This is a nice sentiment, but it falls apart when you realize that a lot of the exploration is procedurally generated POI that eventually copies not just assets, but layouts and granular details. That tends to detract from a sense of wonder and mystery.
Which is fine, if they would just embrace that instead of trying to change how people perceive their work.
That’s exactly it-- The game is what it is and will be alot of fun for many people. They’ll have nailed some stuff and missed the mark elsewhere…
But all the spinning shortcomings as design decisions is off-putting. Like if a restaurant is taking a long time to make my food, just say “it’ll be a few extra minutes…” Not “Actually the anticipation of waiting a little longer will enhance your enjoyment, so you’re welcome.”
That’s not a review bomb, you guys aren’t victims. That’s gamers telling you to fuck off with lies, under delivering, treating your employees like shit, micro transactions and battle passes
A friendly reminder that the creators in the past have asked those interested in the game to pirate it instead, though of course I do not endorse such activities.
What’s an enormous brain he has, it’s amazing that it fits in his itty bitty head.
So living in the UK which has free healthcare I can tell everybody that it’s super easy to do this.
Obviously I don’t have a job so I can’t afford food, so I just starve myself until I nearly die, and then the NHS turn up and put me in one of those pokeball rehabilitation things and I’m good to go.
My Helldivers gripe is that the war bonds cost too much for the casual player. 1000 super credits takes a while to gather, and even grind. Paying actual money for them is about $25aud per war bond. I think there’s eight war bonds now? That’s a full day’s income, and you still need to collect medals to unlock the contents of the warbond.
Edit: You all don’t need to explain this to me, I’m aware of the options for getting super credits. None of that changes how I feel about the game and that I’m losing interest because of it.
I’m definitely experiencing FOMO with the warbonds I don’t have. I don’t have the time to play/grind or the inclination to pay for them, so I am missing out. There’s three warbonds that I don’t have and sure I’ll eventually get them maybe but right now I’m missing out. Being able to unlock things is a big part of a game to me. I’m not dedicated enough to HD2 to skip the other games I want to play in order to get the unlocks. The whole process is lowering my interest in the game. I paid for it, I want to use the new toys that get released with it. If I were to buy it today, I’d be so far behind I’d feel short-changed in what I got access to.
Have to disagree. The war bonds have been some of the easiest to pay with in game currency compared to games like cod where their cod points feel next to worthless.
If you are netting very few credits per hell dive, you may be playing with those that don’t need them or playing bots, or a newly released content. Farming on level 1 will often get you with like minded folk, especially before a war bonds release. Farming is quick when you realize you don’t have to extract, just abort to ship.
Here the thing, if you only play 1-2 hours a week you barely have enough time to get a good load out figured out. Why don’t you just enjoy the game as is, when you have 40 hours in the game you should have unlocked a battle pass. It’s how games are monetized now. Enjoy the content available to you or fork up the cash. Welcome to 2025 we all hate it here.
If you play 1-2 hours a week you probably haven’t even unlocked the free stuff yet, or got meaningful upgrades. The new guns are not that great. I use the same shotgun from day 1. Same OG kit. The game plays fine without the BPs. The game gives you free access to BP. The core game itself is very fun to play and the rewards come pretty naturally.How is this an issue?
If you don’t have the time to read a book,watch a movie or play a game you should not start it.
I’m over 50, like you only have a few hours, i have a tremendous backlog of games i just have to play and a family to provide for. (mechwarrior clans is the first one which comes to mind but i have dozens)
But i came back for this event. You miss nothing. Every weapon you can “buy” does not really alter the game or changes anything. The standard liberator is still one of the very best primaries.
Ignoring the part about the super credits and fomo stuff, the money confuses me. Is regional pricing so different that you’re paying an additional $10 AUD compared to US and EU pricing? Additionally, $25 AUD as a full day’s income? Even a low hour, part time job earns way more than that. I feel like your situation might not be financially compatible with buying things like that, I’d cheat or pirate if it’s that important to you. $10 USD is not much for DLC, and while I strongly dislike purchasable gameplay mechanics in games, it’s supporting the continued development and it isn’t egregious. $10 is a burger, or a coffee, and I’m saying this as someone well below the poverty line.
They meant buying all eight, which is funky to me since a day’s income for me is more like $120 CAD. edit: but also an extra ten bucks is zero surprise, we already have that issue in cad for exchange rates and aus likes to put extra charges on video games tho i dunno about dlcs.
I’m hoping after we beat back the squids the devs give us another free warbond. That should hopefully bridge the gap for new or players who cannot spend money on the game.
Coming from a long time fan of Bethesda RPGs They have gotten way too comfortable relying on radiant quests and proc gen content. Those aren’t inherently bad, but the way they were implemented in Starfield was. What’s so fun about landing on a planet that appears the same as another a few light years away and seeing the same fucking cryogenics lab with the same layout, items, lore logs, and enemy placement? Chasing the same bounties for a paltry sum of credits (not that you’ll need them it’s easy to break the economy) or legendary loot that you’ll likely just sell (for credits you won’t use)? There are cool things like ship building that could be further fleshed out but so much of the game ended up undercooked and uninspired (space travel with your ship was a glorified screensaver in a game about space traversal for Christ’s sake).
Yes, the second I realized they were actually doing that with literally copy pasted areas and notes and characters it killed the game for me. I can be reasonable for a dungeon having the same layout but not written content and characters. It invalidates the entire experience.
