I get that many games have a rough start, but in my opinion this one has a lot of potential. I personally enjoyed it a lot and do not regret buying it. The developers definitely deserve support, at least for the concept and the idea behind the game.

I enjoyed my time with the game during beta, it has improved since then with the combat. I can only speak to my experience with the game and encounter no bugs so far, not saying they may not exist just I have yet to experience any.

The game is essentially Stalker equivalent to Fallout76, sort of. I will admit with size of map and how many there are, with this game primarily focusing on PVE (atleast early on) you will be running around killing the same enemies and looting the same chests that respawn. It can feel/get a bit repetitive. It doesn't bother me, there are main story quests. side quests, bounty board, and dailies to do or just go around killing and looting everything as god intended.

in short;
Graphics are pretty good for an indie title
Gameplay, not the most polished but I have no complaints
No issues experienced for me, except login issues during launch which they fixed relatively quickly
one of the Devs even stayed up late to assist individual players that had issues

I think the hate is way overblown but this is 2025 and we know how steam users are gonna be anything but fair and offer no constructive feedback except to ♥♥♥♥♥ about a game that is made by small team that isn't AAA quality

Buy it, try it, or don't. Not much i can say to content being only nearly 5 hrs in, but I am enjoying the game immensely and will continue to play it for myself.

Does have potential but it's a complete buggy and janky mess right now.

If you like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or played eurojank like Survarium or Stay Out you might enjoy PIONER.
I enjoy the game when it works, it has a nice atmosphere and cool environments but cannot recommend due to all the bugs, servers problems and softlock issues. The game is also plagued with Unreal Engine traversal stutters, it's unbearable, to me it's beyond comprehension why there is no pre-compilation of shaders on start up.

Check back in a few months to see how the game has improved.