Exo One

I came in with wrong expectations and was at first disappointed. However, by the time the credits rolled (after 3 hours of play) I think I got it and can now give this a reluctant "thumbs up" insofar as it delivers on its intention: Exo One should be understood as an atmospheric (literally!) interactive art project, not a game, and not even a "walking sim" game.

There is not much to do per se, rather it is a series of extraordinary planetary vistas, most of which seem extremely inhospitable for life. You glide/roll/skim through them in a fairly enjoyable way, but ultimately it's just about getting to the end of one experience and continuing to the next one. There is a very, very thin story presented like wisps of memory. Really, the whole game is more like an intense dream than an actual lived reality.

My main critique is that the planets are too empty. There are structures, but they don't have any apparent story role. Thus every world became boring for me before too long, overstaying its welcome. I also think a few of the worlds are too similar to each other, such that they are superfluous. In summary, Exo One could have been half its length and still be satisfying.

My second critique has to do with "difficulty". It's easy enough to finish the game, but in later worlds the physics, weather, and terrain work against the flow of movement and can potentially put you in frustrating places from where it's hard to move on. I guess this was meant as a challenge, but it's just a very uninteresting one and gets in the way of the total experience.

Which leads me to my final critique. There are a few "gamey" additions, notably collectibles, some of which are challenging to reach later in the game. They simply boost your movement ability a little and don't provide any story insight. And, unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of typical gamey achievements, which I feel are a very poor fit for this experience. Thankfully, the devs disabled achievement notifications by default so you won't be distracted during a naïve playthrough. But, really, why do they even exist? This is just not that kind of game, if it's a game at all.

All in all, it's a very cool art project, which unfortunately doesn't always know if it wants to be a game or not. I suggest ignoring the game elements and just experiencing these stunning planets.