out or you fail in some other way. That's super fun because it feels like a real adventure, which is what I was looking for in other games of the genre. And it's YOUR adventure because if you talk with a friend that also played, you are likely to find out you went different places, found different items.
It's not about winning, it's about the journey.
Now my complaints:
the game is clearly super low budget compared to similar games. I really wish the team had the funds to get it fully voice acted. Maybe for their next game! The soundtrack is amazing though.
The quests are really bare bones. It's not really a complaint, I think this is one of those games where the quest is just a hint to get you to explore the world. The most fun I had was with me getting lost and captured by bandits or some monsters, and trying to escape but also seizing opportunities to clear dungeons and finding random weirdly good loot.
The backpack mechanic can be annoying, but I think it's part of the charm. It forced me to use consumables instead of hoarding them and to actually pick a play style by getting rid of any equipment I am not using.
Overall, I am having a real blast and I recommend it if all this seems fun to you.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THIS GAME!
I know... if you are reading this you are probably thinking about buying this game, you are an avid RPG player.
Outward looks so appealing to you but you are not sure if it will fulfill all you want in an Open World RPG Survival game and most of all, you are scared of the "Souls-like" tag right there! You love roleplaying, you love survival, you love immersion, you love huge diversity of items, places, enemies and also a good and FAIR challenge...
I started playing Outward very recently (some people could state that I don't know the game very well) however I will still try my best to convince you that: yes, this game might be for you!
1) About the Difficulty:
Ok, the game is difficult alright! But I wouldn't say that this is a "Souls-like" difficulty! The beginning is really harsh, you will be overwhelmed by most enemies outside the gates but seriously, if you have played other "old school" RPGs like Risen and Gothic, you will probably know that you never start a game killing demons and dragons... everything demands a preparation and planning, Outward is on that category.
Even Skyrim, for example, if you play in Legendary Difficulty and go outside with a weak armor, you will be killed by a mere Giant Mudcrab! You will realize that "Ok, I need to prepare. I need better gear, maybe some skills/perks and potions".
Dying in Outward doesn't mean you lose the game (unless you play in Hardcore), you will wake up in a different location and the outcomes of your death depends on the circumstances of your defeat. If you are killed by Hyenas you will wake up in their Nest, if you die by bandits you wake up on their Camp and so on... that much I already learned! Hyenas won't steal your gear but bandits might do so! You can recover all your lost items usually in the place where you wake up.
If you can't find your backpack next to you, just look around and you might find your items on a chest... you can consult the Outward wiki, this mechanic is very complex but at least, I hope you understood that the game is not really difficult, its not unfair, it just demands that you prepare for things!
I find games like Conan Exiles way harder than Outward and that "Souls-like" tag is misplaced, in my honest opinion.
2) About the Survival:
Being brief... its a standard survival mechanic. Hunger, Thirst and Sleep, they do affect your stats with buffs and debuffs depending on your conditions but its nothing really complex. There are diseases in this game, so far I didn't got any trouble with that but I already noticed that there are concoctions that heal you and apparently some diseases can be cured by sleeping and keeping yourself well-nourished.
3) About the Roleplaying:
There is a Character Creation and Customization Interface but nothing too much detailed.
You are pretty much free to do whatever you want. Some places are restricted to be accessed only after quests but overall, you can go anywhere you want. So far, I've been farming Silver to build my strenght the best I can! Right now I am roleplaying as a fisherman, because I've realized that some fish can be sold by a good price and I am slowly getting a good gear to become an adventurer and later on, maybe join a Faction which I am not sure right now... maybe the Holy Faction!
The game constantly reminds you that you are not a hero, rather, you are just a commoner supposed to find your place in a harsh world and at the very beginning you will learn that. When you go out of your house, there will be a mob demanding you to pay lots of money in compensation of the bad deeds made by your grandmother, in the world of Outward, the descendants must pay for the mistakes of their ancestors and that is just the beginning of a whole world of unforgiveness!
4) Hints:
Well, so far I can tell you that Fishing is a good and safe option to farm Silver, your only expense is a Harpoon.
My gameplay improved a lot after I bought a Flintlock from the merchant at the gates. I suppose you could use a bow to kill enemies from high-ground but at least for me, it was not a good strategy...
Bandages and Rags helps a lot!
Invest in Weapons with high Impact value, they are better to stagger enemies and helps you to hit more times!
So far, this is all I can say...
5) How this game could improve:
What I am mostly missing here is a Workshop. Outward does have a Modding Community and you can find some pretty interesting mods in Nexus, however, I would still enjoy more if we could have a Steam Workshop for Outward!
It could help engage more people in the Modding scene.
So far, this is all I have to say about Outward (I'll update this Review if needed).
Again, do not be afraid to play this game! Its not as difficult as it portrays itself and its not unfair as some negative reviews says! Just be open-minded and have patience!!

