We Were Here Forever

Bug reports were concentrated at launch. In the first month, reviewers reported soft-locks in the rotating-room and dice puzzles, black screens for the host when loading a save, items that could not be picked up (pickaxe, forge colours, potion bowls), players falling through the map, and machine parts from earlier chapters disappearing so that whole chapters had to be replayed. The checkpoint system draws its own complaints, because it often did not save where players thought it had: "Game has a dumb checkpoint system where it seems to only save once an entire level is complete." A few launch reviews were later edited to say patches fixed the problems, and one later reviewer wrote "Most negative reviews are due to bugs in the early days. The game is now very stable". Bug reports never disappeared, though, and later reviewers still describe restarting to clear a stuck puzzle.

"More like We Were On Elevators and Chairlifts Forever," wrote one player. Waiting and padding come up in 14% of negative reviews (62 of 455), which name the ski lift, the gondola they ride back and forth several times, the elevators, long walks between areas, and the sequence of carrying heavy parts that slow the player to a crawl. Cutscenes cannot be skipped even on a second playthrough for achievements, which turns replays into a slog. One negative review in full: "Non skippable cutscenes, forced slow backtracking and sometimes unintuitive ways to start a puzzle sequence ruins what could be a great puzzle game for me"

Besides the Kraken, players complain about the graveyard family-tree dig, whose clues several players say do not match the answer; the chapel puzzles where puppets must be seated and the resistance members identified; the organ hymn; the mirror and lens light puzzle; and the underwater maze in the Sunken Mines. Some reviewers who quit name one of these as the point where they stopped.

6% of negative reviews (29 of 455) say a puzzle left one player waiting while the other solved it, and the complaint also appears in some positive reviews. "The biggest problem with this game is that about half of the puzzles require one player to do almost nothing while the other does all the work." The ball-and-chain arena, the owl statue, the organ and the underwater maze are the usual examples, and because roles are no longer fixed, some players ended up on the passive side again and again. Not everyone agrees: "A lot of people are complaining that 1 player is doing nothing while the other does everything. This is simply not true or at least very over exaggerated."

The alchemy section in chapter 5 is fun for some players, while a handful object to its timer, saying the limit is too tight or that the puzzle should not be timed at all: "Honestly would have been better if it wasn't timed." Slow conveyors and lag make it harder, and some players got stuck there on a bug that stopped them picking up the colours.

Some players could not connect, join each other or hear each other. Reports include server disconnects, invite loops, the voice server failing until the game was restarted, and, in early 2025, a "failed to update user data" error that blocked play. Some of the reviews written after very little playtime are about not being able to start a session at all.

Players with capable PCs report heavy stutter whenever a new area streams in and low frame rates in a few open or brightly lit areas, especially the underwater chapter. "Each time elements of the game world load in, there is this horrendous frame rate drop that turns your game into a slideshow." Some found that switching from DirectX 12 helped.

Reviewers who mention the hint system mostly criticise it. They say the first hints tell them to communicate or look around, and the later ones repeat what is already visible: "The hints system is actually useless and outright insulting." Players who got stuck turned to walkthroughs instead.

Puzzle solutions are fixed, so a second run with roles swapped, needed for full achievements, is mostly memory. Some players liked seeing the other side; others found replaying tedious, particularly with unskippable cutscenes.

A few reviewers warn that the Kraken puzzle depends on hearing, among them a deaf player and one who is hard of hearing. Another wrote: "there is one puzzle in the late game which is completely inaccessible if you are unable to hear". On colour blindness, one reviewer found it better than earlier games: "Also works a lot better for colorblind people than older titles as there are no exclusive color puzzles." A few asked for warnings or options for spiders and deep water.