I’m enjoying the absolute fuck out of this game - hundreds of hours already and no regrets. This game is a lot deeper than anyone gives it credit for, it’s fantastic, and I’m looking forward to more of it.
No Man’s Sky bores the hell out of me and yet I’m having so much fun exploring planets and raiding pirate bases and being surprised by handbuilt content in what I thought would be a procedurally generated dungeon. Not to mention the surprisingly deep side and faction quests. Oh and so many hours playing with the shipbuilder.
I’m sorry you’re not having fun guys. But maybe you should focus on things that are fun for you?
Agreed, at first I wasn’t excited about it but as the quests opened up I was in. I’m on the “new game+” right now and seeing what else I can mess up lol.
My quests tend to end in a lot of shooting innocents… I don’t know why that keeps happening. It can’t be anything I’m doing…
The only thing I said about NMS was that it bores me. The story is thin and nonsensical, characters are nonexistent. It’s a great sandbox with impressive technical merit, but that’s not enough to keep me engaged.
Outer Worlds is pretty good but it’s an Obsidian title, for better or worse. The game world is bleak and terrible and it’s not any better at the end. Their writing is good and their characters are fantastic, and I enjoyed my time with the game but once I was done with the story, I couldn’t find much reason to keep playing.
Starfield, on the other hand, is really big and really deep. There is a crap ton of hand-built content - seriously, hundreds of hours in and I’m still struggling to see it all. The four faction quests feel like separate games in themselves. Starship building is awesome. Outpost building is overwhelming and little pointless, but still fun if you like that kind of thing. Yes, there’s a bunch of planets with generated content, but it’s surprisingly varied. There’s a ton of variation in flora and fauna and even the generated dungeons. There’s a few times i went to an abandoned something or other expecting just some pirates or something and ended up with a huge cinematic fight and loads of what seems to be hand-built content. Best of all, you can play the game how you want.
Don’t like planet scanning? You don’t have to. Hate the UC or Freestar Collective, fine you don’t need to do theor quests. Hate the ship builder? There’s plenty you can buy. Hate outpost building? Great, you can ignore it. Want to ignore the main quest and go be a pirate for a while? Go for it. The Crimson Fleet even gives you a couple of companions you can use if you hate how goody goody the Constallation folks are. This game rewards roleplaying choices more than any other beth title I’ve ever played.
Also, no spoilers but the New Game + mode is legitimately innovative. The story actually continues through it in wierd and wonderful ways. This is a game I’ll easily still be playing for years.
But my only advice is that you have to give it some time. It has a slow start and it’ll take a few hours to really start to click. So if you don’t want a game you have to spend a lot of time on, Outer Worlds will be a quick romp.
Sadly I’ll never get to enjoy it, I’m not gonna buy an Xbox just to play it. Really really stupid that we’re still doing exclusive games in 2023. I’m a PlayStation user literally wanting to give Bethesda my money, but they don’t want it.
Of course they do, games are bloodline of a console and you think M$ gonna give a game made by it to a direct competitor? It’s like Apple allow other phone OEMs to use iOS
I think it’s dumb to deny themselves the fuckton of money that PlayStation users would have paid to buy the game, and that I would guarantee you that they didn’t sell even close to enough consoles to make up for it considering it’s a pretty shit game to begin with.
They could have recouped some of their money from it, but no- it’s a flop now.
Most of the “sale” of this game comes from xbox pass and that’s enough for M$. Xbox is already being outsold so giving Sony more advantage for a little recoup is stupid strategy.
As a PS person myself I don’t feel like we have the right to complain about exclusives! I’m pretty sure Sony has had way more than Xbox ever had and I am fine with it. In today’s market the only thing a console may have as an upper hand is an exclusive game. At least with Xbox games these days you immediately have the option to play on PC, which is what I do if I really want to play one, unlike Sony which has just started doing pc for exclusives but you are going to wait 1 or 2 years before it drops.
