Info about Dragonhold:

Official game description:
Roadmap
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About the Game
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Dragonhold is a mission based RPG with a hub world and open-world zones where you hunt for loot and power. When you complete missions, you must extract from the region and take your loot back to your home base! Each time you complete a mission, you're rewarded with new skills and abilities. The game is Solo or Co-op. 
Dragonhold is NOT always online. You can run a dedicated server yourself, or play on many freely provided official servers. There is a PvE and a PvP mode.
Take to the skies on a mighty dragon and unleash fiery attacks on your enemies. Explore a vast enchanted realm and save the people of Azarkeen. Unleash deadly abilities and magical powers to prevent a corrupt holy war spreading across the world. Restore the balance in spectacular third-person action in solo or multiplayer modes.
Forge an unbreakable bond with your dragon and prepare for high-speed chases, intense duels, and blazing showdowns as you work to avenge and rekindle the Boundless Order.  
Engage in exhilarating battles against world class bosses, both atop dragons and on foot. Solo or with a band of dragon-riders, you must utilize strategy and cunning to defeat these powerful beasts.  
Gather resources and ancient artifacts to rebuild Dragonhold and the nearby castle town. Unlock new powers and features as you complete expeditions in the besieged Azarkeen region of Aval. As you rebuild parts of the castle, you will rekindle the cosmic energies of the Boundless order and gain new abilities. Craft weapons, armor, and magical items to aid you in your quest.
Are you ready to become a member of the legendary Boundless Order, harnessing the power of dragons and etching your name into the annals of history? Your destiny awaits in Dragonhold.

Release date: 10 Nov, 2025

Categories: RPG, Open-World Exploration, Extraction Gameplay, Cooperative Multiplayer, Base Building, Crafting, Real-time Combat, Dragon Riding Combat


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Strong Potential, Fun Gameplay (weight 0.76): Players consistently praise the game's core concept, foundation, and early access state as highly promising and enjoyable. Many express significant anticipation for its future, highlighting its unique blend of fantasy/sci-fi, visual appeal, and engaging design.
- Active, Responsive Developers (weight 0.6): The development team receives widespread acclaim for their exceptional activity, responsiveness to player feedback, and prompt bug fixes. They are perceived as passionate, communicative, and dedicated, frequently engaging with the community and releasing timely updates.
- Excellent Dragon Riding Mechanics (weight 0.34): A core highlight of the game is the smooth, fun, and satisfying experience of dragon flight and combat. Players deeply enjoy the unique ability to play as a dragon, praising the intuitive controls, animations, and the overall concept of a dragon-riding RPG.
- Smooth, Engaging Combat (weight 0.22): The combat system is generally well-received, described as smooth, snappy, and engaging. Players appreciate the variety of enemies and find both ground and aerial combat encounters to be fun and challenging, with functional dodging mechanics.
- Enjoyable Extraction & Loot (weight 0.12): The game's extraction loop and loot system are found to be satisfying and engaging by players. This feature contributes to depth and replayability, adding a compelling element to the gameplay experience even in Early Access.
- Vast, Intriguing World Exploration (weight 0.1): The game offers a large, vast world that encourages exploration and sparks player curiosity. There is a strong sense that there's ample content to discover, significantly contributing to player immersion and engagement.
- Beautiful Visuals & Art (weight 0.08): The game garners consistent praise for its stunning graphics and well-crafted visual style. Players particularly note how environment art and color schemes strike a great balance and effectively set the game's tone.
- Excellent Value for Price (weight 0.04): The game is widely considered to be well worth its purchase price, even when bought on sale. Players feel they are receiving good value for their investment, especially considering its Early Access status.
- Diverse & Appealing Enemies (weight 0.04): Enemies are described as diverse in both appearance and type, which enhances the engaging nature of combat encounters. They are consistently present throughout the world, ensuring a steady pace of action.
- Appreciated Heroic Music (weight 0.04): The game's heroic and epic music is well-received by players, significantly enhancing the overall atmosphere and immersion. The soundtrack contributes positively to the game's grand scope.

