Once Human Review Summary

Fair, cosmetic-focused monetization: The game is praised for its fair free-to-play model, focusing on cosmetic monetization and avoiding pay-to-win mechanics. Players appreciate that spending money doesn't grant gameplay advantages, ensuring a balanced experience. This fosters a positive environment where skill and effort are rewarded.

Intuitive, versatile base building: The game's building system is intuitive and enjoyable, allowing players to construct and customize bases with ease. The ability to relocate entire bases is a unique and highly appreciated feature. This promotes creativity and strategic base placement.

Vast, detailed, explorable world: The game features a vast, detailed open world with diverse environments, encouraging exploration and offering a sense of freedom. Players enjoy discovering hidden resources, abandoned shelters, and unique creatures. The dynamic weather and day-night cycles add realism and unpredictability.

Dynamic, engaging combat system: The combat system is dynamic, fluid, and engaging, offering a variety of weapons, abilities, and strategies. Players appreciate the impactful feel of combat and the need to adapt to different enemy types. The game rewards experimentation and mastery of weapon mechanics.

Blends elements from various games: The game blends elements from various popular games and genres, creating a unique and enjoyable experience. The game combines RPG, open-world, and survival elements in a post-apocalyptic setting. The game is a mix of the Secret World, Enshrouded, and Pal World.

Frustrating server wipes/resets: Frequent server wipes/resets erase player progress, including levels, items, bases, and map exploration. This leads to frustration, a sense of futility, and decreased motivation, especially for players with limited time. Low server populations and server instability further compound these issues.

Numerous bugs and optimization issues: The game suffers from numerous bugs, glitches, and optimization issues, leading to performance problems like lag, stuttering, crashes, and long loading times. These technical issues significantly hinder the gameplay experience and immersion. The game's early access state contributes to these problems.

Poor enemy AI and combat: Enemy AI is often poor, with enemies exhibiting unchallenging behavior, lacking tactical awareness, and acting as damage sponges. There is a lack of enemy variety, with the same enemy types repeating throughout the game. Combat mechanics feel clunky and unpolished.

Repetitive and grindy endgame: The endgame content is lacking and repetitive, consisting of grinding the same missions, bosses, and dungeons for mods and gear. This leads to boredom and a lack of long-term engagement. The mod system relies heavily on RNG, making it difficult to obtain desired stats and upgrades.

Confusing and unintuitive UI: The game features a confusing and unintuitive user interface with overly complex menus, numerous currencies, and vague tutorials. This creates a steep learning curve and makes it difficult for new players to understand the game's mechanics and navigate its systems. Quests are often unclear and poorly designed.

Genre-blending gameplay experience: The game blends elements from multiple genres, including looter-shooter, survival, base-building, and MMO. It is often compared to games like The Division, Fallout, Rust, and Palworld. This hybrid approach creates a unique experience, but may not fully satisfy fans of any single genre.

Varied PvE and PvP modes: The game features both PvE and PvP modes, with dedicated servers for each. Some PvE servers include PvP zones or events. Additionally, survival mechanics such as managing temperature, hunger, and thirst add another layer of challenge.

Scenario-based map limitations: The game divides content into scenarios tied to specific map areas, limiting full map traversal in one scenario. This can make it difficult to play with friends and experience all content on a single character. New content is often added to new servers, requiring players to wait or move.

Accessible and deep crafting system: Crafting is a significant element, allowing players to create weapons, armor, and base structures. The crafting system is generally easy to learn, with readily available resources. Dismantling found items provides blueprints for crafting.

Creature taming for assistance: Players can tame creatures ('Deviants') to assist with combat, resource gathering, and base management. These creatures have unique skills and stats, adding a layer of strategic depth. This mechanic is often compared to Palworld or Pokemon.

Frequent lag and server instability: Many players report significant lag, rubber banding, and server instability, especially during peak hours, large-scale events, and in areas with many players or player-built structures. Some reviewers note improvements over time, while others find that lag has worsened with updates. These issues severely impact gameplay, particularly in PvP scenarios.

Responsive and fluid controls: The game's controls are generally considered responsive and easy to use, with flexible options for both keyboard/mouse and gamepad. Some reviewers specifically praise the fluidity of the controls.

Noticeable pop-ins and LOD issues: Some players have noted distracting texture pop-ins and limited render distances. Objects and NPCs may appear suddenly, which detracts from the overall visual experience.

Excessive loading times: Several reviewers mention that the game suffers from long loading times. Some even report crashes and freezes during loading screens, which can be a major source of frustration.

Optimization improvements noted: Some reviewers note that the developers have made efforts to improve optimization, resulting in reduced CPU load and better performance. This suggests that the game's technical issues are being actively addressed.

Highly engaging and recommended overall: Many reviewers recommend the game, praising its engaging gameplay, unique blend of genres, and immersive world. Some consider it a must-play title, highlighting its potential to become one of the best in the survival MMO genre. The game is often lauded for its ability to provide a fresh and rewarding experience, especially for fans of survival, crafting, and exploration.

Free-to-play and worth trying: A frequently mentioned positive aspect is the game's free-to-play nature, making it easily accessible for players to try without any initial investment. Reviewers often highlight that the game offers a substantial amount of content and a quality experience without requiring players to spend money, as the monetization is primarily focused on cosmetic items.

Divisive seasonal reset mechanic: The seasonal reset mechanic, while intended to provide a fresh start, is a divisive issue. Some reviewers appreciate the clean slate and the opportunity to progress again, while others find it frustrating to lose progress and earned content. There are requests for permanent servers without resets or options to carry progress between seasons.

Better with friends, stick PvE: The game is often recommended for group play, with reviewers noting that it enhances the overall experience. While solo play is possible, some reviewers find it more challenging or less enjoyable. Sticking to PvE servers is recommended to avoid negative interactions.

Lack of confidence in developers: Some reviewers have lost confidence in the developers and express concern about the game's future. They feel that the development team is not addressing key issues or listening to player feedback, leading to a decline in player population. These reviewers are unlikely to return to the game unless significant changes are made.

Free-to-play, cosmetic monetization: The game is free-to-play with optional cosmetic purchases, avoiding pay-to-win mechanics. It features battle passes and various in-game currencies. This model is considered fair by many, though some find cosmetics expensive.

Varied reviewer experiences: Reviewers' experiences and opinions vary, with some having played the game extensively and others offering initial impressions. Some reviewers have updated their reviews over time as the game has changed, and some have spent money to support the game.

Deep, cosmic horror lore: The game features a deep sci-fi lore, blending cosmic horror with a post-apocalyptic setting. The story unfolds through exploration, environmental clues, and encounters with mutated creatures and eldritch horrors, drawing inspiration from SCP, Control, and other similar themes.

Responsive developer feedback loop: The developers actively solicit and respond to player feedback through surveys and blog posts. They are generally responsive to bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements, fostering a sense of community involvement.

Russian language support added: The game includes Russian language support, which can be enabled through Steam settings. An in-game translator has also been added to facilitate communication with international players.