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.

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.

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

Day 1: Odin says I'm not allowed into Valhalla until I kill his enemies in this limbo-realm on Yggdrasil. His big tiddy goth waifu crow-woman Valkyrie carries me here, but neglects to give me any weapons or clothes. She left. It's raining. I am unhappy.
Day 6: Punching tree hurts. Punching rock hurts more. Made a shelter. Almost suffocated from the smoke because I forgot that fires need chimneys or the building will fill with ash. I punted a dwarf off a cliff. I am less unhappy.
Day 14: Punched a thunder god in the taint, mounted its head on the mantle. My cabin's room temperature is no longer "sit in the fire to be not-cold." I am happy.
Day 24: Explored forest today. Heard a thump. Shadow the size of a house swung a tree at me. It missed, but it hit every tree around me. The trees collapsed. I was underneath them. Woke up naked on an altar. I am very unhappy.
Day 29: Very unhappy that it keeps raining. I want to burn the forest down. Especially the big forest. The big forest is bad.
Day 39: Made bronze, shanked tree, crafted boat. Landed on an island. Island started sinking. Then giant monster came by and ate me. Woke up in bed this time. Boat is now in the middle of the ocean. I am very unhappy.
Day 76: Swamp sucks. Swamp sucks swamp sucks swamp sucks.
Day 93: Note to self: Do not spend night on mountain. Mountain is not friendly. Mountain is sky-swamp at night.
Day 120: Found cool steppe, very sunny, looks comfy. Will scout for base location.
Day 121: Woke up in bed. Ship again stranded leagues away. Have to make third ship. I hate mosquitoes.
Day 264: New island. Nothing but jagged rocks and fog. I hate it here. I hate whatever stupid god made this place. I hate Odin for sending me here. When I get to Valhalla I'm going to find them and punch them.
Day 293: Found magic stick. Am very happy.
Day 346: Have ascended beyond the need for questing. Built a chicken coop and a kennel for my dogs and am content in cozy fortress. Screw Odin. Screw Valhalla. Screw whatever horrible thing keeps making noises in the fog. I'm staying here. I win.
0/10. Developers have not yet invented time travel so that all development time can have already occurred so that I don't need to wait for them to make new things. They refuse to feed my addiction. I am very unhappy.

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to give this game an objective review, because it ties in so intricately with the mental health issues I was experiencing at the height of my dozens, maybe hundreds, of solo plays.
Sure, I occasionally played in groups, with amazing, wonderful friends that I knew. I'd say maybe 500+ hours or so was spent with company.
But the most impactful moments for me were on a boat, alone, sailing across the ocean, problem-solving aggro'd 2-star wolves jumping off-ship. Or in the Plains, suddenly hearing fuling laughter behind me while I dug lox pits for hours. Or wondering what legitimately lay over the edge of the world when no one had details about it in the beginning and then finding out--and in hindsight thinking, oh, maybe I shouldn't have been fully-decked in my good gear when I did that (womp womp).
The journey is never so palpable in your soul until you can feel each step done by yourself, for yourself.
Maybe I'll rewrite this review later to be more succinct, or give more technical detail of the actual game. But it's going to be difficult for me to separate something that's so incredibly changed the space inside of me and made it so much bigger, so much fuller, and so much more whole.

This game is what I wanted Minecraft to be 12 years ago. I loved it playing it solo, I can assure you that if you play this with some friends you are going to love it more than i did.