Common complaints:
- Unfair Difficulty & Balance (weight 0.97): Players experience an unforgiving difficulty curve with no scaling options, encountering overpowered enemies, broken spawn systems, and a harsh death penalty that erases all progress. This combination creates a frustrating and unfair experience that discourages continued play.
- Game Lacks Polish & Stability (weight 0.9): Players report a vast array of bugs, clunky mechanics, and an overall unfinished feel, making the game frustrating and at times unplayable. Many systems require significant polish and refinement before a 1.0 release, even for an Early Access title.
- Combat Lacks Polish & Flow (weight 0.88): Combat, both on the ground and in the air, is widely reported as clunky and lacking fluidity. Issues include forced stagger, unresponsive controls, and an overall uninspired design that feels simplistic and repetitive.
- Monetization Practices Are Unpopular (weight 0.86): Players are critical of the decision to charge for an Early Access game while also including microtransactions, particularly for unlocking additional character classes. This approach is perceived as exploitative and inappropriate for an unpolished title.
- Dated Graphics & Models (weight 0.73): Many players describe the game's graphics as poor and dated, comparing them to older console generations. Dragon and character models are also criticized for lacking unique design and visual 'soul,' impacting aesthetic appeal.
- Clunky Dragon Controls & Camera (weight 0.17): Dragon movement, both in the air and on the ground, is described as unresponsive and clunky, hindering gameplay. Additionally, the camera often feels too close to the dragon, creating a bothersome visual experience.
- Confusing Menus & Equipping (weight 0.12): Players find the menus confusing and struggle with basic functions like equipping gear, which often doesn't work correctly. Controller support exacerbates this with rough cursor control and drifting issues, leading to significant frustration.
- Slow Character Movement Hinders (weight 0.1): The player character's movement speed is consistently criticized as being too slow, making exploration feel like a chore and detracting from the overall enjoyment and pacing. This issue is particularly noticeable in the early game.
- Co-op Setup Is Broken (weight 0.09): Many players report severe problems with setting up co-op sessions, encountering errors like 'no license' and missing critical in-game information needed to understand objectives. This makes the co-op feature largely unusable for many.
- Unengaging Story & Lore (weight 0.08): The game's narrative presentation is criticized for being confusing and poorly introduced, overwhelming players with unfamiliar lore and character names from the outset. This leads to a general disinterest in the storyline.
- Missing Essential Tutorial (weight 0.07): Players note a significant lack of proper tutorial guidance, leaving them confused about core mechanics and objectives. The existing intro writing is also criticized as unengaging and failing to provide necessary context.
- Simplistic Enemy AI (weight 0.06): The enemy AI is criticized for being basic and unchallenging, with ground enemies acting as mere 'walking machines' that lack tactical depth. This aspect needs significant fine-tuning to improve combat engagement.

Gameplay feedback:
- Extraction-Looting Core Loop (weight 0.24): The fundamental gameplay involves exploring dungeons or ruins for resources like weapon cores, flying home to store loot, and undertaking 'hunting' expeditions. This core loop emphasizes extraction mechanics where players can leave runs early to keep their gear, and dungeons are repeatable for farming specific cores.
- Game is in Early Access (weight 0.18): Players understand the game is an unfinished work-in-progress, consistent with the Early Access model's goal of gathering feedback for development. This sets expectations for the current state of the game.
- Cooperative Multiplayer Modes (weight 0.18): The game supports cooperative play, including the option to team up with random players, and features a general multiplayer environment with PvP. Developers are actively working on scaling enemy populations to accommodate varying player counts in these modes.
- Diverse Character Classes & Combat (weight 0.16): Players can choose from three distinct character classes: Rogue, Knight, and Mage, each offering different playstyles. Ground combat includes light, heavy, and pounce attacks, alongside specific skills for the Mage, with an emphasis on dodging and parrying in both ground and aerial fights.
- Central Dragon Riding with Restrictions (weight 0.15): A defining feature of the game is riding and controlling dragons, both on the ground and in the air, within an RPG framework. However, dragon summoning is intentionally restricted in specific areas such as dungeons and other locations.
- Structured Base Building (weight 0.14): The game features a 'choose and place' system for building and upgrading a home base or camp, rather than a free-form manual construction mechanic. This progression requires collected materials to enhance the base area.
- Cosmetic-Only Microtransactions (weight 0.1): The game includes micro-transactions, but these are exclusively for optional cosmetic items and skins. This indicates that real-world currency purchases do not offer any gameplay advantages.
- Card-Based Expedition Modifiers (weight 0.08): Expeditions utilize a unique card-based system that allows players to choose or receive random modifiers. These cards influence various aspects such as player appearance, actions, weather conditions, rewards, and how players can extract.
- Detailed Tactical Infantry Combat (weight 0.07): The game includes a first-person tactical shooting experience focused on infantry combat. This mode incorporates a fully simulated ballistic model that realistically accounts for bullet descent, penetration, and ricocheting.
- Open World with Crafting (weight 0.07): The game is identified as an Open World Action RPG, suggesting a large, explorable environment. A crafting system is present, allowing players to utilize collected resources for item creation and upgrades.
- Playable at Accessible Price (weight 0.06): Despite being in Early Access, the game is generally deemed playable and is offered at an accessible price point of $20 USD. Some players also benefited from early release sales.
- Guided Tutorial Available (weight 0.06): The game includes a tutorial designed to introduce core mechanics, such as combat and dragon summoning. It is structured to be forgiving, preventing player death during this initial learning phase.
- Not a Survival Crafting Game (weight 0.05): The game intentionally distinguishes itself by explicitly not being a survival crafting game. This design choice means it avoids cumbersome scavenging mechanics commonly associated with that genre.
- Boss Battles & Enemy Focus (weight 0.05): The game features boss battles, such as encounters against groups of skeletons, providing significant challenges. An 'Enemy Focus-Level' system is also implemented, indicating varied resistance and tactical depth for different enemy types.
- Run-Easing Meta-Progression (weight 0.03): A work-in-progress meta-progression system is implemented, involving passives, spells, and equipment. This system is designed to provide persistent benefits and make subsequent runs progressively easier for players.
- Focus System for Actions (weight 0.03): Players manage a 'Focus' resource, which is essential for initiating key actions such as summoning their dragon. This resource also enables the activation of various buffs during gameplay, adding a strategic layer to combat and exploration.
- Repetitive Gameplay Concerns (weight 0.03): Some players have noted that the core gameplay loop can become repetitive over extended periods. This is a common point of feedback for games featuring iterative runs and extraction mechanics.
- Expensive Healing Options (weight 0.03): The primary method of healing available to players relies on expensive potions. This mechanic can create challenges related to resource management and potentially impact overall survivability.

