I'm closing to the endgame now (I think), and yeah, game is really fucking good, no question. I thought by the end I would end up bored with the open world, but they did a really good job of, while just making what every other open world does, really restrict the padding to only the essential. Instead of a bazillion towers to climb to unlock the map, here you climb 5 robotic dinosaurs, and they're completely optional (travelling regularly unlocks the map normally, climbing the dinos just allow to unlock all the other parts you haven't visited yet). The other typical stuff like bandit camps, again, very limited in number (5? maybe 6?). The collectibles are also more reasonable, although I ignored them completely as well as the hunting lodge stuff, becuase it just bores me.
I'm very impressed with Guerrilla, as someone who has played most Killzones, I didn't think they had it in them to be honest, specially after the borefest that wast Killzone Shadowfall. Hiring Witcher 3 designers might have helped them, as well as John Gonzalez. After Shadows of Mordor, which is crap and its narrative is also awful, I was skeptical with him, to be honest. But, while the writing itself is still spotty and could be improved greatly, the worldbulding and the plot line itself is damn compelling. I'm in the middle of the heavy plot revelations right now, and they worked pretty well so far. If someone told me I would like the narrative of a Guerrilla game more than Tides of Numenera I would have dismissed it outright, but, here we are. It's a good sci fi story, tropey at first, relaying more on the setting than the storyline to keep the interest, until it finds its footing later on and becomes something more distinct and compelling. Hopefully it doesn't shit the bed by the end.
All in all, terrific game, I really recommend it unless certain AAA tropes are a deal breaker, or controllers are a no no. Also, set the difficulty on very difficult and don't look back. I went with it from the very beginning and I can't imagine normal or even hard to be an acceptable level of chalenge, and would cause the gameplay to be more rote. Very difficult in any case isn't very difficult, but it relies heavily on not messing up, which means the first couple of times you fight a machine, the fights will be really intense, and the rest of times, it's enough to be fun and engaging but once you have your strategy laid out, very rarely will problems arise.
