what makes it slow paced is its progression. It tries to make things a lot more realistic. it makes crafting in-depth by having you actually do things like pottery, stone knapping, smithing etc by manipulating voxels to simulate the actual work instead of just putting stuff in a crafting menu or having some gimmiky crafting mechanic that just tires you. It makes doing stuff hard but also rewarding.

also the game has working seasons and food spoilage so you must preserve your food for winter and keep it in an appropriate environment (a cellar) to fave the food last through winter. Animals must be tamed over multiple generations. To get metals you have to either find some surface copper but to get anything fancier you must prospect the lands sometimes quite far away to find an area that might have the metal you're looking for and then you must make exploratory mines to find the vein but once you do, you get a huge amount.