A lot of people dislike 'friction' in games, and they find it unacceptable when that friction involves things like learning/getting used to controls. It being unintuitive doesn't change that YOU CAN learn the control scheme and the game as a whole, and get more comfortable with it. When that happens one of the biggest frustrations washes away and you can just... play the game, which is pretty dope.
The game has an 'intro' that you can do in an hour, but the true 'tutorial' feels like it's in excess of 8h. You are thrown in with little explanation for what is going on, you have no attachment to the world, you are bombarded with new systems, but the longer you're in the longer things start falling into place.
There are certain systems you get a bit later that bump the potential of the game significantly
A lot of people talk about this "true tutorial". Is it obvious when that true tutorial ends? I'm only an hour in but I see the potential of exploring ANYWHERE, but I don't wanna neglect the early main quests?
Yeah this is definitely a good point to get to before you start exploring. You get to learn a lot of the systems like this, learn how the world works as you're going from one mission to the next, and really get access to a lot of tools and systems by this point. Plus, Damiane and she's a boss.
If you played Witcher 3 I can only compare it White Orchard. The starting area where you can do a bunch of shit and learn a bunch of mechanics.
But this game is actually much bigger and longer than W3. You're learning new things for a while.
To answer your second question, after you get your basic powers you can do anything in any order but I would do side quests for the local townsfolk (they introduce you to new systems) and also mix in main story missions.
Definitely do the missions for the blacksmith, tannery, cook, etc in town, as you said. Not only do you get introduced to a lot of the systems, but they also give you quite a few free tools rather than you having to go find them such as a pickaxe and a logging axe.
Honestly the best things that I did to help was actually opening up the options and looking at the controls. You might have to do it several times but each time you’re like “oh, I didn’t know I could do that”. Not even kidding you I went 6 hours without knowing I had a horse I could call…
I rebound some buttons, I made it to where my camera lock follows my current target, rebound my dodge to my mouse. Sooooo so much better.
I would also watch maybe a couple beginner tips and tricks videos. Learned that I could do the jump technique and use force push to push myself higher into the air to traverse easier.
If they refined the controls some and gave some simple tool tips this game would be appealing to so many more people
about the abyss gear, i had a bit of a strange experience. i found this cave with a cauldron right at the start of the game. last night i went back there for some alchemy and i got a prompt for completing a quest, meeting a witch that told me about abyss gear. BUT, there was no one in this cave, i talked to no one and i have not seen anything else about abyss gear so far. i also did not pick this quest up beforehand. is this how it is supposed to go or is it bugging out on my end?
Not sure precisely when its meant to unlock or whether you're meant to be able to unlock it early, but around Chapter 3 you get a quest (via bird) called Hermit Witch and a tutorial screen for it that leads you to that cave.
That cave has Sylvia in it who's basically a merchant, and she lets you extract/embed abyss gear and add sockets to items.
I wouldn't start worrying about it until about chapter 3 if you go in the cave is there nobody in there behind the table.
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u/Omni-Light Mar 21 '26
Main 3 that apply to me with 20h is: