My thoughts on Tales so far.

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When the DLC was announced I was sort of a bit upset about it, but after playing it since release and I like it but without it few flaws.

The regions were different in complexity and enjoyable to explore, but each region has its own sort of flaw. 

Forsaken Airfield is large map to explore and find it secrets, but it a large desolate location. It has FEW locations to explore and very push out from each other. Some locations feel like it was placed to fill in the map and some places are not good bases, and this coming from someone who play the game on the EASIEST difficulty. Let face it Hush River Valley may not be the challenge it claims it will be, but at least it isn't a flat empty plain as its center piece. 

Transfer Pass is okay hub zone for the regions but if feels underwhelming. I get it supposed to be a pit stop area before moving towards the other regions, but it does not scream major area in the Far Territory lore. It has a station, and a small coal loading plant but that it. The marked locations all sound fine until Conductor's Dropoff, why was that added? It's a unless location, that does not show up on the map, and it a bit of poor taste what it is implying. The coal staging area feels small for any of the mining operations base game or dlc. 

Zone of Contamination is a large map with a full underground section and many above ground areas to explore my only problem is the placement of the gas and risk reward. The map is a fresh air to the normal game mechanics and the sense of apocalyptic area or awakening something you should not have found plays heavy when moving in the mine or connected buildings, the area has many locations to explore, and many are connected to each other. My only gripe with this map is the placement of the gas and lack lusted rewards when exploring those areas. However, as a person who played Fallout, I did not get that feel from that map.

Sundered Pass is a large map that feels to empty for its size. The map is a potential risk reward area, but it really screams be prepared for desolation and lack of landmarks. The Weather Station, at first seem to be a huge reward when scaling that rope but when you get there, it really a letdown. Nothing really up there than a few items and depending on when you play, all the food is either ruin or spoil. The mountain road is a pain in a few areas to scale and bag area rope climbs and crumbling platforms feels nice to transverse but nothing more than a hard road for a fetch quest. The valley portion is not bad and the only cottage in the area is in a good spot, but nothing really makes you go down there. The empty upper valley area with the road is completely useless, from the back area to the road, there are two small open world cabins which are nice to explore, an abandoned unmarked settlement with a buried accessible cabin only enterable by a window, and a basement only found after completing the dlc story line. 

Story was enjoyable to follow along, yes, it's incessance is a glorified fetch quest across the game to listen to someone ramble about something that happen way before the base game or even the Collapse, but many games have that problem it just some games do it better of hiding the fact. The transmitter repair part of the story was a bit of hassle, especially if you did not find a battery but it feels rewarding when it's time to find the bunkers which took us across the base game to find. Each bunker felt unique from each other, and it started to hook me in with story it told with each one I found. The mine is where the story place into a tragedy, but also set up the next part of the story, especially after laying the Chief to rest at the waterfall. Finding the machine and the speech really hypes up the next part. The mountain pass part of the story is interesting with spying and the chase, but it really not conveyed well. The main problem is the same problem with Sundered Pass, it feels empty. This part of the story seems to drop the ball after the mine, and it feels incomplete. The finding out that the bunker from the first tale has more to offer was a unique twist but I feel it should have stayed in Sundered Pass as even though the bunker quest took across the game, it loops back to FA. The mine tale stayed in ZoC but why we needed to go back to FA after all the climbing really confused me. 

Weapons/Cooking/Variants, I merge them together because all have the same point, they should have been added to the base game. It really is annoying that these mechanics are in the DLC. Each gives not only more variety but flesh out the base game. 

Cougar, here is my statement on that, NOOO. I am not playing with it and I am not going to argue about it. 

Opinion of DLC over Wintermute, many are pissed that hinterland are wasting their time on the Far Territory than finishing the story mode, my answer is why finish an unwanted mode to begin with. Wintermute was unpopular when it came out, it recently became better, but I see really not much fanfare for. I am only here for the new regions; I am not here for the mode. The plan of unlinking Wintermute and Survival from each other was good decision and making Wintermute its own dlc like should have been as an optional addition like Far Territory. Also complaining about and making a scene over it is not making it go faster and did they say in a previous post it comes out late 2024/ early 2025. Yes, hinterland should have finish Wintermute before going down the Far Territory route but here is the bright side of it, they could be using this as a test or to see what they are capable of before finally giving out THE FINAL CHAPTER of Wintermute. My opinion is different from others, and I was not really here in the early days, I also respect others opinion but creating hate mobs over what is basically a mode than many don't play is not a great use of energy.