But what if you’re looking for a break? What if you’re looking out at a grateful Pywel and wanting a vacation from being a good boy scout? As enjoyable as diving into a massive open world like this can be, there’s something to say about taking a vacation and enjoying something that’s, well, the opposite. Maybe I want to navigate something more linear. I could want the opposite of high fantasy intermixed with clockwork machinations. And maybe I want a different puzzle style that doesn’t require a rudimentary knowledge of shogi to pass.

Enter Pragmata, which launched last Friday and is currently at 97 percent “Overwhelmingly Positive” on Steam, not to mention an 86 Metascore based on a whopping 96 critical reviews. Given how long it’s been in development and the gameplay style, you would think the reception could have gone either way, but no. After Resident Evil Requiem, it is another winner for 2026. More importantly, however, it stresses how you don’t need a main quest that lasts dozens of hours to have fun. In the same vein, you don’t need so many different systems, tons of loot, or a vast open world structure to deliver a compelling single-player experience.

Now, don’t get us wrong. Crimson Desert’s myriad of complexities is one of its biggest strengths. There’s also something about the open world and how it consistently draws you in with discoveries. A cave with some ores to mine and a bandit camp may not immediately ignite the imagination, but discovering a ladder that leads underground into a chamber with various traps that also houses one of the best bows in the game? Or happening upon a massive floating Abyss structure, only to go up against a challenging fire-wielding boss? It’s those discoveries that give us life, and keep us coming back after all the mission dispatches, resource management, research projects, Abyss Gear rolling and min-maxing.

By comparison, Pragmata keeps things relatively simple, right down to the setup. As Hugh, you’re sent to a lunar base called the Cradle to investigate its lack of response. What follows is the discovery of destruction and mass killings by the AI, Idus. After running into an android known as Diana, the story becomes one of survival, from finding a way back to Earth to discovering what went wrong with the station.

There’s more to it than that, but it’s also refreshingly streamlined when it comes to themes of found family, where it’s not about blood but love and compassion. While Crimson Desert occasionally offers somewhat similar familial elements (because how else could anyone tolerate Yann?), Pragmata delves deeper into this. Hugh teaches Diana about humans, families, emotions, and life on Earth as a whole. It goes even further with the ability to talk to her in the Shelter and offer gifts, strengthening their bond (and that’s without getting spoilers about how the themes affect the overall plot). Even coming off all the different references, retcons, conspiracies, and twists in Requiem, it’s refreshing to have a compelling story that’s so laser-focused.

Then there’s the combat. There’s something about having dozens of moves available and chaining them together into stylish combos. Do I need to torture some random shmuck with an RKO into an Angle Slam into an elbow drop? Probably not, but I want to, and Crimson Desert feeds that urge like no other. The fact that there are Damiane and Oongka with their own move sets and dozens of unique gear, each with special abilities, just further allows for an array of fighting styles.

By contrast, Pragmata’s combat is simpler. You only have a handful of weapons, and only two are ever-present. The others break down from use, and no, that’s not foreshadowing at all, what do you mean? But it’s not a straightforward third-person shooter either. Enemies have defenses that must be hacked to expose their weak points, and that’s only possible with Diana’s help. While hacking, players need to navigate a maze, essentially forming a path towards the green goal. Meanwhile, Hugh needs to keep his distance, dodging as best as possible until the hack is complete.

And as disorienting as it may seem at first, it’s actually pretty straightforward once you’re attuned to the controls. Pragmata does mix things up, of course. New nodes will become available while hacking that offer different effects, from dealing more damage to the target to damaging several threats at once. You also need to be mindful of obstacles which can nullify a hack completely. As for Hugh, he can employ tools like a Decoy Generator to distract enemies to the Stasis Net for crowd-controlling enemies and locking them down, making it that much easier to dispatch them. The fact that enemies start adapting to your tactics, requiring the destruction of certain pieces to allow Diana to hack them, also keeps things fresh. So while it has a low-to-mid skill floor, the combat has a deceptively high skill ceiling, one that rewards you as much for your quick puzzle-solving ability as it does for smart repositioning and aim.

I’d be remiss not mentioning the level design. Yes, this is a fairly linear experience, where you’re traveling from one point to another. You’re not going to be discovering multiple ways to tackle the same objective or running through a massive sandbox. Which isn’t to say that the Cradle doesn’t have its share of secrets and detours, but the tight pacing takes prominence among all else. The fact that it can be finished in as little as eight hours and stretched to probably twice as much if you partake in the post-game Unknown Signal Mode means you can have it done and dusted before even hitting the halfway point of Crimson Desert’s campaign.

Of course, they’re completely different games, and the point isn’t to belabor either their flaws (and yes, some would criticize Pragmata’s story length). Instead, it’s to highlight just how great a palate cleanser the latter can be. Sinking dozens of hours into a single game gives you a sense of place, in a way; the fact that you’re immersed makes it that much more depressing to leave when all is said and done.

Yet, that same feeling means it wasn’t for nothing. Pragmata can convey that in a fraction of the time, which takes no small amount of skill, and delivers excellent production values on top. So even if it isn’t your break from Pywel, you can still count on it to lift those spirits and deliver an emotionally satisfying story before embarking on that next big adventure. And in this day and age, with so much media vying for your attention, that’s more than enough.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

We all agree that the game had an unstable launch, and it’s easy to see where those who criticized it were coming from. But in the last few weeks, things have changed considerably. Where early review scores that lambasted the game’s launch build might have suggested that the game was going to start aging faster than the developer would have liked, it’s now the other way around, with a slew of speedy updates that have largely addressed most of the problems being called out.

Crimson Desert brings a lot of strange things to the world of Pywel, but perhaps the strangest of them all is how rapidly it has outgrown its early reviews and fan backlash to become a title that makes all those complaints seem provisional. It’s an interesting look at how games can turn things around through patches and updates to leave release review scores in the dust. Of course, credit must be given to the team behind the game’s reversal of fortunes, with the game now much better than before.

It isn’t universally redeemed, not yet, but it’s been altered so fast that the first wave of criticism it received now merits a thorough reexamination. Let’s dive into how Crimson Desert’s review cycle has struggled to keep up with its rapid-fire evolution.

The Merits Of Early Reviews

I’m going to say it outright: I don’t think the early reviews of Crimson Desert were wrong, far from it. Those complaints were quite valid and were things that even I, as a player, found quite annoying to deal with. The controls were baffling and felt like they were designed to work against me every time I wanted to perform a specific action. I’m still not fully okay with the interact and jump buttons being one and the same. I’ve found myself picking up flowers or catching bugs when all I’ve wanted to do is climb a wall way too often.

Like most of you, I found the story too disjointed to make me care about anything other than getting the Greymanes back together, a task I took on with reckless abandon. But even that proved to be an uphill task in the game’s early hours, with a UI that was too confusing to be useful. Of course, the game’s stout refusal to point its players in the direction of navigating its many menus and working with all of the systems it had woven into the experience was a factor. All of the potential was there, but it was buried under a ton of jank that was seriously off-putting.

But while early reviews did have merits, backed up with evidence as they were, the scores they generated operated under a simple assumption: that Crimson Desert was a static experience whose day-one version was going to be the one all of us got. But like the Greymanes, the game refused to give up in the face of adversity, with multiple patches making the controls so much better, implementing better puzzle clarity, better inventory management, balancing, more fast-travel points, more readable font sizes, and more.

The most recent patch alone addressed the issue of Damiane and Oongka being locked out of a large chunk of the game’s content, while a developer update has promised further additions like difficulty options and more combat-focused content like boss rematches and the re-occupation of liberated locations. All of those fixes feel like the game’s collective body of updates is in direct conversation with its early reviews, challenging them in a way that feels like the patch notes are almost arguing with early review scores and complaints.

But why does that matter as much as I think it does?

The Effects of Entropy

It does so because it sheds light on a factor that reviews of a game’s release build cannot fully predict: its ability to evolve into something better. Crimson Desert’s early reviews weren’t wrong, but have now been shown to present time-sensitive truths that spoke to a version of it that no longer exists. They examined a build of the game that was indeed rough, and the way that the game has managed to correct its course showcases a half-life that was decidedly short in their case. Crimson Desert changed too quickly for any review cycle in modern gaming, a feat that’s quite rare and the reason for this look into the early discourse around it.

Of course, that discourse has now changed for the better. Where complaints about clunky controls once dominated it, there is now praise for a new scheme, with the option to stay with the old system being very welcome. Early criticisms about Damiane and Oongka not being playable enough have now made way for praise at the way they’ve been given everything they need to take on most of Pywel’s challenges. There’s a lot of gratitude being sent to the developers, not just for their ability to listen and act on player feedback, but for the effort they’ve sunk into addressing it.

That doesn’t mean that Crimson Desert has magically become a perfect title. There’s still its disjointed, clunky story and the annoying cooldown on some of the coolest mounts in the game. The controls still need work, and the camera work during boss fights continues to be rather gimmicky despite improvements. There’s still the baffling requirement of Abyss Artifacts when you want to upgrade your favorite set of armor, which further strains the fact that it’s a shared pool between three playable characters, each of which needs a significant investment before you begin to experience their devastating potential.

But the conversations around the game have shifted from how rough its early build was to discussions about how quickly and efficiently it’s improving. Those early reviews, mine included, are becoming increasingly redundant in the face of the developer’s hard work to turn things around. And the best part of it all is that they’re still not done.

A Patchwork Of Great Changes

Once again, I must praise the developers and the studio, not just for the speedy fixes they’re implementing, but for the measured, well-reasoned response to the backlash the game’s early build received. The developer didn’t just throw in the towel, but has taken ownership of the situation and acknowledged the legitimacy of complaints from players and critics alike.

Its response is significant, not just because it’s an example of damage control done right, but because it has since built trust with fans and critics by addressing specific pain points in ways that have diminished early criticism enough to make the game’s potential shine through. I’ve always maintained that Pywel’s a great place for fantasy fans to have tons of fun. It’s now just easier to get to the good parts than it was when the game first came out.

The patches are evidence that a game’s launch version might not necessarily reflect what it can be after its initial reviews. But does that mean that Crimson Desert, or any title for that matter, should be reviewed twice? Not necessarily, as there are several factors to consider in the process. Yes, the game has certainly tested the limits of a single-score review system, but the ones reviewing it had no indication or reason to believe that it could, and perhaps would, turn things around. And that’s ignoring the speed with which it did so.

The fact that even the harshest analyses of the game are now considering whether those opinions are still relevant is telling, as it raises questions about whether a launch review is supposed to be a snapshot in a game’s evolutionary cycle, or a sort of buying guide to its current state. Considering the purpose of a review, which is to inform potential players about the good and bad of a game, I’d say that the original reviews of Crimson Desert must be preserved, especially when it still has a long way to go before it makes them totally redundant altogether.

A re-review of any game should not exist to help developers save face in the wake of releases that could be seen as a major let-down to players who dive into it from day one. But there is an argument to be made in favor of doing them for games that have since changed meaningfully. Crimson Desert’s an interesting case study on that front rather than being an exception. It’s a rare example of how a review of a modern title stays relevant before it becomes a footnote in its history.

Where other games age well as time goes by, Crimson Desert has earned the unique distinction of being a game that has aged out the “final” verdicts on its release build within weeks of those verdicts going live. It’s a game where the possibilities of hasty early reviews and a turnaround fast enough to outgrow them exist in the same place. Pywel’s a magical place, though, and it’s served up a slice of humble pie that’s really delicious, all things considered.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Would anyone argue with their value, even with each of these titles costing $70? Probably not, but at what point does that cost-to-hour ratio start to look unattractive? What is the ideal standard? We’ll probably never know because, once again, it varies from game to game.

While that won’t stop gamers from demanding the absolute most from triple-A titles, a different sentiment has evolved over the years, one that Pragmata has reinforced to the relief of many: You don’t need dozens of hours of gameplay to deliver a fun experience. Sometimes, it’s not about how much time you can spend on a game but the quality of those hours.

For those confused, Pragmata – the latest from the house that brought us Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and soon, Onimusha: Way of the Sword – is not a very long game. Some reviewers, like VGC, were able to complete it in eight hours, while GameSpot took about 12 hours. And if you’re going for a completionist run, FRVR claims that it can take even longer due to the sheer amount of hidden items, collectibles, and so on.

There’s even a Simulation Pod, which offers multiple challenge levels, each with three objectives that award Cabin Coins. You can spend these on upgrades, but there are also resources like Signal Data to collect. As a means for sharpening your skills, it’s a great side activity. It’s also absolutely unnecessary for the core experience.

At the end of the day, the development team chose to focus on what matters: The story, the characters, the presentation, and of course, the gameplay. In fact, that last part is what resulted in all the delays. As it turns out, creating a third-person shooter where you’re simultaneously controlling two characters, one solving maze-like puzzles to expose weaknesses and the other unloading ammo to take them down, is difficult, and that’s without considering all the traversal, the dodging, and the mechanics behind different boss battles.

I mean, think back to all the Resident Evil games released since June 2020, when Pragmata was first announced. How many of them have deviated from the third-person or first-person norm (aside from Requiem, which featured both) for their gameplay? And this isn’t to take anything away from the series, aside from maybe Re:Verse and Resistance, which can rot in oblivion. It’s just that this is a third-person gameplay loop that no one, even the many companies known for decades of such experiences, has ever attempted before. And it’s genuinely enjoyable – easy to get into, somewhat difficult to truly master, yet still satisfying, especially as more and more systems get thrown into the mix.

Of course, it isn’t skimping on presentation either. Don’t let the lunar base setting fool you – it’s a stunning mix of far-future NASA-like structures and robots that occasionally cross the uncanny valley straight into my nightmares. Hugh and Diana, the protagonists, are especially detailed, from their facial expressions to their animations. Seeing them venture through these environments laden with stellar reflective surfaces and incredible lighting is immensely enjoyable. In fact, there’s so much technical wizardry about – like the team painstakingly creating a replica of New York to ensure it looked AI-generated and inventing realistic hair tech that would be adapted in Requiem – that some players may never even know about.

All of this, topped by an endearing story with strong characterization that doesn’t overstay its welcome. It doesn’t suffer any bloat; for all the secrets and optional activities, it’s fairly linear. You don’t need to grind, which, to be fair, hasn’t been a thing for the developer’s games outside of Monster Hunter for years. And in this day and age, where it could have easily demanded $70 for this level of production quality and sheer gameplay innovation, Pragmata only costs $60. Yes, even on Nintendo Switch 2, amazingly enough.

The fact that games like this are being made, that too with more than enough resources to ensure their success, is noteworthy. Heck, it even threw in a little extra to ensure Pragmata runs fairly smoothly, though you can thank the sheer controversy drummed up by Monster Hunter Wilds for that.

