A few hours into this and just left the first planet. It’s good in ways you would expect, the characters and world are interesting, and the dialog is snappy. From that point of view it’s great, however the controls and combat are a bit floaty, also you can tell it’s a bit of a double-A game in many respects.
It weird to see someone so carefully channelling Bethesda, almost like that style of open-world RPG has become a genre. Some will say “oh they’re doing a Bethsoft style game better than Bethesda”, but I don’t think that’s true. I think there’s something to do with the environment and atmosphere Bethesda do so well that’s slightly missing here.
I also think that it sticks a bit too closely to the Bethesda formula and that Obsidian have missed an opportunity to innovate in some areas. It feels like it’s playing it safe a bit too much, in terms of the mechanics. I get that it was made on a budget, at least before Microsoft bought them out. They could have done more to make it stand out.
Still, I am enjoying it quite a bit.
