This is a sizeable project, closer to a long fantasy novel than a weekend popcorn movie. A single, satisfying playthrough usually runs 50–80 hours, which for many adults means several weeks or a couple of months of regular play. The good news is that the game is very friendly to real-life interruptions: you can pause anytime, save almost anywhere, and wrap up sessions after a fight, a quest step, or a bit of exploration. Sessions of 60–120 minutes work well. The main downside is continuity. With many overlapping quests, characters, and builds, coming back after a long break can feel disorienting; you may need a “re-onboarding” session just to remember what you were doing. Co-op is fantastic but requires coordinating that whole timeline with friends, which can be tough. If you can carve out steady weekly time, the campaign feels like a rewarding long-term hobby; if not, consider treating it as a game you commit to for a season, not something you constantly bounce in and out of.

This is a “sit up and think” kind of game. You’re not reacting to split-second prompts, but you are constantly reading, planning, and weighing options for a whole party. Fights feel like elaborate puzzles, where you consider armour types, elevations, surfaces, and turn order before committing. Outside combat, dense dialogue and interlocking quests ask you to pay attention to names, clues, and consequences. The upside is that you’re rarely bored; there’s almost always an interesting decision in front of you. The tradeoff is that it’s hard to play on mental autopilot or while truly multitasking. You can pause freely and nothing is time-critical, so interruptions are no big deal, but meaningful progress wants a reasonably clear head. If you enjoy chewing on problems and don’t mind lots of reading, the game rewards your attention with satisfying “aha” moments in both story and combat.

Learning how this game works takes some commitment. Early on you’ll bump into strange armour rules, deadly elemental surfaces, and enemies that seem unfairly strong. Expect the first 10–15 hours to be a genuine learning phase where you’re reading tooltips, rethinking builds, and occasionally reloading after nasty surprises. The good news is that once the basics click, everything starts to feel more under your control. As you experiment with skill combinations and party roles, the combat system opens up in a big way. Encounters that once felt impossible become opportunities to set up elaborate chains: teleporting enemies into fire, stripping armour just in time for a stun, or coordinating summons. The game rewards curiosity and experimentation more than twitch reflex. You don’t need to min-max like a guide writer to succeed, but putting in some thought pays off with a powerful feeling of “I outsmarted that” rather than “I just out-levelled it.”

The emotional temperature here sits in a “serious but manageable” zone. Classic difficulty can absolutely punish sloppy play, and a long fight that suddenly turns against you will make you lean forward. However, because everything is turn-based, you rarely feel physically rattled or panicked. You can always pause, think, and reconsider. The story explores heavy themes—slavery, fanaticism, brutal violence—but it also injects plenty of dark humour and absurd situations to keep things from feeling relentlessly grim. Expect moments of tension, frustration after a wipe, and genuine concern for characters you’ve invested in, rather than constant adrenaline spikes. If you’re coming from ultra-chill games, the first dozen hours may feel like a step up in pressure. If you’re used to twitchy shooters or souls-likes, it’ll feel intense mentally but much calmer in your body. You’re in control of the pacing, and switching to the easier mode can significantly smooth out the roughest edges.