Since you haven't gotten a proper response I'll bite: Yes, it is a crafting survival game. Your progress is marked through the entire game by a helpful raven that will provide tips on how to proceed, but for the most part the game is extremely easy to follow. You start with basic crafting recipes, and move from wood to flint to bronze and so on. The progression is unique in the fact that it requires travel. You'll move from the starter area, to the dark forest, and so on. The worlds are randomly generated so you get a pretty unique experience every time. I've done 4 playthroughs and have never struggled or become frustrated due to being unable to travel to get to the next area. If you were to have issue there's a bounty of info in the wiki, just be careful of spoilers.

Honestly this is one of those games I will def rebuy for friends because the game was worth $30 when it came out, and now I feel is worth 60. There is a ton of content to enjoy, and they've legitimately kept a pretty good pace at development until the last 2 biomes, but obviously that's of no consequence to you as you'll get everything all at once.

My one and only gripe is that the further bosses cannot be soloed easily at all. They're meant for 2+ people. Now, this isn't necessarily a game over as there are hardcore ways of doing it, but it will be slow, require cheesing, and in my opinion is an absolute slog. To remediate THAT though you could also opt for a console command if things get too overwhelming.

I hope you give it a chance. It's a great experience, and of course who doesn't want to run around as a badass Viking?

I had a lot of fun with it at first, but later on the game has serious balance issues for singleplayer. The bosses have way too much health and you just run around in a circle and shoot them for an hour. If you're playing with friends the bosses are much easier and quicker to defeat. Since I usually play singleplayer, I just use cheats to kill the boss after I get bored of fighting them for so long.

It is really good until you get to the ashlands, then it suddenly sucks.

Haven’t played since release, but it is indeed a crafting / survival game.

There is/was a Raven who provides tutorial to get your bearings.

There are quests, but not in the same manner as a big open world RPG / there is no formal quest log.

There are 7 bosses that you’re working your way through each material age to be anle to fight. Advancement largely involves finding and talking to the right NPCs in order to learn how to proceed.

It’s really quite fun, game became a problem for my partner and I as we kept leaving work early to go play and then staying up far too late playing every night. We ate a lot of freezer dinners those first few weeks.