Performance notes:
- Frequent Crashes and Freezes (weight 0.06): Players are experiencing frequent game crashes and system freezes, even with adequate hardware configurations. There's also a report of the game crashing external recording software, indicating significant stability issues.
- Inconsistent Performance Noted (weight 0.03): Feedback indicates fluctuating performance, suggesting that framerates are inconsistent or that the game experiences sporadic slowdowns. This points to general optimization challenges.
- Unspecified Bugs Present (weight 0.02): Generic feedback mentions the presence of "bugs" without providing any specific details or examples. This limits the actionable insight derived from this point.

Recommendations:
- Strong refund sentiment (weight 0.13): A notable number of players have decided to refund the game, indicating that its current state does not meet their expectations for continued play, even in early access. This suggests significant friction points that deter immediate engagement.
- Recommend for niche players (weight 0.13): A segment of players strongly recommends the game to those who enjoy its specific genre elements, particularly playing as a dragon and exploration, and are comfortable with the challenges of an early access title. They encourage immediate purchase to experience the unique gameplay.
- Specific gameplay improvements needed (weight 0.11): Players provided concrete suggestions for improving core gameplay elements, such as how the narrative is introduced, the addition of a codex for lore, refining combat targeting mechanics, and adjusting early game difficulty. Feedback also touches on managing expectations regarding genre comparisons.