Of course, some will note that the price justifies the playtime, and that since this is a new IP, one that’s not as tried and tested as many others, a $60 tag helps get more potential customers through the door. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t be surprised if Pragmata is significantly discounted in just six months, despite being one of the biggest games in years. However, I think it goes beyond simply raking in the sales.

Because there are plenty of proven winners in the genre. With Pragmata, it feels like the developer sees something more in its world, characters and gameplay. Perhaps there’s the potential for a new franchise in the coming years.

Which is pretty lofty, though they probably never imagined in their wildest dreams that it would take this long. Yet, there’s some hope that its appeal isn’t lost on the industry as a whole. That you don’t have to arbitrarily stuff your game to justify the price. Yes, it’s a double-edged sword for some franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty, especially given the backlash they’ve received for not having campaigns in previous titles, but would you have really shed a tear if Black Ops 7 didn’t grace us with that awful story? I certainly wouldn’t, and Battlefield 6 is only marginally above that.

But when comparing it to other long-running franchises, it’s impressive how much Pragmata manages to accomplish within its short runtime. Furthermore, many underestimate the value of shorter games, especially with so much competition on the market. For once, it’s nice to pick up a game, knowing that you can see everything it has to offer within a weekend (with some left over for the Monday blues). It’s refreshing not to have to dedicate dozens of hours to a story that doesn’t respect your intelligence, with characters that you don’t care about, in circumstances that you’ll forget about the next day. More importantly, to experience a gameplay system that’s never really been done before, at least not to this degree of success.

Pragmata probably won’t stand out as the greatest of all time. It may get buried under the sheer barrage of releases in the coming weeks and months. However, judging by the critical success and the positive buzz from players, it made a strong impression. Hopefully, it ends up lasting well beyond that reasonable playtime and into a well-deserved sequel.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Yeah, GTA 6 is absolutely going to dominate the discourse around gaming once it drops, and rightly so. It’s a follow-up to a title that continues to be among the best open worlds out there, and one that gave us so much freedom to roleplay to our heart’s content. Everything you got to do in that one ended up with scenes that boasted of bombast and spectacle. I don’t see why GTA 6 should be any different, given that you’re playing ex-cons in an adventure that’s sure to have more than a few set pieces.

I expect a lot of moments that players are going to be talking about with awe that’s well-deserved. But that only makes me certain that Pywel is going to enjoy a quieter sort of appreciation. That’s not to say it’s devoid of spectacle, not in the slightest. I did just tear through an army of enemy troops, dual swords flashing with an otherworldly power that they were ill-equipped to handle. But I also spent time in a cave, trying to figure out a complex piece of machinery in an effort to get a reward. How did I end up there after my epic battle? I couldn’t tell you if I tried.

The point is, there are games that are built to earn the spotlight. That’s going to be GTA 6. Conversely, there are games that simply stay just behind the curtain, quietly beckoning you to return to their worlds with the fond memories they’ve given you, and the personal stories they allow you to craft for yourself. Crimson Desert’s one of those titles. It’s a title that’s going to win your memory even as GTA 6 wins the conversation.

Let’s dive into why.

Events Versus Experiences

The biggest names in modern gaming are often remembered as either launches that have been preceded by a lot of hype or as experiences that have delivered very highly on the moment-to-moment gameplay loop. Rockstar has built up enough hype around GTA 6 for its launch, and the subsequent slew of content around it, to fall firmly in the first category. That isn’t to say that I’m not expecting the game to have me completely enthralled with its offerings, but the way I see it, those conversations are going to be based on shared experiences. They would focus on events.

But in Pywel, things are a tad more chaotic. I’m still learning new things from Crimson Desert’s vocal community of Greymanes, each of whom has discovered fresh ways to achieve specific goals that just sailed past me since my time with the game has taken me in an entirely different direction. I powered down my console last night after a thrilling time chasing down armor pieces for a set that would let Kliff look like a samurai, a search that led me to a place where crows constantly attacked me, intent on impeding my progress through the region.

I misjudged a jump, plummeting downwards, only to find a puzzle that had me scouring the surrounding areas for three symbols that I would then have to use in a solution. Only, I forgot where the puzzle was in the first place. That new search put me in the path of a boss that took multiple tries and a lot of skilful parrying to defeat. Every moment you spend in Pywel could lead to new experiences, which become the sort of thing that makes each session of play a sort of smaller story within its sprawling boundaries. Allow me to elaborate further.

And that starts with how I spent my weekend in Pywel.

Predictably Unpredictable

For starters, I spent hours flitting between various cities and settlements, feeding stray cats to earn their trust before I brought them back to my Greymane camp. I now have a whole bunch of furry friends, and I stop to pet them all every time I visit my fellow brothers-in-arms. It was a lot of work, to be sure, but I did enjoy the quiet rhythm of that particular activity.

I then went on a search for a legendary horse, as my take on Kliff wouldn’t want to show up on a common beast. I made my way to the Steel Mountains, where a group of goblins was annoying enough to distract me from my search. I took them down, the last one falling in front of a gigantic tower that had me forgetting about a new horse. After I figured out that all I needed to do to get inside was to place a few stones around the front door, I soon ended up in Pywel’s alternate world, wracking my brains on a puzzle that had me at my wits’ end, forcing me to look up a solution that was staring me in the face all along.

Of course, the warrior in me was itching to blow off some steam, and I soon came across a bunch of bandits who were waylaying an innocent man. I summarily dispatched them, giving their victim a ride to the nearest village, where I discovered rumors of a whole fort being taken over by those darn villains. Of course, I then went in alone, bringing them down with a ferocity that even GTA 5’s Trevor would admire. All of this was in the space of six hours, with one coffee break to process it all. And there were four more sessions like that over two days. I’ll leave the math of all that could have happened to you.

Crimson Desert’s one of those rare games that gives you all the freedom to explore its world that you could desire, and then immediately has you encountering a form of friction that stems from its mechanics, traversal, or puzzles that comes between you and a discovery that you’re itching to learn more of. It allows things to get messy and trusts you to come up with ways to resolve your predicament on your own terms. You don’t just witness things in Pywel, but live through them and survive them in a way that makes the whole thing feel all the more relatable.

Of course, things weren’t all perfect. I can’t remember how many times I wished the developers would address the annoying double jump issue in their next batch of updates. I spent hours trying to track down an item I needed to progress a quest, endlessly scouring through my inventory and private storage until a friendly Greymane on Reddit suggested I speak to the one who managed my camp’s provisions and trade goods. That friction can get annoying from time to time, but it’s also a part of Crimson Desert’s charm.

Flaws in any game are never good. But in some cases, they stem from nuance and engineered resistance that are meant to make you stop and adapt to what the game throws at you. More often than not, those are the games that tend to be more vividly remembered than their more polished counterparts. The memories you have of them aren’t just about their story or some massive twist, but from the unexpected adventures you have in their worlds.

Snap Back To Reality

I’m under no illusions that GTA 6 is going to be a more polished release that will absolutely dominate both critical and commercial benchmarks, and manage to have the entire gaming community talking about the many things it will bring to the table. It’s a Rockstar blockbuster release, after all. But it’s that very nature that makes it a very different offering from Crimson Desert.

It’s a game that’s meant to gather momentum right off the bat, and sustain that momentum so its players don’t feel like they’re bogged down by its mechanics or systems at any point. It’s designed to encourage a different kind of freedom, one that makes its players feel empowered to do as they please in its open world while encountering the least amount of resistance as the game can manage.

That would mean that it could redefine what production values could mean for modern gaming, but it leaves little to no room for the sort of unpredictability that’s baked into Crimson Desert’s very design. It’s a title that’s meant to have all of its players discussing its best set pieces across the board, its sheer scale overwhelming them into awe. But can it leave fingerprints on their memory the way that Crimson Desert does? I hope so, as I’m hoping to be served a slice of humble pie later this year on that front.

Make no mistake, I think GTA 6 is going to be talked about and remembered for years to come. But it would be because everybody experienced the same highlights, and came away with experiences that might seem varied on the surface, but are largely similar, owing to it being a game that needs to balance player freedom versus accessibility considering how big of a release it really is.

But Crimson Desert’s a game that’s free of such restraints, and it leans into that freedom with unrestrained abandon. It’s a title that has each of its players coming away from it with different stories, and the only common talking point to connect them all is the fact that you’d have to be there to experience it the exact same way. It’s a game that I’d certainly revisit in conversations, not to simply remember a mission but to tell a fellow Greymane about my own adventures on the way there.

The spotlight’s going to move away from Pywel later this year, and I’m definitely grabbing a front-row seat to GTA 6’s unique brand of chaotic open-world fun. Its much-awaited launch could be an era-defining event, one that’s talked about many years from now. But I know that I’m never going to forget how Crimson Desert has made me feel, and the highs and lows that engaging with its vast world brings to the table.

It’s a game that doesn’t aim to be memorable, but manages to leave you with enough fond memories to remain unforgettable. And on that note, I’m off to make more of those memories before I move on to other titles and other worlds.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Such is the current state of the industry. The established franchises will always have their built-in audiences. It’s one reason why Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, FIFA, Grand Theft Auto and so on top the charts, and become a staple of everyone’s daily life. There’s an assurance in the familiar. A comfort.

However, it’s not difficult to see triple-A titles that are overly produced, to the point where the rougher edges have been effectively sanded off. As much as developers stick to an established formula because venturing too far outside of it can invite several issues, both technical and design-wise, playing it safe for the sake of shareholders is also nice. Not that you can blame them too much – even if it can lead to chasing years-old trends and failing time and time again.

Crimson Desert is, of course, different. Because while it takes a lot of inspiration from the likes of Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it’s, for all intents and purposes, kind of a mess. Put down the bricks. Let me explain.

Technically, Crimson Desert is a marvel in more ways than one. The real-time weather simulation, the water physics, all the little details that you can discover – the sheer amount of animation that’s gone into things like dispatched Greymanes repairing a house or a bird swooping down to catch a fish is pretty unbelievable.

The same goes for the combat system. I was content enough to spam R2, unleashing crows, afterimages, and whatnot, occasionally throwing in a Turning Slash and some wrestling moves (before discovering infinite explosive arrows, my beloved). However, other players have been creating kung-fu montages and juggling random bandits like it’s Ultimate MvC3, minus the awful netcode.

And then you have the puzzles, which range from traveling to three different locations to turn some dials in a cave to randomly punching panels and completing electrical circuits. There’s a checkerboard puzzle that I still haven’t solved, and I hate that puzzle, but man, there’s really no other like it in any other open-world action-adventure game that comes to mind.

That’s the crux of Crimson Desert’s appeal. It’s not just a game stuffed to the gills with stuff, where people have seemingly settled down and started paying rent in Hernand, or incredible graphics that feel lifelike, or a fun combat system to torture the most insignificant fools with. For all my previous talks about iteration and combining different systems to create something entirely new, it almost feels like the unevenness is the real goal here. The audacity of ambition, even when everything doesn’t properly slot together or feed into each other as perfectly as it would in games within the same genre.

“When it’s trying to do as much as it’s doing, issues can creep up more often than not,” is what I wrote in my review of the base game, and that still holds. Depending on the area that you’re focusing on most, it can be a different mess every time, but that roughness ultimately makes it feel more authentic. Less focus-tested, more vibe-based. Just a general, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did this,” even at the expense of so many other things that need more work.

Don’t get me wrong – depending on the player, that approach can quickly become despised. It’s understandable because people want different things from their games, and when you’re sold a bill of goods for, say, a compelling story, it’s disappointing when it doesn’t live up to those expectations.

However, for those who enjoy exploring the world, discovering new broken builds, solving puzzles, unearthing mysteries, or just unleashing pure mayhem on crowds of enemies, it’s a wild time. Then again, I don’t believe Crimson Desert is successful in sales purely because it’s such a big topic of discussion, though that certainly makes a difference. It’s also due to the post-launch support, which addresses many bugs and other issues, while still leaning into that “Wouldn’t it be cool” approach.

Having more permanent mounts, especially when marketing seemingly indicated they would be present, is nice. However, no one told the development team to add a Direwolf that can also fight alongside you, Mononoke-style. The bugs with Focus to skip conversations and activate a sick boost while gliding could have been fixed without drawing much ire. But after seeing the positive reaction, the developer made them into features. Now you can fast forward through non-letterboxed cutscenes at four times the speed. Now you can continuously boost with Focused Aerial Roll, even if its usage is capped by your Spirit.

It even identified how some flaws detracted from the experience rather than added to it. Voila, you now have a storage chest, and voila again, it’s much bigger than before. Targeting bosses is less annoying. Damiane and Oongka now also have Nature’s Snare and Axiom Force. Upgrading new weapons is much easier thanks to Refinement Tokens, and if you’re prepared to commit, then you can spend resources as normal (which are also more plentiful).

The fact that the developer has its finger on the pulse about what’s working and what isn’t, while still surprising players with cool stuff, is noteworthy. Even if it doesn’t always get it right, the fact that it goes back to the drawing board is ultimately endearing. No sooner did complaints emerge that the difficulty felt a little too easy with various changes, or that the world lacked stuff to kill, thus breaking the late-game, than it announced solutions for both. And judging by the pace of its recent patches, we likely won’t have to wait long.

This is the part where I would say that if Crimson Desert proves anything, it’s that the triple-A industry shouldn’t be afraid to take risks. Unfortunately, it’s not as cut-and-dry as some of us may want; some games will continue with near-endless polish, ensuring that not a single blemish is observable. Because when you pay that much, why should you expect anything less? Why should the shareholders?

What I will say is that despite such traditions, the era of unbridled ambition in video games isn’t dead, nor is it simply relegated to the double-A or indie space. I don’t see many other big-name publishers following suit, much less considering the risk, but at the very least, Crimson Desert could inspire some studios to take a chance and let their games have a few rough edges. After all, if there’s any constant with the industry, it’s that you never truly know just how many millions of people are into imperfection, or how much it can make your game stand out.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Exploring the idea of whether Pragmata is for everyone or not, this level of systemic flexibility could suggest two opposing truths: one, that Pragmata will indeed be universal thanks to its range of playstyles, or two, it might not be for everyone precisely because the hack-shoot-destroy interplay forming the core of its design can’t be ignored.

Everything in this article is based on officially revealed information.

If Hugh and Diana’s symbiotic combat was just a gimmick, that would imply a needlessly flashy, wholly unnecessary system. Yet, eight possible demo endings suggests a fully-realised system. This is a game with meaningful mechanics, even if there’s a heavy chance they’ll be polarising.