I like buying a PS every generation because I know it will have the best exclusives to play just like I have a switch because it’s the only place to play a Nintendo game. If they didn’t have those games why would anyone even bother buying a console at all? If they all shared the same games 100% it would be a coin flip to whatever platform you invest in at that point.
Since the starfield exclusivity thing started, this point has always stuck with me: PlayStation owners buy PlayStation because of the expectation that they will get the best exclusives (and even most other games first). It was so bizarre to see them so brazenly attack Xbox over making starfield exclusive. They couldn’t see that they were beneficiaries of these same tactics for so long that they just accepted it as “the way it is.” Logically, why would you ever buy an Xbox if PlayStation gets better exclusives and the other great games first? No one should be surprised when TES6 is Xbox/PC exclusive.
You can see how those two things are a little different though, right?
PlayStation buys smaller studios, usually that they have history with, and helps them to build games from the ground up - even new IP’s.
Microsoft bought a major studio that had a game near completion, a game that the studio fully intended on releasing on all platforms, and Microsoft exclusified it.
To be clear, I actually don’t like exclusives at all. But there’s still clearly a difference here, and I can understand where people are coming from when they criticize Microsoft and not Sony.
I don’t understand the difference honestly. Investment is investment. I think it’s stupid to do exclusives, but if one is going to build a walled garden then the other needs one too.
I’m PC only so I don’t give a fuck. I can emulate a Switch and eventually I’ll be able to emulate a PS5. If they want exclusives, they don’t want my money. If they stop building walled gardens then great.
I think it’s stupid to do exclusives, but if one is going to build a walled garden then the other needs one too.
I agree, but how you go about that is important imo. I’m on PC too, so let me use a better example that might hit closer to home.
Epic games. Their use of exclusives has garnered more hate then almost any other storefront in the pc space. But it’s not the exclusives in and of themselves - after all, people never cared when Fortnite didn’t come to Steam. Similarly, nobody lost their minds when The Sims was exclusive to Origin, or Assassins Creed to Uplay.
The difference between these games, as opposed to other Epic exclusives, is that these games were built by these companies from the ground up. Nobody cares if Fortnite is an Epic exclusive because Epic made that game - it’s their right to keep it to themselves. The same goes for the Sims with EA, and Assassins Creed with Ubisoft.
It’s only when Epic snatches nearly completed games that they had nothing to do with, that people get angry. So in this way, Microsoft is the Epic games of the console scene, while Sony is more akin to Ubisoft or something.
You can see how those two things are a little different though, right?
No, not really. Contrary to your point, Bethesda has worked quite closely with Xbox a number of times (especially back in the oblivion days) and Sony has never been interested in Bethesda’s ideas about games (support for Skyrim was abysmal on PlayStation and mods on PS3/4 were a joke).
Is MS a huge jerk for yanking starfield out of the hands of the majority of console gamers? Yeah totally, but Sony is also a huge jerk (and has been) for a long time when it comes to negotiating exclusivity deals, which they have been able to do because they are the number 1 console. It’s really not hard to extrapolate how much leverage Sony has over the industry when you see that they have sold 75% more consoles than xbox (35 vs 20 million units sold PS5/XS). I believe the previous gen was even worse. The outcry over this would have been much smaller if the roles were reversed, because it would have just been business as usual for every gamer.
And I’m not going to buy a Playstation just to play The Last of Us, Spiderman, Detroit: Become Human or any of the other games Sony refuses to sell Xbox users.
I’d love to play those games but Sony just doesn’t want my money.
Same. I’ve got thousands of hours in Skyrim. It’s my favourite game of all time. But I’m more into sci fi than fantasy generally and Starfield is shaping up to be everything I would’ve asked for. It’s taken over my life and I have no regrets. Bethesda smashed it again.
Those are handmade, and it’s honestly the issue. If the bases were procedural out of descrete hand made chunks, it’d be less repetitive. There seems to be about five bases for the procedurally placed content, and once you’ve done it once it gets dull. It’s not even like they made furnature procedural or anything like that to change up the looks. They could have at least made different doors locked procedurally so you have to take different routes each time.