Other player notes:
- Small indie team (weight 0.12): Players frequently acknowledge that the game is developed by a very small, independent team, often just two people. This context influences player expectations and fosters a supportive environment, sometimes including direct engagement from the developers with the community.
- Desire playable dragon (weight 0.05): Several reviewers expressed a strong desire to play directly as the dragon rather than its rider. There's a particular sentiment of sympathy for the dragon, suggesting a wish for more agency or a different perspective on gameplay.
- Customize camera view (weight 0.03): Players want more control over the game's camera, specifically requesting options to adjust distance and orientation. This is particularly relevant during riding sequences, suggesting current camera settings can be suboptimal.
- Paid items for support (weight 0.03): Players perceive purchasing in-game items or other monetization options as a direct way to support the small development team. This indicates a positive reception towards monetization as a means of contributing to the game's growth.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.15): Players are highly satisfied with the developers' active engagement, responsiveness to feedback, and consistent efforts in updating, fixing bugs, and improving the game. They appreciate visible improvements, smooth combat, enjoyable looting loops, and the value offered, especially regarding dragon flight mechanics and overall visual quality in early access.
- Frustration (weight 0.13): Frustration stems from significant gameplay-breaking bugs like crashes, broken spawns, and inability to build or craft. Players also report issues with clunky combat, poor controls, rough inventory management, absent tutorials, and problematic monetization schemes, leading to feelings of an unplayable or unfair experience with loss of progress.
- Disappointment (weight 0.11): Players express disappointment when the game fails to meet expectations due to overwhelming flaws, lack of polish, or an empty world. Initial monetization strategies, poor graphics, clunky flight, and repetitive combat also contribute to disinterest, often leading to decisions for a refund when the game feels 'painfully mediocre' or unfinished.
- Hope (weight 0.08): Despite current flaws, players harbor hope for the game's future success, believing it possesses a strong core and significant potential. This hope is fueled by the developers' hard work, responsiveness, and the expectation that ongoing improvements will address issues like AI and voice acting, leading to a great game.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Players report significant enjoyment from the game's core mechanics, especially dragon combat and riding, which are frequently described as 'fun' and 'epic.' Positive feedback highlights challenging enemies, interactive environments, new weapon animations, and the overall playability and immersive experience, including music and graphics.
- Optimism (weight 0.07): Optimism arises from the belief that the game has immense promise and a solid foundational framework, despite its current early access state and temporary bugs. Players express high hopes for the developers to realize this potential, envisioning the game evolving into something 'absolutely amazing' as it continues to grow and improve.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Players feel excited about the game's core concept, especially the fantasy of riding dragons and engaging in dynamic combat, describing it as 'hooking' and 'a total blast.' The prospect of future updates, quick progress, and potential co-op features further amplifies this enthusiasm, highlighting anticipation for the game's full release and growth.
- Realism (weight 0.04): Realism in reviews acknowledges the game's early access status, emphasizing that it is far from perfect, with expected bugs and unfinished systems. Players temper expectations by highlighting that 'a lot of work is still required' but see potential, offering a balanced assessment of current flaws against future possibilities.
- Anger (weight 0.04): Anger stems from the game being perceived as 'buggy like hell' and an unfinished product, leading to feelings of disrespect from developers. Some players feel the asking price is unwarranted for the game's current state, calling it 'garbage' or a 'scam merchant' due to its perceived lack of value.
- Appreciation (weight 0.03): Players express strong appreciation for the developers' exceptional responsiveness, hard work, and receptiveness to player feedback. This includes praise for rapid bug-fixing, active communication on platforms like Discord, and consistent efforts to address issues and improve the game.
- Confusion (weight 0.03): Confusion arises from poorly designed menus, lack of item details, and difficulty tracking story names and lore. Players also express uncertainty regarding sprinting mechanics, the nature of dialogue voice acting, and issues with online co-op functionality or not seeing objectives.
- Approval (weight 0.02): Players show approval through positive statements like 'Good game' and 'I like the game so far,' often noting that developers actively listen to feedback. This sentiment indicates a general recommendation and satisfaction with the game's state, especially considering its early access status.
- Admiration (weight 0.02): Admiration is expressed for the development team, particularly highlighting the 'incredible' achievements of a small, often two-person, team. Players praise the game as 'fantastic' and acknowledge that the developers have accomplished more in their niche than larger teams, showcasing respect for their dedication and output.
- Patience (weight 0.01): Players advise patience with the game, acknowledging its early access state and ongoing active development. They suggest waiting a few months for significant improvements, indicating that the game, while promising, is not yet ready for a broad audience and requires more time to mature.
- Constructive criticism (weight 0.01): Players provide detailed and actionable feedback on specific gameplay elements, such as flying and ground combat mechanics, and base building systems. They offer suggestions for improvement, noting sparse enemy populations and existing bugs while still recognizing the developers' efforts.
- Defensiveness (weight 0.01): Defensiveness arises when players defend the game against negative criticism, particularly from those 'hating on this game.' They contextualize the game's current state by explaining its early access nature and highlighting the developers' ongoing efforts and responsiveness to feedback.
- Joy (weight 0.01): Players experience joy from the game's fun aspects, particularly the 'awesome mechanics' and the overall enjoyment of dragon flight. This emotion reflects a pure, positive reaction to engaging gameplay features and the overall pleasure derived from playing the game.
- Informative (weight 0.01): The review provides a detailed and factual description of the game's core mechanics and features, offering an objective overview. This type of feedback focuses on conveying concrete information about what the game offers.
- Encouragement (weight 0.01): Players offer encouragement by highlighting the small development team's efforts and responsiveness. They urge others to support the developers, recognizing their hard work and potential to improve the game.
- Understanding (weight 0.01): Players demonstrate understanding by explaining and defending the developers' use of cosmetic micro-transactions. They often contextualize these purchases as a necessary funding mechanism for continued development, rather than an exploitative practice.}