*******Spoilers********

I bought this game at release though held off playing through until about a month ago, myself and 3 others did our first play through together.

All 4 of us were met with complete disappointment when reaching Mistlands. We were not only super underwhelmed with mob difficulty and overall threat of the biome compared to our first venture into swamp and plains but the entire experience item power curve/"leveling" curve felt obsolete before we could even use it.

For example, by the time we got magic items and abilities, we had defeated the queen. We also spent so much time farming chickens and high tier food but never used it.

The queen is also extremely disappointing. After getting enough key fragments to make a key and opening what you expect to be an insanely bug infested lair and hard fight....we simply just KO'd her with tier 2 Krom swords, Spinesnap bows and 1 of us had frost/fire/prot staffs.

Then we get the loot from the Queen....a placeholder item? Why even put a placeholder item....felt like spit in the face. You literally kill the Queen and then nothing happens and you're like "Oh, okay I guess we are done now?". Not even a visit from Hugin or Munin....just crickets. Like a terrible season finally of a TV show....

The game up until Mistlands is fantastic. We all enjoyed it being survival-craft fans. Hopefully the dev team rebalances and tweaks Mistlands alongside the plans for Ashlands because if it stays as is....I see it as a very small part of the game that COULD be GREAT, but most players will dredge to skip to move along.