To be frank, I feel much more enjoyment from Stranded 2 and a few other survival-ish titles then this one. I respect this game's attempt at detail, and it's historical place in gaming history as a pioneer of the survival mechanics in a fps game, but it feels like the crafting is more limited then was planned, as there's a few items that get so little or no use that it feels like a bit more was planned, then scrapped for balance to keep the journey of the game hard.
And that's a fine idea! Keep the game tough... to an extent, however I feel much more joy crafting in games like Stranded 2, Wayward etc, which give you a bit more variety and make you feel like you're controlling your environment more fully; using it to it's extent much more... which is what I WANT to feel when trying to survive a harsh environment , not to feel like I'm a half-baked half-trained boy-scout (while in the context of the game you are meant to be a fully trained survival expert.) ,I want to build shelters, make bone/stone/flint spears, , use leaves to craft water collectors to use with rainstorms, tie up a bunch of bones to make a club or armor that's a little bit thicker then reptilian skin and fur, or even use two sticks to start up fires so I do not have to rely on matchsticks.
All in all this game was perhaps just a little rushed, but I know little about the developers except they were not seasoned game devs so I can't be too harsh on them, and at least they had the reasoning to let players shut off certain elements such as diseases if the player wanted to get through the journey without dealing with it so much.
And there's a good level of detail all complaints given, but whatever they scrapped in development could have made the player feel much more like... a well trained survivor, then the considerably strong trial and error a player has to go through to get through which in my own viewpoint, made me feel like a stumbling city-slicker with a couple of manuals.
And then there's the graphic's... goodness knows I don't "care" about visuals as far as them being fancy or vividly detailed go, it's great if they are but functionality is more important to me... and the visuals in this game are horrible for that. Trying to find your way around is an annoying feat, fine in open areas, but in narrower canyons I found myself getting stuck on inch high rises in the ground that I had to side-step around, which wouldn't be so bad except EVERY SECOND IS PRECIOUS, being as those real time seconds equate to minutes in game, and lost energy and/or water, therefore getting caught up on tiny bits of geometry is a sign of some horrendous design.
Worse, if you get into higher areas where you have to avoid falling, you better be sure to stick to the middle and stay away from edges because trying to figure out the exact "edge" where you would fall off is a pain and a half, as the voxel engine gives no real clear indication of the cliff or edge of any higher then safe terrain.
And then there's caves which when I tried to navigate the few thin pathways were hell on my eyes as I tried to discern where the walls and ground began and ended.
I have some other complaints, relatively minor but they do pile up, but I won't give this post any more megabites of text then I need to, I've given my twenty dollars worth of thoughts on this, and though I will honestly play through this game more out of curiosity then anything else, it's clunkiness understandably deters many players, even those who enjoy games from the olden times (Like myself), and lack of control over your environment would give plenty of survival experts a head scratch.