Number six on Steam’s Top Sellers chart. 6,351 concurrent players. A 10% launch discount slicing the tag to $17.99. By the raw metrics, Farever is having a perfectly fine early access launch.

Then you read the reviews.

76% positive. That’s “Mostly Positive” in Steam’s taxonomy — the tier below “Very Positive,” the tier that says yeah, it’s fine, but. Out of 801 player reviews at time of writing, 195 are negative. And the pattern in those negative reviews is remarkably consistent: the combat slaps, and everything around it is struggling to keep up.

Farever is an online multiplayer action RPG from Shiro Games, the Bordeaux-based studio behind Northgard, Wartales, and Dune: Spice Wars. It launched into Early Access on May 6, 2026, promising a vast fantasy open world called Siagarta where you climb cliffs, glide across canyons, dive into caverns, and hack through dungeons either solo or in co-op. Four starting classes, gear-driven progression, a level 20 cap at launch, two regions, and 10 dungeons. The roadmap through the rest of 2026 is aggressive: more regions, more classes (Druid and Monk confirmed), PvP, guilds, an auction hall, fishing, and a level cap climbing to 50.

That roadmap is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the positive reviews.

The Combat Fans Are Defending

Read through the top-rated player reviews and a clear consensus forms. The combat is genuinely good. One player with 5.1 hours logged praised the “very good combat,” “great exploration,” and an “interesting mixing of weapons system” while flagging that class variations don’t feel unique yet and player interaction needs work. Another with 4.8 hours called it “already fun to play” with combat that works even as an MMO-lite — “8 buttons, parry, dodge” — and noted that “a good encounter design” could carry that simplicity.

MassivelyOP’s columnist, who played during the April beta, echoed the sentiment: combat and gliding felt “intuitive and fun, if simple,” and the world had enough players logging in to feel like a real MMO. They likened it to a blend of Minecraft Dungeons, Palia, Aloft, and Trove.

These are not damning criticisms. They’re the kind of qualified praise that says the bones are here.

The Performance Problem Everyone Agrees On

The negative reviews converge on two words: performance and empty.

A player with just 18 minutes of playtime — 0.3 hours — wrote that “the performance is terrible, even on my PC” and that “the world feels too empty,” adding the Catch-22 that adding more enemies to fill that world would likely tank performance further. They still called the combat “really well done.” Even the positive reviewers are flagging server lag, hedging it with “early access so I will let the lagging server complain be only a note.”

MassivelyOP noted they agreed with the “general vibe on Reddit” that performance is the sticking point, and advised readers to “zip your wallet until the performance stuff gets worked out first.”

When the people recommending the game and the people panning it are describing the same problems, that’s not a disagreement. That’s a diagnosis.

The Chart Position vs. The Reality

Here’s what makes Farever’s launch numbers tricky to read. That #6 Top Sellers position reflects a $19.99 game running a launch discount from a studio with a real track record — Northgard sold over 3 million copies. Shiro Games has earned benefit-of-the-doubt capital. The 6,351 concurrent players is solid for a day-two Early Access title. The 4.2% dip from the previous measurement isn’t alarming.

But 76% is a fragile number. Steam’s algorithm feeds on review scores. Drop below 70% — into “Mixed” territory — and visibility craters. Farever is 60 positive reviews away from that line. If the performance issues don’t improve and the negative review pace holds, the math gets uncomfortable fast.

Shiro Games CEO Nicolas Cannasse said the studio is “proud to build Farever alongside our community and evolve the game throughout Early Access with player feedback.” That’s the standard Early Access covenant: you pay less now, you accept rough edges, and ideally the game gets better. The roadmap is ambitious. The studio’s pedigree is real.

But the players paying $17.99 right now aren’t buying the roadmap. They’re buying two regions, 10 dungeons, and a game that struggles to run smoothly on machines that handle heavier titles without flinching. The combat deserves better than the frame rate it’s trapped inside. Whether Shiro can extract that potential before the chart momentum fades — that’s the game within the game now.

Sources