Soulmask

From a singleplayer perspective (which is how I play) this has always been a cut above from a survival game standpoint. There are obvious similarities to Conan/Dune/etc., but it just feels so much more satisfying to base/tribe build here - and, like subnautica, it just ends up feeling better than its peers. The new DLC is enormous and absolutely rules so far. This is an easy recommend for me - more than worth its price.
Edit: Since this got some attention, i'll add a few things that I have really appreciated.
First, for the single player experience is the ability to modify the game world settings at any point. Is crafting taking too long? change it. Are your pets taking forever to reach adulthood? change it. Does fighting feel too easy? adjust it. There are like a hundred sliders that you can use to adjust your game experience in different ways that make playing without a group not only tenable but perfect for a solo player at any stage in the game process.
Second, I spend a lot of time base building in games - I really enjoy it. Games like this and subnautica and dune all got a lot of attention from me just because of that. So I would put this in almost an S tier for a couple of reasons.
1. Mechanics - I really like them - You have a large circle around your bonfire (or centerpiece for each base) that goes to the sides and up into the sky and can build within those limits; if i recall my old playthroughs, that circle may get bigger as your bonfire gets more advanced. But the variety of pieces, and the need to build into the land (or, conversely to find an area that is super flat if thats your thing), has provided countless hours of entertainment for me - as you weigh such things as proximity to dangerous creatures, proximity to enemy bases (for capturing future tribesmen/women), and proximity to water and natural resources.
2. Purpose - Bases make meaningful differences in the game. Once you start building up your tribe, youll need bases in whatever zone you're in to craft (of course) but you can also setup pretty fun tribe automation for building out items that you need while you're off exploring, defending your base, and so forth. So the bases are actually built into the game mechanics in a number of fun ways (automation, raids, crafting and so forth).
3. Aesthetics - They look super cool, imo.
So if this is your thing, as it is mine, I would for sure give the game a shot.

Currently the best open-world survival sandbox game of it's type. Similar to Conan Exiles and Dune, mechanically speaking, but it just does literally everything better. Even the backend server settings are a thing of beauty allowing you to manage nearly every aspect of your gameplay on the fly without needing a restart of your instance or server.
Soulmask even manages to solve that logistics and infrastructure problem that we typically run into for games like this allowing us to put our tribesmen to work to create an organic system of automation for procuring crafting components and farming resources.
if you like these kinds of games, this is the new gold standard.

(single-player review)
It's funny, really. I've bought a number of popular "Overwhelmingly Positive" games on Steam that were real dogs. I normally stay away from "Mixed" games, and avoid Chinese games like the plague, but made an exception here. It was the right choice -- I have been having an absolute blast.
Yes, the translation is a bit rough (sometimes it's mangled Engrish, and sometimes a message in Chinese characters will pop up), and the NPCs do have some pathfinding issues in your base. The worst bit is you are required to place a center point before you start base-building, and the NPCs are unable to "see" anything outside of a 40 meter radius centered on that point, severely limiting how big you can build. However, in time you will figure out what the weird text is saying through context, and the base limitation can somewhat be worked around by placing multiple center points so the bubbles overlap.
Once you get over the rough bits, this game is an unpolished gem. I have gone from being a mostly naked villager running for my life through the jungle, to the leader of a thriving band of 50 warriors, laborers and craftsmen living in a great wooden longhouse standing on stilts among the treetops. We have repelled multiple invasions from barbarians, even though the last one apparently brought along a siege engine that shot flaming bolts at our walls, through a mix of clever terrain exploitation, sinister traps, my NPC comrades manning the mounted crossbows, and a handful of my best warriors and I dashing into the chaotic fray of murderous tribesmen and Molotov cocktails. I have explored much of the sprawling map and its various biomes atop my swift boar steed, raided rival villages and slain mighty beast-gods, yet I have spent just as much time building my own tribe and putting them to work producing food, medicine, tools and weapons. I am over 100 hours in and still haven't seen half the content, and I haven't even touched the Egypt DLC (included thanks to a promo) yet, which apparently is as long as the base game. We're talking AAA quality, at half the price.
If the multiplayer is bad, I am blissfully unaware in my own Mesoamerican single-player jungle. If it didn't deliver on the early access adopters' hopes and prayers, I didn't find out about it until the 1.0 release and it is perfectly fine as-is. If the developer is a bit sketchy, yes it's a bit weird they have no other titles and are using the same name as another game developer, but frankly whoever they are, they have made one fine game. From a player who regularly hands out "not recommended" reviews, I give Soulmask a solid recommend.

Dear readers, I know that everything we write on the internet is individual, and that some people like vanilla while others like chocolate, and then we can argue until tomorrow about which one is better.

But I would like to share my personal experience with Soulmask. I have played the game for almost 700 hours now, and I have not enjoyed a game this much in a very long time, and I am 35 years old.
If someone asked me what I do not like about the game, I would not be able to give them an answer.

I am someone who loves civilizations, someone who enjoys history, and someone who loves survival games. From the way combat works, to every detail and complex system this game offers, I absolutely love everything.
I could not recommend it more.

I hope everyone who is considering it gives it a try, because I want the development of this game to continue, and I want them to have the financial support to do so.

I wish all of you an amazing experience, and watch out for the great jungle!

