There is a certain flavor to having non-typical lore and gameplay options, like Morrowind's fast travel being "hire a mind controlled bug driver", or the weirdness and realities of living in an ashen land where crops are replaced with bug eggs.
Today, playing this alpha game, I felt it!
As I wandered the world and realized my character learns lore to eventually be able to peacefully coexist with what normally would be "just an enemy creature to kill".
Or how this has some light survival aspects, like build a campfire or hunting.
Or just the delight of asking an npc a bunch of random seeming topics and then actually getting to help bring them the items they need, and then their neighbors all saying "ah yes, you helped so and so! Hello!"
Oh, and the combat being TURN BASED despite the fps style looking around. The respect of the game to stand back and let you just...chop trees, meditatively.
The surprise of having a void attack system and trying to figure it out while the game mechanically doesn't explain it at all. Alternate button aside, I loved that it was WEIRD. Like the enemy suddenly is possessed or something else, something more dark and sinister then either of us, is suddenly making itself felt and known in the heat of battle.
My only request is that you keep some of these ideas in the full game. Keep it weird. Keep me guessing despite my mastering. Make me ask the npcs and they legitimately have no idea what I just dealt with and survived.
It's AWESOME, and so rare to find a game stick to lore and not afraid to just be weird, and occasionally cruel, and yet also step back and let the player have this next one.
Being able to know a species well enough to become a whisperer of sorts, to be like "hey, can you just let me by?", or even be friends as a solution to exploring a new area is frickin cool! Dealing with weird cat girls and odd shadowy folk alongside deer and a still trying to thrive forest! The VIBES, man!
Please don't make this like another dark souls murder hobo game. I want to be free to role play, like actually Role Play, whatever my character outlook on combat and quests or skills may be.
Nail this, and you have a winner, in my book! Really looking forward to where this goes!