First though, it’s worth rebuking any suggestion that Pragmata’s sci-fi tone is inaccessible, as what’s been shown so far is surprisingly familiar. Sterile white corridors, rogue AI, advanced weaponry – these are well-worn genre staples. If anything stood out about the demo’s setting, it’s how clean the lunar facility appears, almost to the point of artificiality. But, as subsequent preview footage emerged showcasing a 3D-print Times Square replica, it became clear the moon-base’s sterility is intentional, demonstrating tangibly the game’s underlying themes.

Narratively, too, the game isn’t as opaque as it might first appear. The demo, for instance, establishes clear story beats immediately, leaving longer-term questions simmering in the background. You know, like orthodox storytelling. So, if you bounce off Pragmata, it likely won’t be because of any perceived ambiguity. It’ll be for deeper, more mechanical reasons, like the game’s full-commitment to its dual-protagonist setup.

See, the central relationship is where Pragmata begins to separate itself. As much as Hugh and Diana’s dynamic feels unconventional, they’re mechanically inseparable. And the game makes it clear that they’re more than just narrative partners, as every encounter builds around their cooperation. Controlling them both in tandem might initially seem like a novelty, but theirs is a relationship which informs everything beyond combat – pacing, theme, mood, and more.

If you’re the sort of player who prefers autonomy, or the joy of controlling an individually powerful character, then Hugh and Diana’s mechanical bond might not resonate. Ultimately, if the bond doesn’t land then a huge part of the experience risks falling flat.

But, actually operating in combat – the one-two punch of hack ‘n shoot – is where Pragmata could really draw the line. At a glance, the game is just another third-person shooter. In practice, however, it’s two distinct, interrelated layers, each demanding real-time co-ordination. You’re continually utilising spatial awareness to manage Hugh’s positioning, movement, and firepower, all whilst simultaneously engaging with Diana’s hacking mechanics. If the mental load is too great, then friction materialises. Not everyone wants to think this much in the middle of combat, and not everyone will have the dexterity to comfortably manage both sides of the process.

But here’s where it flips: once the process becomes intuitive, then Pragmata starts to offer a different kind of power fantasy. Not one rooted in brute force or razor-sharp gunplay, but in mastering a certain kind of psychological flow; like forming chords on a piano without looking at the keys. It’s satisfaction that’s earned through patience and practice. Yet, the journey from friction to instinct may be where some players fall off.

And the greatest risk, perhaps, to players dropping the game before intuition takes over is in Diana’s hacking system. Now, it’s easy to look at hacking and assume it’s a momentum breaking device. But, as I’ve already alluded, hacking is a core component of Pragmata’s combat loop, where you’re forced to engage with both halves of the system to succeed. Yet, despite transitions between hacking and shooting designed to be as freeflowing as possible, there’s still a chance it’ll split opinions.

Look – in honesty, Diana’s hacking does interrupt flow, at least if you’re comparing it to the pace of traditional third-person shooters. Pragmata does not allow you to endlessly run and gun; hacking is an unavoidable, extra layer. And, that’s kind of the point. See, these puzzles are solved in real-time, with both Hugh and Diana facing greater exposure the longer it takes you to navigate to the matrix’s shutdown command. You can move through coloured nodes to activate various bonus effects too, all while shifting Hugh’s position through your peripheral vision.

Many will thrive on this multi-tasking, yet it’s inevitable that others may find constant interruption to be exhausting over time, especially as the hacking puzzles escalate in complexity.

However, here’s the other thing: it’s hard to imagine Diana’s hacking system catching anyone off guard. The game’s marketing has been transparent about what it is and how it works. So, if anything, the real question isn’t what the system does, but how deeply can it evolve, if at all? And will players be willing to keep up, if so?

Orbiting the complex sci-fi gunplay are further questions, centring on Pragmata’s story which looks to be telling a more personal tale than first appeared. The relationship between Hugh and Diana is the nucleus, with potential for it to echo the parent-child dynamic seen in games like The Last Of Us. Identity, humanity, and artificial life are further thematic emblems shining under the surface, but at this stage it’s unclear how far the game will explore these topics. If it does, it could create another point of division, as not everyone comes to a action title looking for slow-burning character drama or philosophical introspection. You might want immediacy, spectacle, and dopamine-boosting explosions, and that’s fair. However, a surprisingly emotional core could be exactly what elevates Pragmata’s overall experience.

By this point, you’ve probably realised that Pragmata is experimental. What initially appears familiar is eroded by its dual-character structure, layered combat, the integration of hacking into every encounter, and the symbiotic relationship between Hugh and Diana which may blossom into a nuanced, father-daughter escape. These elements alone make the game a hard sell. See, there’s comfort in convention, and there are pre-conceived expectations which games need to satisfy in order to succeed financially.

In recent years, disdain in proliferated sequels and fatigue in annual sports and shooting titles has grown. The consensus is that studios are becoming increasingly risk averse, where big budgets often yield well-trodden tropes simply reskinned and sold back to us. It’s a whole topic for another day, but positioning Pragmata inside the wider conversation frames it as an antidote to the repetitive experiences that increasingly dominate AAA spaces.

So then, maybe the divisive elements outlined in this feature are precisely what makes games like Pragmata so compelling. Its mental demands commit the game to something that isn’t easily reducible to genre shorthand. Pragmata could turn out to be the exact type of experience players have been craving. Something which takes risks to standout. Much of its promise might be the result of the genre’s golden touch in recent years, but if it lands it could pave the way for more risk-taking projects. Pragmata might not be for everyone; at least, not yet.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

That last part is what reminded me of my days on the PS3, in a world where my video games didn’t bother with holding my hand as much as the ones on offer today do. My protagonists weren’t as chatty, often suffering alongside me as we tried to figure out a way forward in a game that stubbornly stood in our way. Of course, I was never truly alone, as the internet was always at my side, helping me find other players who were there for the very same reason. Crimson Desert brought it all back, making me do something I hadn’t done in years: I had a device close at hand with Google readily available as I made my way across Pywel.

It’s a special callback to the days of engaging with a community of players, exchanging solutions to problems we were facing while giving our fellow players who managed to offer those solutions the respect and validation they were due. Pywel reminds me of a time when even single-player adventures could have online communities form around them and thrive, their players always ready to lend a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on when things got too difficult.

Crimson Desert makes every Greymane who’s playing it a part of the adventure. But how has it managed to do that in a world where games such as this one can largely be enjoyed alone? Join me as I take you through the multiple tabs this one has made me keep open in my brain as I play it.

A Sense Of Mystery and Intrigue

I kind of found it odd to be playing a game that had me look up guides this quickly after Elden Ring gave me a humbling reminder that all of my snooping skills weren’t enough for me to see everything The Lands Between had to show me. But here we are, a few years later, courtesy of how jealously Pywel chose to guard its secrets. It’s not because its puzzles and secrets were broken, but because they were just there, with very opaque clues and the game refusing to whisper helpfully in my ear as other titles do.

So many games from back in the day had me doing this, and those guides were indeed the inspiration for me to write about video games today. Skyrim immediately comes to mind, which was so thoroughly overwhelming with its systems that I needed to make sense of it all by asking players with more experience. Any of the Souls games at that point were the same, and I’d say they continue to be a gold standard when it comes to hiding secrets. All of these titles made each playthrough a research project, funded by a sense of curiosity and fuelled by an intrigue so deep it kept any potential fatigue at bay.

But Crimson Desert comes pretty damn close to that same feeling, and Pywel’s sheer size had me convinced that taking a bit of help with this one was going to be a good idea in the long run. But that isn’t an indicator of a game’s challenge, isn’t it? The puzzles tab joins the walkthrough tab as the second one, feeding me a stream of thoughts every time I dove back into Crimson Desert for a jaunt through Pywel.

