It is a great RPG and probably worth you money, but don't buy it for the "great writing" they promised. Feels like a cheap homebrew DND module (in a bad way, not in a rosy nostalgic way).
During the development they talked a lot about how they are finally free from the yoke of the despicable mainstream gamer and how this allows them to unleash their creativity and make art, but ended up writing the blandest, most forgettable high fantasy ever. It's not even Neverwinter nights. Dragon Age is proper literature by comparision.
Great writing? If all your read is gazillions of Dragonlance novels, maybe.
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Okay, I should probably clarify a bit.
Basically, it seems that they tried hard to be original and just... couldn't
Instead of consistency and truly going for something different (see Dune, Morrowind, Earthsea, Planescape) they chose to throw around some random-sounding names for random-sounding countries, all of which have no character whatsoever (one of the main regions is defined by, I kid you not, "having a diverse ecosystem", and another one by being "not imperialistic").
A desire to subvert high fantasy tropes is commendable, but this is not how you do it.
Good example is race selection - blue aquatic orcs "had many cultures based on naval domination". What cultures? When? Why are they blue? Duh, blue people, naval domination. No further exposition given. As a result "blue aquatic orcs" sounds way cooler than it is in the game. The only important thing we are told about pale elves when choosing pale elf as a background is that pale elves are not migratory.
Obviously, they were going for the "imaginary trivia" approach, but for that to work, the details have to be intriguing enough for the reader to care. They have to be excting.
Sorry, I'm not excited by pale elves form Xmfrdtl being not migratory. Tell me about them. Tell me they hunt giant eels in the frozen tundra. Tell me they have a tribal culture based on potlatch. Tell me something my imagination can work with - you can't just say "oh, you know, Xmfrdtl", and expect me to start caring. А common rookie mistake - so much for "a studio full of experienced writers".
There is also an attempt at "blue and orange" morality - instead of good and evil gods there are gods of various random things (same with paladin creeds). Quite noticeably better than the rest of the general lore, but still suffering from the same problem.
The morale here is, I guess, hire a writer capable of writing an interesting original world in a proper holistic way or stick to your classic tropes that do half of the work for you. Right now the lore is original enough to get in the way of your assumptions, but not to be actually interesting.
Lack of consistency, lack of substance. End of the day - it's just bad, lazy world-building. Which is okay in a shooter, but in a new RPG IP that prides itself in being non-mainstream? That's... ironic.
All this is common in videogames, and normally I wouldn't care so much, but during the development they talked and talked about how they are a "studio full of writers" who have been barred by evil men in suits from unleashing their true creative potential, and then we get... this? I'm starting to think evil men in suits can sometimes be right.
I would agree with the other posters - the actual ingame dialog is better, although dialog writers often mistake verbose for rich and long for interesting.
The story, indeed, I cannot reasonably judge after only 3.1 hours of gameplay - I can judge the opening, though, and it's uninspiringly predictable. So far it reminds me of homebrew D&D (in a bad way).
That said, I'm enjoying the game and will definitely finish a playthrough. It is what they promised in every way except one. I will update the review as I go.
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