Here are my impressions after about an hour of play. There will likely be no further impressions (barring Skyway fully endorsing the game and abandoning ARMA to play it seven times).
I didn't encounter any bugs, other than falling in water and dying (not sure if bug).
If you've never heard of the game, I'd describe it like an open world, single character mix of NWN2 and Kingdoms of Banalur.
CHARACTER SYSTEM
Three races: Human, elf and an "original" race. Didn't read the fluff. Minor stat differences. Major trade guild reputation differences, though (I think this only affects the prices, not the quests, could be wrong). 5 stats. Higher stat investments cost more points. No skills, feats, traits...Very D&D like, but very, very simplified.
There are dwarfs in the game! You can't be a dwarf! Disgraceful! Release the Volourn!
You can adjust individual elements of game difficulty (max level, re-spawn rate, regeneration rate...).
Skills are divided into weapons, creatures(?), resistances, mana regeneration, crafting and harvesting (I think). Here is the most interesting part of the game, IMO. You can specialize (skill up) in killing different types of enemies. Spells also deal/resist damage from different type of enemies. You can, for example, have a generic 5-15 damage spell, or you can have 15-45 damage to undead spell. I'm guessing there are specialized weapons too. This could have interesting implications for exploration. There is also a huge potential for metagaming (if enemies are not randomized and/or mixed).
PRESENTATION
Art style is generic. Graphics are poor at best, although that's not a big deal. What is a big deal is a stuttery mess of an engine the game is using. It "streams" content, but most of the time shit just pops up of nowhere. SSD is recommended, but come on. We've had similar engines used in far better looking games with not much issue. Don't tell me you can't stream shit properly in an pseudo ISO game, where you look at the ground and don't even see the horizon. I'm guessing this is the reason for the zoom level being what it is.
The world is "contiguous", like in Gothic games, no loading screens at all (that I've seen).
Night and day cycle. It influences quests and monster behavior (supposedly). No weather effects, AFAIK. No way to pass the time that I've seen, but time flows rather quickly.
Music is fine, I guess. Sounds are also fine. There is quite a lot of voice acting in the game, judging from the first town. Your character is silent in dialogues. The quality is not great, not horrible either. I've found it not really contributing much to the game overall. A waste of money. However, your character's comments (voiced) when encountering a location or a "situation" for the first time are a pretty nifty touch and add to the atmosphere quite a lot.
CONTROLS AND CAMERA
The camera, movement and world interaction are truly a work of art. There is something beautiful in the way they managed to completely fuck it up. It's not just one thing that's bad, it's all of it. They did not get a single aspect of character control right. From the right click to rotate the camera AND interact with environment, to the "vast" amount of zoom options, they have composed a symphony of shit. It's hard to even describe the true magnitude of failure. It's like they played NWN2 and decided to show those hacks at Obsidian how to properly fuck things up.
You can't even blame it on the lack of funds or inexperience. How can you fuck the most elementary of things? All you do in a game like this is walk around and occasionally interact with stuff. It's literally THE FIRST thing you should work on and get right when making the game. Keep in mind I've played and completed GoT, NWN2 and both expansions. I've seen things...
I almost forgot the fetish for spinning camera. Who the fuck though it would be a good idea to rotate the camera every time you speak to someone?! I don't even...
STORY
Story seemed like generic garbage from the intro movie. Then I realized there are 3 trading guilds and you have a different starting reputation with each, depending on the race you choose for your character. Ok, might be interesting. Or not. It looks like "evil" North Trade Guild is oppressing Independent(?) Traders Guild and trying to control the kingdom through devious means. There may be more to it, but it doesn't look promising. The third guild is elves. Fuck elves.
Quests are BSB, but I've only played for an hour. I can't really tell if it gets better.
GAMEPLAY
Combat is click-click-click, although slower paced and you can use some tactics and positioning. It's not a Diablo clone, but it's not much better. It's not the worst combat ever in concept, but it's just so poorly executed... I can't see it getting better on higher levels.
Health and mana regenerate. I'd say you need less than a minute to regenerate from 0 to full. It's not CoD fast, but not slow either.
Inventory is quite large. 1 item, 1 inventory slot. There are 28 slots x 8 tabs (I think). You'd think that would be plenty. However, items don't stack and there is a shitload of crafting components, consumables, equitable items, spell runes, lockpicking runes... I managed to fill 5 tabs in an hour and I sold a bunch of weapons and armor I wasn't going to use.
Weapons, armor and other equipable items are not Diablo-like, with randomized stats. They are similar to D&D items.
Consumables have no description. You do get a description and duration of the effect on your character after you use it.
Here's the best part of item system! Encumbrance is tied to your strength stat! The more you carry, slower you move. Crafting components have weight. Armor and weapons have weight. There is a shitload of items to find in the world... This won't get tedious at all!
There are a lot of merchants in the world. It seems like more than half of the people in the first town are selling something.
Here's something cool and original (not really). You pick locks by combining runes! Awesome! Each lock is represented by a matrix of different runes and two are lit (very brightly lit, making it almost impossible to tell what symbol they represent). To unlock it, you must connect the two lit runes by matching them and the runes between them with the runes you collect by exploring the world. There are 3 colors of runes, one for each god (and possibly one more set, not sure). There are 8(ish) rune symbols. Each lock is owned by(?)/dedicated to(?) a specific god and you can only use runes of its color on the lock. Crates, coffins, even urns are locked with these "rune locks".
There are also keys. Lots of different non-stacking keys. I'm not sure what they are for, although I did use a key to unlock a door. I'm not sure if keys can be used to unlock any (matching) door or you must have a specific key for some doors.
Creating spells sounds cool, but it's not really that great. It's not like in PoE or Morrowind. You collect spell runes and combine up to 6 to make a spell. It can be a buff, ward or a missile. Faith (mana) usage goes up for each rune used (I think it's close to straight up linear increase, but I'm not 100% sure). And that's it. Instead of casting 6 spells, you cast one big spell (if you have enough mana).
As for crafting, you collect shit and make different shit from collected shit. You need to invest into crafting skills to make better shit. You have the list (quite a long one) of all the things you can make. There are harvesting skills. There are plants that can be harvested only at certain parts of the day.
I've skimmed through the manual (you can download it on Steam) and there are temples and sacrifices for favors to gods (I think items only), housing and a bunch of other shit in the game. There is (presumably) a huge world without level scaling to explore.
Bestiary with descriptions that get more detailed the more creatures of the same type you kill. Interesting.
TL;DR
Even should the basic controls be fixed, I don't think the world and the story would be engaging enough, the character development interesting enough, nor the combat fun enough to spend more time with the game. Keep in mind that this is an "extrapolation" based on skimming through the manual and playing the game for about an hour.
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