Your take makes me mad. Not because you are wrong or anything, but because you are entirely right and I don’t want you to be lol! I wanted this game to be cool so badly.
I think if Starfield had come out 10 years ago it would have wowed people and been a classic. But now it just seems dated when you have other games doing RPG better (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Baldurs Gate 3) and open world space better (No Mans Sky).
Starfield doesnt do RPG as good as those games, nor does it do open world space as well as No Mans Sky. I’ve heard it described as being as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle, and that doesnt seem far off to me.
I really hope Bethesda have paid attention and dont make the same kind of mistakes with Elder Scrolls VI. Big and empty is not the way to go.
Maybe it would have been better received 10 years ago but I don’t know about being beloved like the elder scrolls or fallout games. 10 years ago was Fallout 4 but even in Skyrim era, it’d be great graphics but without the wonderful whimsy
Starfield is too normal. Bethesda games excel when they take the weirdness of the world seriously. Starfield is too serious conceptually. Elder Scrolls, just the concept of everything being canon because of dragon breaks and other weird aedra/daedra/chim/godhead shenanigans lets writers write wild while it still fitting in as serious in universe
They’ve managed to do that well enough with Fallout even though it’s supposed to be alternate reality world. Still wacky even if not as lore interesting as TES
Starfield is too unimaginative of a sci-fi universe so far. It’s too normal and because of that, they can’t write whacky in a way that people buy into and love. So then they end up judging the game by its systems and mechanics and technical merit way more than they do elder scrolls games or fallout.
Also base/ship building is given too much focus for a single player game. These games aren’t pretty enough to be a single player game that gets beloved for base building like Animal Crossing
Great point. I agree that people would likely forgive all of the technical and environmental shortcomings(loading screens and bland environments) if the game had even a slightly interesting story. Anything worth experiencing at all. Unfortunately it fails all 3 of those fronts.
The places where it excels (1st person gameplay compared to other B* games, ship building, and graphics imo) are not enough to make it a game worth experiencing.
It honestly should have had another 2 years in the oven to make the lore and universe more interesting. No way Bethesda wastes another 5-8 years on a sequel with the negative reception Starfield received.
Just based on Wikipedia, many commercial failure video games have a sequel made much later on, or have their IP used in a remake or reimagining. Psychonauts is the one I remember since I like the sequel.
The original psychonauts was a cult classic though that got great reviews.
Starfield is in the opposite boat, it doesnt seem to have been a commercial failure, but fan sentiment is really low with the starfield franchise to the point that the hype around a sequel would be nowhere near what it was for psychonauts 2… But this is all my assumption, difficult to find/trust empirical data on fan interest.
It honestly should have had another 2 years in the oven to make the lore and universe more interesting.
I don’t know, I don’t think it would have changed anything. They might have had an interesting quest or two more, but their writing philosophy of not keeping track of anything and working in isolation would not have made a decent, coherent lore in even 10 extra years, just more unconnected shit with extra tonal dissonance.
Silly example- why are there elevators and LOADING SCREENS in New Atlantis - if you have enough jetpack or just abuse TCL, you can walk around the entirety of New Atlantis, without a single loading screen.
But for some reason Bethesda decided it needed some loading screens for no good reason whatsoever.
My Bethesda rant goes something like this: “they think the ideal video game is when you can treat everything like action figures, make anything happen in any combination just to see it happen, bash em together, pull them apart, make them kiss, make them join every team and do every thing, do whatever you want, and then fuck off because it never meant anything”.
So what I really want is a game that gives me a sense of achievement, and with the vaguest possibility that I actually might finish it. And so it’d be really interesting to know how many games are actually finished, and how many games are just abandoned by what proportion of people.
It can be fun to go to an achievement/trophy tracker and compare the numbers for the awards for first and last story missions.
People understandably love to hate Oblivion and Fallout 3, but I feel the side quest writing had heart, like groups of devs got to go wild within their own little dungeons. Their exploitable mechanics were kinda endearing.
…And I didn’t get that from Starfield? I really tried to overlook the nostalgia factor, but all the writing felt… corporate. Gameplay, animation, Bethesda jank without any of the fun. I abandoned it early and tried to see what I was missing on YouTube, but still don’t “get” what people see in that game.
If you want a big walking sandbox in that vein, I feel like No Man’s Sky would scratch the itch far better, no?
Meanwhile, BG3 and KC2 completely floored me. So did Cyberpunk 2077, though I only experienced it patched up and modded. Heck, even ME Andromeda felt more compelling to me.
I got Cyberpunk in December and KCD2 in February. At this point I’m convinced I’ve spoiled the entire RPG genre for myself for the next decade. I can’t imagine playing 2 great games back to back like that again.
Oblivion is my favorite Elder Scrolls. I actually played it again recently and thought it held up pretty well. I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
Ordered merch from Bioware mid-November for an xmas present. It arrived Jan 4th; they shipped the wrong product.
Contacted them 3 seprate times through their ‘contact us’ page and got ignored for 3 weeks. It wasn’t until I filed a chargeback with my cc that they finally emailed me (4 days after submission).
I had asked for my money back in my various emails; but they didn’t respond to that at all and just shipped me a new package.
Still haven’t gotten that, so no idea if they actually shipped the right item this time. It’s not listed on their site anymore; so they likely don’t have inventory to ship.
We’ll see what’s in the box whenever it gets here.
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