I did not love this game at first, I finished it once and then uninstalled because the experience left me frustrated and disappointed that I had wasted my time on such a subpar game. The combat was clunky, the story was barely there, and this is one of those games where you have to look up things often which I did not do so I ended up missing out on a lot of events and not getting the outcomes that I wanted. I didn't think about the game for 3 years afterwards. This isn't a game for everyone.
I'm not sure what compelled me to spend more money on the DLCs 3 years later but I am very happy that I did. This time around it just clicked. I learnt not to try to dodge roll through everything, I paid more attention to the little bits of lore throughout the world, I enjoyed the sights and sounds rather than just rushing through it, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing through the game another seven times after I was done with my second playthrough. The QoL features added in the Definitive Edition helped as well, I barely remember my first time playing but the subsequent playthroughs have been less tedious than I remember and more fun.
Outward is in my top five RPGs of all time. If an Outward 2 ever releases, or something similar to it, I'm there day one.

Beginning of the game feels like scraping my balls against broken glass. It gets better

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO IN THIS GAME:
Drink salt water until you pass out, then wake up in the camp of a friendly demon who sends you on your way... and you're lost in the wilderness on the far side of a mountain
Drop your backpack in the middle of battle then watch the enemy hit it with an axe and all your stuff inside breaks
Make popcorn
Spend three hours trying to cross the swamp but every time you get defeated you get rescued to the far side of the map, or wake up in a bandit camp, or wake up back at the inn in town (and they've taken money from your pocket to pay for it)
Fish up boots
Get lightning-punched by a mantis shrimp
Die from frostbite in front of a campfire because it takes time for your body temperature to return to normal and you're still freezing to death while you oh-so-gradually warm up
Run out of arrows
Spend all your money on reagents needs to cast spells and then get ganked from behind and die anyway
Get your house repossessed in your first hour of playing because the HOA says your rent is overdue and they don't accept "it sank to the bottom of the sea" as an excuse
Oh my god you guys I love this game so much, I can't believe I didn't know about it until now. It's so amazing. This is wonderful. :D

I have enough play time to finally give an honest review, this game is for all the masochists out there scratching your balls after finishing elden ring. THIS GAME IS PEAK. I love the theme of this game, its a grindy loot filled adventure that always surprises you from what comes next, and the best thing is, you have freedom! go where you want, fight who you can, and learn from your deaths. Multiplayer is surprisingly not buggy and its hilarious to watch your friends get the shit kicked out of them. The Ai is not forgiving, so playing co-op is definitely recommended if you're new.
---THIS GAME IS A BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE YOU GROW TO LOVE THE MORE YOU LEARN THE MECHANICS---
^except its not like league of legends, in the sense where you need a phd and 200+ hours to understand
And now lets get started on the weapons/armor --THERES SO MANY--. You can find weapons, craft them, or earn them from some quests. You also have a generous amount of different classes(weapon builds) that you can constantly change. Certain weapons and armor even have specific elemental properties/ effects which makes them all unique. AND if you really want to meta game, use those weapons/armor on hard enemies that are weak to specific things. Though if you're built different you can just free ball it through any enemy with enough buffs or potions.
The faction system is fun to do and it provides the lore this game has to offer. Different factions can give you abilities, passives, weapons, money, and even more loot. I've done about three of the main ones on diff characters and there's definitely better ones than others but it's all built around what character build you're going with, so just watch a quick youtube vid on which one you wanna choose.
--NOW, to address all the hate this game gets--: YES its hard at times, YES its partially a walking simulator, YES you're backpack weight can be annoying, NO im not a virgin because of how hard ive been FUCKED by some enemies. And like a good sub I take it and enjoy myself. But let me tell you something 70% of players dont know/utilize:
YOU CAN MINMAX THINGS
--Walking far? drink water, gaberries, stamina potion, unequip heavy armor, put on speed boosting armor, aquire stamina skills. EVERYTHING IS A BUFF IF YOU READ THE ITEM. YOU CAN LITERALLY PAY A CARAVANNER TO TAKE YOU TO DIFFERENT CITIES
--Backpack full? go to your friends world if they're in a city and just go back to your world. You can create a second character and leave them in cierzo, do split screen and join your second characters world and SELL SELL SELL. Also get the big dick backpack in the beginning of the game at the first bandit camp (need 2 power coils)
--Keep dying? learn the Ai, they all have set attacks that are VERY predictable. STOP RUSHING FIGHTS, find the attack cooldown on the enemy and dont spam attacks, play your fights slower and you will come on top every time
--Under geared? literally craft new armor, go on the wiki and you can pull up any armor piece. You can even be team blood or crip early in the game from some easy crafts(ammolite or blue sand armor)
--Complaining about progression? Guys THERES NO LEVELS, and progression's not even mainly money based. Its all about skills and passives from the trainers. And they're broken: +40 health, +40 stamina, +40 mana, +10% movement speed, less hunger, drink, and sleep drain, be able to dodge full speed with a backpack on, etc etc. And that doesnt even include the crazy attack skills. You can wipe through 3 enemies with just 2 skills and being skilled enough to use the space bar.
--USE THE WIKI, it has EVERYTHING. Stop complaining about the loot and just look up the item, cause chances are 80% of drops are used to craft potions, armor, weapons, food. Oh and guess what? even if you dont need the drops, use the ingredients to craft the stuff just to sell. YOU CAN SELL EVERYTHING IN THE GAME. Craft 1 weapon/armor piece and it will sell for 80-800 silver
--You can use different weapon classes if you don't like yours. I've tried at least 5-7 and played them all differently in their own fun way. Shield and one handed weapon is broken if you're solo.
The other thing no one talks about is having multiple characters, this is the only game I can stop playing for 8-12 months and just create a new character and get a whole new game. The replayability is crazy. And a little secret, you can trade every single item including money between characters if you want to quick progress a character(split screen).
So go buy this game with a friend and have an experience you'll never forget, ignore the bad reviews bc of all the ones i've seen... get gud. there is a workaround every issue they're all complaining about if you just play the game and browse the wiki.
And now i'll get back to playing my 4th character

