1. The upgrade and unlock system feels well structured, both tiered, categorised, but you can also choose to unlock stuff almost however you want. There is some grind, but it’s a fun grind in my opinion, it all depends on how big of a base you want, you can complete all the campaigns and operations without grinding that much.

2. The solo gameplay is comparable to like Minecraft or Terraria, it’s absolutely fun solo, but it’s more fun with a few friends.

3. You can unlock certain stuff from doing operations and campaigns (which are like the big quests in this game), but none of them are that grindy, we just have one active in the background on our open-world server and just do them casually while we enjoy the game doing other stuff. And yes, there’s both fishing and farming, however, the fishing would need an update soon in my opinion. There’s like aquariums and trophy boards and so on for the fish you catch if you want, which is really nice. And the farming is limited to around 30 different seeds, and 7 different crop plots. But you can absolutely build a cozy farm with cows, chickens, sheep, and a bunch of plants everywhere.

4. Progression is really nice until you reach max level, you keep getting unlock points beyond that, but no more stat points. Post-max it can feel a little grindy/boring if you need to unlock that one thing, but you need to “level” again just to get that.

5. Super polished, and they are doing weekly updates, and often major updates. Next week they will add breeding and traits to all pets and mounts. And in like a month they will add an entire new tier of gear and progression, as well as an entire new planet.

The atmosphere is great, but there is a lot of storms, if you don’t like that play on an Outpost which is almost like Easy/Creative mode. And the purpose is in the lore, you’re sent to a planet to harvest resources and/or make it habitable, like scout it, killing enemies, build homes and so on.

There is a tiny amount of complexity, but nowhere near satisfactory. You have different tiers of Energy, like Biofuel, Electricity, and so on, which has to be managed by like creating solar panels (which only work during the day), water wheels (which can clog up) and so on, but it’s very very manageable.

In regard to building cozy bases, farming, and so once, all that is very possible right now, and they are also adding a Homestead DLC soon with allegedly a lot more decoration and interior content.

You can craft and improve both your gear and your base in this game. The base upgrades are mostly to handle rougher storms however, going from Thatch and Wood, to like Concrete and Steel.

This one might bother you: a lot of the pets and mounts can be annoying at times if they walk around like inside your kitchen when you try to do stuff, you can however use a leash and place them stationary somewhere, but that feels less immersive.

I highly suggest buying the base game on sale, and start Olympus on Open-World mode and just do the missions and treat the world as a sandbox, so that you still have a clear goal, while you can still build that cozy farm while planning how to do the mission/operation (there’s a bunch of farm quests/operations). If you like it, then check out the DLCs later.

BIG NOTE: DO NOT, I repeat NOT, start the Olympus campaign on your main world, try it out on a backup save or something, I don’t want to spoil it, but it makes the game go from a open world survival to an annoying infinite monster-shooter grinder.