They’re the hardest part of the game in my opinion, and that’s after trying to take on the boss of Karin Quarry with the gear I began the game with, unaware of the magic of Abyss Gears. I hadn’t even met Hornsplitter at that point. But if you’ve been up to The Abyss through any of the Spires, you know that even getting the damn door to open is an uphill task. It took me right back to Prince of Persia (2008), a game that had you accompanied by a very knowledgeable companion, but one who was as beat as you were when it came to its puzzles.

Skyrim is another example, as are so many of the puzzles from Zelda. A more recent example would be last year’s Hell Is Us, a game that had me taking as many notes as I could while trying to pay attention to what was being said. But that’s just one new game versus so many from the PS3 era that were real head-scratchers. It’s good that Crimson Desert took that route, as the land of Pywel is able to really grab your attention with its air of mystery and wonder.

Call me crazy, but there is pleasure in trying to piece together a solution, my brain coming at a problem from a multitude of angles before I finally swallow a slice of humble pie and look up a solution online. I kind of like feeling a little stupid when I see a solution that was staring me right in the face. I’m laughing with you at the fact that I totally missed the memory of seeing somebody stab those pillars you use to rotate puzzle pieces, but I’m dying on the inside when I think of the two hours I spent trying to figure that out, my knowledge of the skill tree more decidedly biased towards my Axiom abilities at that point.

It’s something that used to be normal, a facet of gaming that I’d grown to miss after it became as rare as it has. But Crimson Desert brought it back. But there are more tabs open for us to click on.

The Fear Of Failure

The first two tabs that Crimson Desert has opened up for me dealt with problems I knew existed. But what about the ones I didn’t know of? Or know about but hadn’t encountered yet? They opened up two new tabs, both fuelled by an anxiety that I was going to break the game by exploring too much of it, a sentiment that only grew as I tackled quest after quest from Hernand’s residents.

And as with all anxiety, it helps to know you’re not alone. I found myself scrolling the game’s subreddit in my spare time, finding so many other kindred spirits who were worried about something they couldn’t yet solve, or perhaps excited about things that they’d seen on the forum. I was firmly in the latter camp after watching somebody use Kliff’s fists to devastating effect, which made me promptly load up my save to check out Unarmed attacks and their skills.

I’ve met people as obsessed with the game as I am, which invokes fond memories of playing Skyrim for the first time, or posting rants about Souls bosses and having other players agree while people who’d beat the boss shared useful advice and tips. I’ve beaten so many bosses based on recommendations from my peers over the years, and I tip my hat to those helpful folks. Crimson Desert brought collective discovery back again and made it really cool, too.

There’s also the tab that wonders about the consequences of my actions. You’re probably aware of the Fruit of Life at this point, and if you’re not, just DON’T pick it up until the story tells you to. I learned that the hard way after I picked it up, the sense that it looked important prompting me to take a break and learn from my fellow Greymanes that I had just bricked a quest. I considered a new playthrough, but after 80 hours of diligent exploring, I’ve since decided to eat the loss and watch a YouTube video instead.

All of the PS3 era games I’ve talked about had that sense of a first playthrough being one where you learn the ropes, and your second one being the full experience, where you come at the game armed with all the knowledge of its system you need to make it work in your favor. You tested its boundaries and learned from them the hard way before joining the community and obsessively looking up discourse around the game. Well, my phone’s screen time has seen a drastic uptick since Crimson Desert came out, and it isn’t a coincidence.

Its magic comes not from certainty, but from the possibilities Pywell offers to those who look to conquer it instead of merely exploring it. Which brings me to the final couple of tabs in my brain when I play it.

Stubborn and Proud Greymanes

Conquering Pywel is a great initiative, but executing that in Crimson Desert’s early days was quite the challenge. It’s pre-release, and release builds had their own problems, and yet, the gaming community persevered through it all, belting out solutions to tackle both the game’s challenges while also trying to solve individual problems. I got my legendary horse after a very helpful tip that made the entire taming mini-game a whole lot easier than trying to tilt my thumb stick away from the wild horse as it tried to throw me off.

Yet another video guide helped me solve a puzzle that a text-based one couldn’t, thanks to the description going above my head and not really helping me find what I was looking for. On another occasion, I was convinced that I was locked out of completing an important Abyss puzzle, the one that would allow me to begin using elemental attacks. I spent a lot of time looking up different ideas until the suggestion to just visit my camp and try to find lost items there finally pointed me in the right direction. The Frost Mantle is a very important part of my take on Kliff now.

It’s probably easy to tell that Crimson Desert has become an obsession of mine at this point. I take that as a compliment, as the final tab the game has open in my brain is one that’s just a banner of flashbacks to a time when I was more curious and less efficient in my games, a heady combination that could lead to disaster (looking at you, Witcher 3) just as often as it could lead to incredible moments. The hours spent on that high-level early boss in Nioh 2 immediately come to mind.

Pywel doesn’t just transport me to another reality from time to time. It sends me several years back into my own, when I could pull an all-nighter on a game that deserved it. But my bedtime is stricter now, and life gets in the way of most games. But for the few ones out there like Crimson Desert and its inspirations, I’m happy to trade a little shut-eye for the chance to feel like I’m back in the PS3 era of games again. And that, perhaps, is its greatest achievement.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

And burn it did, thanks to a controversial launch by CD Projekt RED that also led to one of the most significant redemption stories in gaming. In September 2023, it felt like that story had come full circle. Update 2.0 fully revamped the game, allowing it to achieve its potential in every way, and Phantom Liberty delivered a stellar narrative with an unimaginable yet fitting narrative catharsis. CD Projekt RED got their win, finished their story, so on and so forth. Roll credits.

Except it didn’t stop. Granted, supporting a game for almost three years after launch was already notable, but it’s now April 2026, and Cyberpunk 2077 has finally received PS5 Pro support. You know, the same feature that the developer said there were no plans for back in 2024.

The best part about this update isn’t that it supports the regular PSSR for dynamic 4K. No, this is the Upgraded PSSR, which offers better image quality. It could have stopped there, but it went even further and implemented 8-way Bounding Volume Hierarchy to further improve the ray-traced lighting, reflections and shadows. That’s on top of Variable Rate Shading, and improved ray-tracing cache and object queries.

Which probably would have been enough on its own, but it also went a step further and added three different modes. You can opt for Performance Mode if a higher frame rate is most important, except now it can run at up to 90 frames per second on displays with Variable Refresh Rate support. Ray Tracing Mode delivers “only” 60 FPS but ensures ray tracing for all shadows. Ray-traced reflections are available with transparent objects and vehicle paint.

However, if you want the full Night City experience, then Ray Tracing Pro Mode is it. Alongside everything else, you get ray-traced ambient occlusion, emissive lighting and skylights at 40 frames per second on high refresh rate monitors. Even if you don’t have the latter, hitting 30 FPS with such fidelity and image quality is pretty impressive.

I know, I know – there’s no New Game Plus, no third-person perspective, and nothing for other platform holders to really latch on to. It’s a bummer, but the fact that CD Projekt RED is still supporting Cyberpunk 2077 to this extent is insane.

You could argue that it’s because this is their highest revenue earner, and you would absolutely be right, with over 35 million copies sold as of November 2025 (even reaching that milestone faster than The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). However, it achieved those sales even without giving anyone any reason to believe that PS5 Pro support is on the way. Even if adding support did nothing to boost sales, it recognized that it’s a feature that a subset of players, however small, wanted for a long time, and set about delivering something it never promised.