This game does a lot of things right. The devs seem to have taken inspiration from all of the popular games in the genre as well as thier complaints and made a game that, mostly, delivers on the failed potential of it's forebearers.

It's got "recruitable" tribesmen that join your team willingly and can be fully automated to do the bulk of the gathering and crafting grind for you. They are very well implimented and have their own likes and dislikes. They communicate in the in game chat window. The ai can even sometimes lead to the illusion of them having personalities.

The nudity, violence, and gore from games like Conan Exiles is toned down to a PG rated experience.

My pros and cons from a primarily PVE player:

The grind: You have a lot of things to level up an xp is slow. The major gatekept resources have only one reliable source leaving you to grind that source out for a long time until you are ready for the next area.

You aren't restricted to which mask you pick but each mask needs to be leveled up. You aren't restricted to which body you pick but each body needs to be leveled up, Your tribesmen only level to end game while you have control of them, so that's a grind as well.

It was recommended to me to set the xp gains to 3.5 which felt about right but even at the max 5x it felt like there was a lot of xp farming rather than just relying on natural xp gains. A lot of this can be done afking on a crafting bench while you watch youtube videos.

Movement: It has advanced movement like climbing and the glider but disables both without warning when near things like dungeons or sometimes just randomly.

The glider is a bit frustrating as it auto closes when you are close to the ground and sometimes if the ledge you are jumping off has a bit of a tail, it can think it's close to the ground leaving you to try to panic relaunch it before impact, it also feels like they don't want you to ever use it as it quickly drains your stamina.

The climbing is not as sticky as it is in other games leaving you to fail to climb a ledge several times before doing it successfully. Since some areas can't be climbed you often are confused whether you can actually climb a spot or not.

Mounts: It has a healthy amount of mounts and balances them in an interesting but sometimes frustrating way. For example the Alpaca has more cargo room and can jump but the boar is faster. The jaguar is faster and can jump but slows down in the snow, The snow leopard is faster and can jump but the ostrich can "glide" and has natural radiation removal.

There is a fun variety but the balance isn't always equal. The snow leopard can do fine in the desert and jumping is far more valuable than gliding, etc. Also sometimes their AI will freak out and sometimes it just won't work and they will just stand there in combat and die.

Fast Travel: There are unlockable fast travel portals spread around the map in such a way that it doesn't ever feel like too far to get anywhere and you can even find the parts to assemble one for your base.

The Map: The first map zone is too big leaving new players to feel that it is all the game has to offer. In truth there may be too many biomes as some seem stretched paper thin between others. Still, much of it seems hand crafted and there is a definite beauty to be found out there. The map is about as big as it can be in the Unreal engine.

Building: It has a natural progression thatch-wood-stone-blackstone as well as one alternative nightstone (obsidian) set as well as a foundation for major "treehouse" structures. Your workers can be set to auto-update the older blocks and you can even have them fill in a blueprint for you. There's not much for furniture and vanity/RP items yet but the game is much younger than the others and the devs seem to be adding more and more into the game.

Farming and animal handling: This system was far too complicated for me to baby-sit luckily setting up the automation for it was easy and fun. make a plot, get seeds, plant seeds, make various fertilizers, make various pesticides, etc. with each step needing some level of attention and automation.

Cooking: Cooking is ok, there are a lot of recipes that require a lot of different ingredients but there does always seem to be a minor answer and major answer for each of the major reasons you need to eat. For example, a food that buffs your breath a little and one that does it a lot. A food that gives you cold resist and one that gives you more. I'd like to see more variety here but I know I'm the only one so it's forgivable.

Content: The dungeons are very repetitive and sometimes you can forget which one you are in. But there is enough content to easily forgive that. Off the top of my head: pyramid Bosses, elite bosses, dungeons, small ruins, large ruins, barracks, cities, caves, a couple of timed procedural dungeons, a zone-based npc arena system, a hunting system, hidden tablets, and a few unique free-DLC areas.

Overall: All in all it brings tons of depth to each system it is iterating on, there is tons of content to enjoy, and combat can be fun. The devs seem to be offering solutions to player complaints either via the server settings or optional alternative content in-game.

Good game 7/10

Played Solo on Casual. Maybe I would have needed more upgrades on a tougher level.

The good:
Many recipes to craft. No bugs.

The Not so good:
It got repetitious to me after the 3rd boss. The loop was upgrade gear (Cloth->Bronze->Iron->...) Upgrade foods, maybe use a mod. Summon Boss at alter. Kill boss.. repeat.

The crafting automation was overkill. I never really needed even a fraction of what I automated or farmed. For example, maybe I need a few hundred of a crop, but I produced thousands with little effort.

Did not see any reason to do these:
Trapping, Breeding, Fishing, Mask Modifications...

Limited Map. Once I uncovered it, I lost interest in playing further.

I got my monies worth and it was entertaining.

The game is decent and fun to play, but releasing a paid DLC on the exact same day as the 1.0 launch is pretty scummy.
Instead of using the entire Early Access period to properly polish and strengthen the core game, the devs spent resources creating extra content to sell separately. It leaves a sour taste and hurts the feeling of the full release.
Edit: Alright, credit where credit is due. They made a statement that the DLC will be free for EA users and for people who buy the game within the first month. I'm satisfied with the outcome.