NOTE: I probably have close to 250, 300 hours since I played the PS4 version before I had a PC. This review is based solely off of single player.
And yes, this is a Outward review in the age of Baldurs Gate 3, ayy lmao.
This game is great, but flawed.
I love the combat, the diverse range of skills and weapons can lead to tons of diverse builds, both traditional RPG ones and more unorthodox, Spears, Hammers, Floating Magical Chakrams, Flintlock Pistols, Magicked Tomes, and from warriors to mages to gun-mages and archers and spell-blades, everything's covered. Possibly the best part of the game, it's not Dark Souls, but its great in it's own way.
I love the challenge, having to manage food, water, sleep and temperature, mobs hit hard and have the potential to keep you on your toes even into late game.
The world and lore are interesting, there's cool sights too see and interesting history to the world. The Soroboreans DLC has one of the most memorable (and very, very large) dungeons I've ever played in a game.
Yet even with those positives, the game is flawed. Some of these are mitigated by mods, but still, some changes feel like things that should be in the base game.
The world feels dead, devoid of life. In the overworld, outside of quest specifics, here are no friendly NPC's aside from a travelling merchant found in random spots, and duos of mercenaries found in the first DLC. No one to trade with, learn skills from, only one found in random locations to barter with, not even anyone to chat with even to learn specifics about the games lore. There are only relatively sparse hostile mobs.
Out of everything, this kills the game the most for me personally, it makes me not want to play some days. Vanilla New Vegas is more lively in the overworld, a post apocalypse, the game would feel more alive if there were hunters, travellers, pilgrims, city patrols out and about in the overworld, specific NPC's you could talk to too learn skills from, barter with.
Travelling sucks, the actual act of running to a dungeon or exploring is fine, but its getting to a fro that sucks. The only fast travel is from the Caravaner inside towns, but he only brings you to one specific, random town, for moderate fee, no choice on where to go, there are no mounts either. If you need to travel across the map, you need to run for 15, 20, could even be 25 minutes straight to the town, just running. You feel compelled to spec into Movement Speed even if you're playing a armoured, slow warrior.
NOTE: This is mostly fixed by a mod that allows the Caravaner to travel to a specific town of your choosing, you still need to pay a fee, but it's a manageable one, But I feel this should be a base game feature, I like exploring, I like running to a dungeon, but running to a specific town to buy something only they stock? Even just going from one town to the next? That sucks,
Combat is very fun, but the Hotbar/Quickslots you put skills and items to are so limiting, You only get 8, you'll find you'll need almost double, even if it's just to slot buffs to, or maybe a HP Potion, with only 8 you feel limited, there's tons and tons of skills in this game, it feels crappy to be limited on what I can use.
And again, this is fixed by a mod too, Multiple Quickslot Bars, but again, this should really be a base game feature.
Ammo stacks are limited to 15 for arrows and bullets, and one you've used them it doesnt re slot another one, making you use another quickslot for ammo or having you fiddle with a inventory mid combat. This is semi mitigated by a mod that puts that to 50, but I feel having a limitless stack would be better. Sure it's jarring to think your character has a quiver of 200, 300 arrows, but c'mon, it'd also be jarring to pull a huge two handed hammer out of a backpack like it's a clown car!
The DLC's add new arrows and bombs, yet they're not in the base game, bombs are found super late in the game too, you need a mod to add them to merchants in the base game. Col features locked behind a time gate you possibly wont even see.
I know I spend a lot more time on the negatives, but the only two deal breakers, imo, is the lack of life in the world and lack of fast travel, and fast travel can be mitigated with a mod, to a point. But the world feeling dead? That's here to stay, there will never be a mod that adds life to the world, there's mods to fix the hotbars, the stacks, and to a extent the travel, but not the dead world, and my god, it feels lifeless when there's no one friendly to chat with.
Yes, most of these can be fixed with mods, but the issues are so minor, yet so profound, if you get what I mean, death by a thousand cuts, or more, death by a few moderate cuts. These things would probably be so easy to add to the game, all they are is simple QoL stuff.
But even with all those flaws, the game is still fun, great even. Spent way more time typing up flaws for this game then downsides, but that's because they stand out so much more against the backdrop of a otherwise amazing game, they take away from something that's could be even better then it is, like a doctor going into detail into a illness to figure out what's wrong with a otherwise healthy person.
he game has amazing combat, interesting lore, and fun mechanics.
I do recommend the game, but temper yourself before going in, it's not perfect, but the good outweighs the bad.