izigame.me

The new company that took over from the old one had a great chance to create some momentum for themselves & the game. Finally completing the story mode after 3 years is not something to be taken lightly, especially after inheriting the original devs' mess.
Several years of dev ignorance & being passed onto a new team, Wolcen had the opportunity to give us something to play for some time before Diablo 4 launches. They had opportunity after opportunity to blow us away. They still have not.
Everything bad I remember from Wolcen launch version is still all I see in Wolcen 2023. I started fresh with a new Offline toon - deleted the one I hadn't touched since February 2020 - and nothing has changed, nothing has improved.
The general consensus is that the latest patch that includes the elusive Chapter 4 somehow made the game even worse than it already was. Existing bugs still exist, and they've managed to create more new ones. In short: it's an absolute disaster. But I wanted to see it for myself.
I stuck with Offline mode because I recall the online servers being a complete mess, and people are still reporting game-breaking bugs left and right today. No thanks. Not that Offline mode is much better. When you imagine playing offline, you think of zero lag and much faster response time because you're no longer subject to online ping. Right?
WRONG! The godawful input lag of about half-a-second I remember from February 2020 is STILL present after 3 years. Spell casting is still slow and sluggish regardless of your increased attack speed, and general movement is still like walking through thick mud. Optimization is still the sheets.
Then you have STILL the amateur mistake of a fully uncovered zone map. It completely ruins your sense of Exploration AND wastes your time by almost forcing you to walk around in circles, because you can't tell if you haven't been to a certain map location before. And if you're the type of gamer who likes to explore every inch of the map to see what you can find & use as you level up, it's a HUGE problem.
And then, everything I hated about Wolcen launch version still present in Wolcen 2023: ITEMIZATION.
Nothing is worth farming, every item in the game is a BORING stat-stick with not a single interesting affix to speak of. Skill damage increases over time the more you use it, and you tweak it further with various nodes you unlock during the skill levelling process. And that's all in regard to skill customization.
What the different versions of Wolcen team always fails to grasp is: In games like this Loot-hunting is half the fun, finding exciting new items and affixes that potentially alter your personal play-style and increase the Fun factor. Take that away, and you lose half the fun, because gear choices hardly matter.
Furthermore, it completely kills Replayability. There's nothing worth farming, so you have no reason to keep playing. You complete the story mode once and then you toss the game in the trash, which is exactly what I did 3 years ago when I completed the incomplete story. And what I just did once again, for good.
Thankfully I bought the game for 20 bucks when it was still called Umbra and it was during its alpha phase, when it had the most potential with its rotating camera view & awesome unique elemental staff attacks - both of which were removed from the game in the transition to Beta & mediocrity. I feel sorry for those who paid full price for this, especially long before today.
I feel even more sorry for all the early Kickstarter backers who were promised open-world exploration, a fantastic character creator, in-game housing, and lots of other great features. None of which survived the transition to Beta & the live game. Basically, we got RIPPED OFF.
Such a damn shame, tons of potential. Looks fantastic, great skill graphics, gorgeous level design & crisp textures, all Wolcen needed is a dev team with a clue. So many years later, still fresh out of that.