Seven: Enhanced Edition Review Summary

A rich open world with deep stealth and engaging side quests, but undermined by isometric camera issues, unnecessary crafting, and unsatisfying combat.

Rich and detailed open world: The open world is highly praised for its freedom, lore, verticality, and detailed design, with many players noting it feels alive and well-crafted.

Deep and flexible stealth mechanics: Stealth mechanics are a standout feature, with complex systems for noise, visibility, and disguise, and players appreciate the option to choose between stealth and combat.

Engaging and varied side quests: Players consistently praise the side quests for being engaging, varied, and well-designed, often with independent stories that enrich the main narrative.

Stylish and beautiful graphics: The graphics and UI are consistently described as stylish, gorgeous, and stunning, contributing to a visually appealing experience.

Rewarding exploration experience: Exploration is highly rewarding, with plenty of content to discover, encouraging players to thoroughly explore the world.

Isometric camera issues: The isometric view causes depth perception problems, wall transparency, and orientation difficulties, leading to navigation and combat frustrations. This is one of the most frequently mentioned concerns.

Unnecessary crafting system: Crafting and alchemy are widely considered pointless, uninspired, and requiring too many ingredients with little incentive. Players find them semi-useless and avoid them.

Unsatisfying combat system: Combat is described as messy, simplistic, spammy, and frustrating. It is functional at best but lacks depth and satisfaction, contributing to player frustration.

Vague quests and puzzles: Quests and puzzles lack clear instructions, making navigation and progression difficult. Players find them unclear and poorly guided.

Unreliable disguise mechanic: The disguise feature is inconsistent, often ineffective, and rarely worth the trouble. Players report it as useless and not reliable in gameplay situations.

Isometric open-world stealth RPG: The game is an isometric, open-world stealth RPG with a strong emphasis on vertical exploration, climbing, and parkour. It features immersive sim elements, multiple approaches to quests, and a cyberpunk setting.

Complex crafting and upgrade system: A complex crafting system allows players to upgrade gear and weapons, create modifications, and use traps and gadgets. Crafting benches are linked to a shared stash for convenience.

Gear-based progression with skill chips: Progression is gear-based with no traditional leveling or XP. Instead, players use skill chips or ability chips to unlock and upgrade abilities, offering a unique character development system.

Skill-based lockpicking and hacking: The game includes skill-based minigames for lockpicking, hacking, and pickpocketing, adding depth to stealth and thievery mechanics.

Deep stealth and thievery mechanics: Stealth mechanics include noise, visibility, crouch, hiding spots, enemy view cones, and disguise. Theft and pickpocketing are core activities.

General optimization issues: General optimization issues are frequently mentioned, including technical roughness, performance hiccups every half-hour, memory leaks causing frame drops over time, and overall poor optimization.

Long loading times: Players consistently report very long loading times, ranging from 20 seconds to over 2 minutes, even on SSDs, which is a major frustration.

FPS drops and locks: Multiple reports indicate that the game suffers from frame rate drops, including being locked at 30 FPS after cutscenes and significant drops from 120 to 35 FPS, especially at 4K resolution.

Performance improvements via patches: Patches have improved performance for some, including fixing launch frame rate issues and allowing the game to run on below-minimum GPUs, with a next patch focusing on performance.

Good performance on high-end hardware: Some players report smooth performance at high settings, such as 4K 144Hz or stable 60 FPS at 2560x1440, suggesting the game can run well on capable hardware.

Recommended for stealth/RPG fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of stealth, RPG, and isometric games, especially those who enjoy titles like The Witcher 3, Dishonored, Thief, or Divinity: Original Sin. It appeals to players who like stealthy approaches, planning, and freedom.

Buy on sale, not full price: Many reviewers advise waiting for a significant discount (50-60% off or as low as $6) before purchasing, as the game is not considered worth its full price. Some also recommend waiting for patches to fix bugs and performance issues.

Not recommended for many: A significant number of reviewers do not recommend the game, citing issues like sluggish controls, poor navigation, or that it is not for everyone. Some suggest better stealth experiences exist (e.g., Styx games) or that the game is only for die-hard fans.

Conditional on player preferences: Many reviewers give conditional recommendations based on player preferences: it is for those who can adapt to its systems, don't mind clunk, value freedom, or like cunning gameplay. It is not for those who dislike sluggish controls, poor sense of direction, or need hand-holding.

Try demo before buying: Multiple reviewers suggest trying the demo or watching gameplay on YouTube before buying, as the game may not suit everyone. This helps potential buyers assess if the game's style and mechanics appeal to them.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 35.0h.

Seven: The Days Long Gone has a steep learning curve and slow start, but becomes enjoyable after the first hour or a few hours once players understand the progression system and acquire better equipment.

Reported time to anchor: 1h.

Friction: steep learning curve and unclear tutorial; tedious combat and stealth until better gear; slow and confusing character progression (no XP, chip-based); inventory weight management and over-encumbrance; repetitive traversal and lack of early fast travel; unclear crafting and loot value.

Unlock drivers: understanding the chip-based skill system and crafting; acquiring decent weapons and armor; unlocking fast travel points; realizing the freedom to explore and rob anywhere; mastering stealth mechanics for satisfying kills.

Stealth Tactician: Careful, methodical, uses traps and gadgets, avoids direct combat, relies on knowledge of world rules and shortcuts. Motivation: Mastering stealth and exploration through knowledge and gadgets. Stance: buy.

Completionist Achievement Hunter: Thorough, explores all areas, completes all quests and achievements, revisits areas to unlock everything. Motivation: Completing all achievements and quests, maximizing content. Stance: buy.

Old-School RPG Purist: Explores, reads, makes meaningful decisions, values non-linear progression and knowledge-based advancement over grinding. Motivation: Deep story, meaningful choices, and knowledge-based progression reminiscent of classic RPGs. Stance: sale.

Steam Deck: The game exhibits frequent crashes for some users, significant performance drops in dense areas, and gameplay bugs. While a workaround exists for crashes, the overall experience is broken for a subset of players, placing it in the 'Broken' category.