Permafrost

Bugs come up in positive reviews as well as negative ones, and positive reviewers usually wave them through as normal for early access. Reports include clunky animations, hit detection when chopping and mining ("Mining and cutting trees is hit or miss... literally"), pickup prompts that do not appear, the camera zooming or getting stuck, collected resources vanishing, sound effects missing or out of sync, and UI elements that stay on screen. In negative reviews the same list adds up to a game that "feels more like a beta than an Early Access release", and one detailed review says quality drops sharply once you reach the first settlement and start exploring.

10% of reviews complain about AI or spawning. Deer, boars and moose walk up to the player instead of fleeing, get stuck in snow and trees, or ignore you: "Everything just runs around haplessly, not even attacking you." Some positive reviewers joke about it ("seem to have an IQ lower than their body temperature"). The complaints about human enemies are more serious: they appear out of nowhere at points of interest, "the frequent spawning of hostile NPCs directly behind you, often equipped with firearms," which players call unfair while they are still using a bow.

10% of reviews raise traversal. Players describe movement as stiff and awkward, ledge grabs are unreliable ("Climbing is often quite hard, grabbing ledges is intermittent"), and characters and the dog get stuck on rocks, in snow drifts and inside buildings. Players also report sliding or falling after a climb and dying from short slides. The free-form climbing is part of the problem: the terrain looks climbable everywhere, but "then you get rag dolled into the wall or floor and cant move without the unstuck button." One player fell into the copper ravine and "couldn't find a way back up because the walls were too steep to climb." A few players rely on the Unstuck option, and some ask for it to work better.

A smaller group finds combat slow and lopsided. Ragged human enemies soak up far more damage than wildlife ("Why does a MASSIVE MOOSE die from two headshots, while some homeless-looking guy dressed in rags can tank TEN?"), the early bow feels weak ("expect to be shooting other humans like 15 times"), and enemy archers fire faster than the player can. A few players say combat is fine because the game is built around exploration, and guns reportedly make fights easy once you have them.

Players ask for a list of quality-of-life changes: crafting straight from nearby storage ("PLEASE let me craft from my storage boxes"), bigger containers, sorting and deposit options, rebindable hotbar keys, and a rebindable "Deconstruct" action (one player could not play because their middle mouse button was not recognised and the action could not be moved). Controller players report a clumsy selection bar and menus, no sprint toggle, awkward wall rotation when building, and sluggish dialogue input on a Steam controller.

Fewer players hit these, but they stop a save from moving forward. Reported blockers include the "High Frequency" quest not progressing after the transmission ("i listen to it however it doesn't progress the story or quest"), a side-quest line cutting off before it completes, an unreachable quest reward, and a key system that can consume a key on the wrong container and lock you out. One player lost map progress on every reload: "every region,marker, fast travel everything is gone". Another warns that items left crafting in benches are lost if you quit mid-craft. Most of these reports come from players several hours in.

Some players say the quests ask for materials without saying where to find them ("yk how long ive been trying to find copper?"), and one wished "the quest would have stated quantity". Others ran into tool tiers that do not work as the tooltip says, upgraded iron tools that still cannot open certain chests, and an XP grind of hunting and climbing tasks to unlock basic stations. One player found the opposite problem, reaching late-game loot almost immediately: "For a mere 5 wood you can make your way into the military base above the bone cave 10 minutes into the game."

The few players who say they reached the end of the main story ran out of things to do: "Honestly, I expected the game to have more content." They mention unreachable map landmarks after the story, few side quests, and limited building sets.