Furthermore, despite the game still selling extremely well, it’s removing any barriers to entry. Last year, Cyberpunk 2077 was added to PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium’s Game Catalog. Last month, it debuted for Game Pass Ultimate and Premium, allowing even more players to carve out their legend in Night City.

Even when it released the Nintendo Switch 2 version last year, it didn’t simply port the Ultimate Edition over and call it a day. It delivered solid performance in both handheld and docked modes while adding motion controls, Joy-Con 2 mouse support, gyroscopic aiming, cross-saves, and even touchscreen support for the menus. If that wasn’t enough, the entire base game and Phantom Liberty shipped on a cartridge rather than a Game-Key Card. You bought it, you owned it. No additional shenanigans.

Then again, all of this – the PS5 Pro update, Game Pass and PS Plus releases, and Switch 2 Edition – is just born from a love for the game and the players who brought them to the dance. It’s one of the reasons why CD Projekt RED continued releasing new updates even after dropping the biggest yet.

Features like the Metro System, listening to radio stations on foot, replayable car races, gangs that actively pursue you in the open world if you annoy them enough, vehicle paint jobs, brand new vehicles, an overhauled Photo Mode, Auto Drive – things that you’d otherwise take for granted. Did it have to add all this and more in, even roping in Virtuos? No, but it went ahead anyway and made it all free.

Given everything that happened at launch – the lying, the deception, the disappointment (even when the game had several excellent qualities that held up over the years) – it’s understandable to be cynical about CD Projekt RED. There are still many people who won’t quote-unquote forgive the developer for what happened, and no amount of support will get them to change their minds.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the team put their hearts and souls into this game, and then a little extra on top for more than five years. There was no guarantee that all of this would recoup any goodwill, much less build excitement for the studio’s next projects – The Witcher 4 and Project Orion, aka Cyberpunk 2. Look at the sheer number of titles that are cancelled, month in and month out, despite pouring years and millions into the drain, never mind those that can’t even make it to market.

And yet, here we are, with currently an 88 percent “Very Positive” rating on Steam (94 percent if you consider the recent reviews), a presence that works hand in hand with transmedia like Edgerunners, and near-universal acclaim by those whose story in Night City changed them in ways they could never imagine.

It gives new meaning to the phrase “City of Legends.” Even if the megacorps run rampant, making people’s lives miserable, or crime is at an all-time high, or consumerism has led to all kinds of brand new societal nightmares. Even if it seems Johnny is right about dropping just one more nuke, it all comes together in a way where the player – and their encounters with everyone else – really mattered.

Of course, nothing says that CD Projekt RED has to stop here. With plans to scale its teams to over 450 developers by 2027 for Cyberpunk 2, there’s still plenty of room for additional updates and support. If The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can supposedly receive that long-rumored free DLC, especially with The Witcher 4 next up on the developer’s release docket, then there’s nothing that says it can’t return to 2077. Maybe it’s a new tactic – using its existing games to hype up their sequels (and making some money in the process). Since the PS5 Pro update is finally here, perhaps that bit about no plans for additional DLCs or expansions won’t hold water for much longer.

We can’t really say for sure until it happens. Until then, we’re returning to Night City – slightly older, perhaps slightly wiser, with fond memories and a drive to make new ones. Because if The City of Dreams has proven anything for fans, it’s that some legends will never fade away.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

You might think that a bunch of people who liked the game as much as we did would obviously be okay with its problems. But that’s far from it. It’s just that we think that love it or hate it, Starfield doubles down on the kind of experience it wants to be, for better or worse. It’s a divisive title not because it falls into the binary viewpoint of good or bad, but because it chooses to be strong in ways that come with specific trade-offs.

Its very strengths are a double-edged sword, the magic of what it truly is clashing with the frustrations that its formula brings to the table. Wondering how that could be? Join us on a trip through Starfield’s star-studded landscape and find out why it has been praised and belittled for just being itself.

The Grand Scheme of Things

Let’s start with Starfield’s size and scope. Its “world” is a literal galaxy just waiting for you to engage with it. As a sci-fi adventure aimed at letting you carve out your own name in the stars, it’s astoundingly large, and deliciously grandiose. Its ambitions rival its size, and perhaps even help define it with the magic of hopping between systems as you engage with the many factions you come across, their quest lines and other distractions making your time with it an adventure that even you can’t really predict from moment-to-moment.

There’s also its emphasis on player agency, with the world at your fingertips and a ton of things for you to do at any given moment. There are factions to choose between, ships to build, planets to scan and learn more about before you visit them, smuggling, mining, and, of course, the RPG side of things to allow you to truly make your character feel like an extension of yourself, a small but shining speck among the stars. It’s a fantasy that truly puts you at the center of it all while still impressing upon you that you’re only a part of a larger universe.

That’s all well and good but we can see where players who didn’t resonate with these strengths are coming from. The game’s scale should have felt seamless, but its systems dictated that the massive universe you’re let loose in was fragmented into menus that got in the way of hopping between planets, loading screens pulling you out of the spell that it cast on you. Its universe felt like a collection of different maps, none of which fed into each other for players who were unable to find their footing.

The very freedom that we loved so much could feel like the game refusing to connect with its spacefarers. Players diving into it around the time of its release were used to their games easing them into whatever the experience was selling, instead of leaving them to discover it all on their own terms. Where other titles provided carefully curated journeys, Starfield was about the journey itself, a distinction that would take time many of its players did not really have at their disposal to make.

The game’s size, meant to inspire a sense of awe and wonder, felt like it was deliberately placing walls that its players had to get past. The freedom that was meant to allow players to craft their own adventure felt like they were left adrift among the stars, without a clear path to the destiny they knew was waiting for them in the blackness of space.

It was a game that asked for time that many of its players could not, or would not, choose to give it.

Learning To Love It

We’ll be honest, we’re pretty clear on why so many of you didn’t click with Starfield right off the bat. Its systems can get overwhelming at first glance, and it does take a bit of time to settle into a routine that works for you. But once you get there, the game opens up into something you might have even adored. The faction questlines we mentioned earlier? We couldn’t get enough of them. The same goes for the slow burn of building our characters from the ground up, engaging with the side content, and the sense of just existing in a world outside of the real one, but just as diverse and unpredictable.

Of course, all of this must factor in the knowledge that Starfield was a game from Bethesda, whose track record of great titles meant that all of these factors were a given. But it also meant that this was a game that needed patience, and a willingness to endure its learning curve. You could even say that we stuck with the game for the sake of a thorough review, and you would have a valid point. But the fact that all of us continued to play it long after we put down our thoughts should speak to that argument.

But as we looked deeper, we began to see a few split seams in the experience, with Bethesda’s usual quirks coming into play. There was a definite stiffness to some parts of our time in the Constellation, and a lack of polish in certain areas. Conversations in which the person we were talking to lacked enough expressions to make it feels real immediately come to mind, along with a bunch of systems that could feel outdated when games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 were already out there.

But again, this was a game from Bethesda, a studio that was known for the eccentricities that its games had in play. Did we think that the fact that Starfield had them felt oddly reassuring in a way? Sure. But did we also think that their presence in a game as ambitious as this one felt like the studio was clinging to its old ways in a world of video games that were rapidly evolving? Also yes.

