Forager

I usually don't even give games a try that have been abandoned mid-development or immediately after the release, especially if the abandonment has been this... ugly. But I don't want to get into the drama, and since I saw this was still very highly rated despite it all, I figured I would give Forager a try.

As of right now, Forager is the 25th highest rated "Open World Survival Craft" game on Steam. This says more about how much people love the genre than how good or bad the game is though, since the reviews are pretty decent. However, I still don't get it.
Forager seems to play the same as most all other games in this genre. Collect materials, craft them into better materials and build things, upgrade your tools, maybe explore and fight some, and repeat ad nauseam. I understand the appeal of seeing progression and numbers going up, but I don't see the appeal of doing this via repetitive manual labor.
Admittedly, I didn't stick around Forager for very long since if the start of the game wasn't going to be any interesting, the end definitely wasn't, with it being abandoned and all. Despite minor differences in format, with an initially very limited area, and additional space being unlocked by purchasing new islands, there seemed to be no fundamental difference in the gameplay here from any other game in this genre that I've played.

This review is a bit too short for me, but I really have nothing more to say. I obviously didn't enjoy it since I don't like the genre, but even for fans of the genre, perhaps a more complete and nuanced title would be preferable. Even just in the last year, 4 higher rated open world survival crafting games have been released, and I'm sure more are coming.