This game is so good! Took my sweet time getting to Meridian, but it's definitely been worth it after doing several of the side quest from there. I love how amazing and full of depth that a lot of the side missions have. Aloy's story really does feel like a small part of this bigger world, which is something a lot of open word games fail at in my opinion. I actually care about the side quest, the stories, and the characters. I've once again put off the main quest to do other stuff, not to level up or be a completionist, but because I am actually interested in these people and their stories. That rarely happens to me in open world games, or at least to this degree.
I'm still having so much fun with the combat as well, which is another thing that can wear out it's welcome in open world games sometimes. Actually, I find myself enjoying the combat more and more as I go through the game. I've gotten into some really tough fights, and they are so satisfying when you get through them. Being able to override more of the robots has become one of my favorite things to do. I love watching them fight and it definitely helps out to have a few on my side going up against the harder robots. Having two of the more difficult robots fight each other is really cool to watch as well. I was in a huge fight with four sawtooths and some longlegs and after getting a sawtooth on my side, we tore the rest of them up and it was such a blast to do. I really can't say enough good things about this game, I'm just blown away by it and I enjoying it so much.