I got this game, so far trying to learn the ropes in single player. And there's quite a bit of figuring out to do.
One good thing about it is, yeah, it's got a functional single player, though I suppose I'm missing a chunk of the game this way.
Unfortunately, single player doesn't appear to be very persistent, as it only saves the stuff I have on me when I exit. Supposedly it also applies to crates and hideouts, but I've yet to try it out myself.
First impression is that is appears to be DayZ after a round of vaccines. The nutrition screen alone can give you autism just by looking at it for too long.
Too much sodium in your system? It'll make you dehydrate faster until you literally piss it all away.
A lot of the stuff is not yet functional, but I reckon all those vitamin deficiencies will serve a purpose eventually.
It's an early alpha, a lot of the stuff is not yet there - character selection mostly boils down to stats (which work as advertised, although not all skills are there), appearance wise, it only lets you pick three flavors of Putin
lookalikes or a black guy, tattoed or not.
The island is littered with villages are very similar to one another, to the point of having me confused - did I loot that house ten minutes ago or no?
There's also military / prison buildings all over the place with patrolling mechs. Higher risk, but gives you military-grade equipment.
The loot tables will need a rework. It takes some effort to find decent stuff. With guns, it's a struggle to find matching equipment that you can actually use.
Got an Mp5? Tough beans, there's no magazines lying about so you'll have to chamber the rounds one by one. Thankfully, the ammo is craftable.
It's not necessarily a bad thing from the standpoint of a survival game, but the game really advertised it's ballistics, yet it's a bit of a challenge to start shooting things.
The above complaint can also be specific to single player.
Crafting feels quite all right, the menus are fugly, but it works all right with many alternatives and optional components to choose from. I don't have a lot of experience in the genre,
but being able to pick exactly what you use for crafting and being able to substitute, say, a good quality rope I'm saving for marriage later with something improvised from treebark or rags tied together
adds a lot of flexibility and shows that the devs know what they're doing.
My general impression this far is quite optimistic. The game seems to have the very basics down. I wanted me a DayZ clone with less clunky controls and less amateurish devs and it looks like it can deliver.