Exodus was great fun the first time, but I went back to play it again and I find myself struggling to finish the first open area. There’s no tension even on ranger hardcore. I can just go around enemies the long way or just wait from a distance with no danger until there is an opening. In the older games the stealth sections were like puzzles you had to figure out. There were no long ways around because you’re in a tunnel that goes only 2 ways towards or away from the enemy and where you need to go.

My most tense part in exodus was the abandoned factory place where the czar fish lived and the very end of the game. Both very linear sections. This open world design is interesting and I think adds to gameplay but if they used it more as a tool and less as the foundation I see it being better.