That’s because to the average gamer, who in all probability has a limited amount of time to engage with a game, first impressions can be hard to shake off. Starfield does take too long to reveal its depth, and it’s very likely that for many gamers, it asked too much of them too early. It demanded patience from a modern audience that was quite unwilling to wait when there were other games that came out with far more accessibility than this one. Understandable, of course, but it was also sad to see so many potential fans miss out on all the fun.

But what exactly were they missing?

Living In The Moment

To us, Starfield was clearly better enjoyed as an RPG sandbox, despite it coming across as a game that was all about getting lost in space. We found joy in engaging with its many factions, navigating the complexities that arose from such interactions along with choosing between all the possibilities for our characters that were laid out in front of us like a very enticing buffet. We bought homes and ships, choosing to express ourselves on the ground while our forays into space were designed to serve specific goals that we had in mind.

But we can see how people who expected to be flying off into the unknown could have felt let down by a lack of organic discovery in the early hours of the game, and in how its moment-to-moment gameplay seemed geared towards keeping their metaphorical boots firmly on the ground. To those players, the pull of gravity on the planets they were exploring might have felt too strong for them to shake off, and rightly so. It was a matter of mismatched expectations that was a major source of the backlash it received.

And with the game finally dropping on the PS5, we expect that the same old arguments are going to be hashed out between all of the newcomers diving into the adventure for the first time. It’s a situation that’s oddly similar to Crimson Desert, another title that doubles down on its identity and dared to take an approach that earned it some backlash even as others have been unable to put it down.

The divisive discourse around Starfield isn’t going to fade because it’s baked into the game’s very foundations, and not from temporary chatter. It may not be the universally loved RPG that many of you might be wanting it to be, but that very divisiveness points to a game that’s special in its own right thanks to how committed it is to a specific vision. The way in which the very facets of its experience that appeal to its fans can be reasons for its others to train their guns on it has made it a fascinating source of conversations around games that make demands of their players, instead of the other way round.

But for those of you who meet it on its terms and tune it to its wavelength, you’re in for a romp through space that’s going to stay with you long after you move on to other titles. And for that, we’re glad that Starfield exists.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

While there was a sense that the development team was truly attempting something different and grandiose, attempting to recreate the vastness of space, emptiness and all, the biggest problem is how it effectively fractured Bethesda’s built-in audience. Those who “got it” could vibe with the exploration, the mood, and the sheer scale of it all. Others wanted something more akin to Skyrim or, at the very least, Fallout, which it became very clear this was not.

Updates came and went. Shattered Space gave even the most dedicated fans second-hand embarrassment (and that’s despite having some really good dungeons). Then there was the great emptiness of 2025, where Bethesda promised big things, and ultimately kept its head down to work on the future. Well, the future is now, and the now is Free Lanes. So is Starfield “fixed” so to speak?

Not exactly, and really, you should have seen that response coming when Todd Howard himself said not to call it Starfield 2.0. Todd Howard not talking a game up through the stratosphere? A cold day for sure.

But he’s not wrong. Free Lanes is a massive pass at all the different systems and mechanics within Starfield, expanding on them in ways that befit the originally hyped up space-faring fantasy. It’s not so much about giving players something to do as offering more experiences in this vast universe. Because while space can be boring and empty, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Bethesda’s take has to be the same.

That’s best reflected in Cruise Mode, which more facilitates the self-titled Free Lanes themselves. Before, players would endure a loading screen to travel from planet to planet, even those within the same system. Then another loading screen to land on said planet, and another to leave. And while everyone focused on the loading screens – for good reason, because so many in quick succession really hurt the pacing – it was really the lack of stuff to do in space that really grinded many players’ gears. It’s not about getting lucky and finding something, be it an NPC or a space battle – it was more than life in space just felt non-existent.

Cruise Mode addresses that immediately by allowing you to travel, manually, between planets in a star system. Right away, your ship isn’t just some box that gets you from point A to point B – it’s now a second home. Get up, stretch your virtual legs, talk to some crew members, and maybe go and improve your ship with the new X-Tech. Or reroll perks on your Legendary weapons while working towards the new Rank 4s.

That space itself has new points of interest that can feed into that gameplay loop, which is all the more incredible. Maybe you’ll find a quaint bit of wreckage one second and engage in a dog fight against ships in another. Sometimes those dogfights will pull you out of Cruise Mode, forcing a scramble. Then there are the new Incursions added via the Terran Armada DLC, which provide another noteworthy activity to grind out (and earn some new weapons).

Of course, Bethesda didn’t stop there. It addressed one of the biggest complaints with Starfield by adding more PoI variety on its planets. Granted, this is one of those features where I would scoff and assume that it added, say, a dozen or so. However, based on feedback from the community, the variety has shot up. One player on Reddit, who would usually encounter the same point of interest pre-update, played for three hours straight, going through 30 unique types without ever encountering the same one twice. And that’s even after attempting to force them to appear. It doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are brand new – just that on top of the additions, you’re less likely to find the same PoI as quickly.

Because these locations – and dungeons – can provide X-Tech, you’re more incentivized than ever to explore random planets. There’s a constantly rewarding gameplay loop that also feeds into the main purpose of Starfield – to explore, both in space and on planets. The best part is that you’re not just juicing those Legendaries for no reason, as new enemy modifiers are in place for those who want more spice to their encounters. Sure, you could always increase enemy health and damage, but this kind of ARPG-level of buffs to otherwise familiar threats is a better way to make combat feel fresh.

Then you have the new ship modules, updates to outposts that allow for quickly plopping down a habitat module, fully furnished, and a shared storage for all your bases, a database so you can actually track down different resources and keep tabs on your outposts – the list goes on. If you’ve amassed tons of Credits, great news – you can now buy an asteroid base. That’s not even getting into all the non-DLC quests or Anchor Point Station, where you can find them (and various new characters).

So it’s less that Free Lanes – and by extension, Terran Armada – have “fixed” Starfield so much as leaned much further into Bethesda’s vision for the game. It already had this massive universe that players could explore – there was just very little reason to do so after a point, besides taking in the atmosphere. With these changes, it’s certainly catering to those who already poured dozens of hours into the game, giving them new stuff to play with while also fixing glaring issues like the loot from Expert and Master level locks, or bugs with various quests.

I think it goes even further, though, addressing a problem that even new players noticed at a mid-way point – namely, a drive. Because for all the hundreds of planets that you could explore, spaceships to build, abandoned locations to clear out, and quests to complete, being driven to really delve deeper into this sandbox, appreciating its nuances and joys, became difficult.

Free Lanes isn’t so much a giant leap for Starfield, so much as dozens upon dozens of significant little steps. And quite frankly, that’s what this game needed. More complexity that ties into what’s already there. More depth. More reasons to get out and see what the universe has to offer. Something to sink your teeth into beyond all the surface-level trifles and grinds.

That’s probably why Bethesda didn’t agree with the 2.0 label (even if it’s not shy to call this the best version of the game yet). As lead creative producer Tim Lamb notes, “There’s a narrative baked into what that label would mean.” Instead, the team examined “several systems where we had interest or had heard things from the community, and we tried to level up a number of them.” As such, a “number of systems have been made incrementally better,” there’s a “ton of content,” and there are “things that the team is excited about.”

Will those “things” make Starfield as vaunted as Skyrim or even Oblivion? No one can say at this point, but if No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, The Division 2, and many more have taught us anything, it’s that fantastic experiences are often built brick by bloody brick. Here’s hoping for several more of the nice kind for Bethesda.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.