It just wasn't that good. Not terrible, but very bland. I put 30 hours in but finally stopped when I realized I wasn't having fun, I was only chasing the idea of fun.
I don't even like DND and I thought BG3's first act put the entire story of Starfield to shame.
Now I'm playing through Phantom Liberty and loving the hell out if it.
I started liberty by accident trying to level up a bit. Figured i would take my leave and come back later only for the dlc to fail because the thing chrashed and person was not saved
Lol the same thing happened to me the first time I tried it.
I went to the assigned area, chatted with the quest NPC, then I wanted to just murder all the hostiles in the area, so I went to find a good sniping spot... and then the quest failed because I left the area. RIP that NPC, RIP Phantom Liberty.
I generally feel the same way about all Bethesda games. I’ll return after some DLC and Mods have been released.
There is some pretty cringe writing and stylistic choices this time around. Space cowboys and Freestar were conceptualized by a child and the PG pirate brigade are embarassing.
There are some bones for a pretty great empire building mod though. Can’t wait to see a sim-settlements type mod for Starfield.
The Ryujin quest line is exactly what I expected the corpo background to be like. It’s too bad the backgrounds/origins aren’t fleshed out enough beyond what is essentially the prologue of Cyberpunk.
They really turned Cyberpunk around it’s so fun. I played maybe an hour of it on launch and was like “what is this shit”, started playing with 2.0 and the story is cool, the characters are rad, the game is beautiful, combat is fun (enemies a bit too spongey for me but not awful, better combat than witcher 3).
I feel like I was so hyped for the Starfield release, but playing it wasn’t as exciting as I thought.
BG3 released and I wasn’t expecting it. But I’ve had such a blast with it that I can’t stop playing.
I want to come back to Starfield later when they have had time to get mod support goin and whatnot. but for now, I have other titles to play to keep me happy.
Glad you understand. It’s great when people on the Internet understand that their backlash against a very popular thing doesn’t matter because the popular thing is still beloved by millions
It’s just a clunky reskin of fo4 with no depth. I’ve put about 50 hrs in at this point & will probably continue for a bit because it’s a comforting loot cycle that pleases my lizard brain. It really lacks the feeling exploration possibilities that Skyrim & fallout worlds have. The bugs, UI, bland emptiness, and shit tier maps are why I wouldn’t recommend…but is a decent time kill if you’ve enjoyed their previous games
Same, I pirated it to give it a try, put in a few dozen hours to make sure I'm not missing anything but left pretty disappointed tbh. It has a strong interesting opening but the more you try to get into the nitty gritty details, the more shallow and flawed the game becomes until you're just doing chores for the sake of it. Some people find enjoyment in these chores but it ain't me, maybe in a few years it becomes better. I got phantom liberty instead and am having a blast there instead
When I say opening / beginning I don't mean the 20 minutes of prologue, I mean the first ~5 hours of game showing new mechanics and worlds to you, making the illusion that there's lot of unique fun content to do. Eventually it all started to look like same formulaic shallow crap to me and the game didn't live up to that initial impression of freedom, exploration and progression, it's half baked in everything.
The game didn't open up for me until about 8-10 hours in and felt really weird and restricted during that time. No idea what impression of freedom, exploration and progression you're talking about here because the beginning does not give you anything like that at all with how it makes you follow the very boring main quest.
Same happened to me, I pirated it to try it out and after an hour or two I got bored and called it quits. I returned to it once more but after maybe 5 hours I just uninstalled it.
I honestly don’t get it. It’s Bethesda. We know them. We know what Bethesda does. Did people honestly expect something different? Did they delusion themselves into thinking it was going to be different?
The game is exactly as i expected it to be. And I think it great.
Once I changed my mindset to “this map of the solar system is really just like a flat plane in Fallout New Vegas, except with extra steps” then I was able to enjoy it more. I think games like No Mans Sky spoiled people in terms of an engaging space travel mechanic, even though Bethesda was honest from the beginning about there not being transitions into/out of planet atmospheres.
The opening story about joining Constellation was pretty weak though.
Yeah I figured it was going to be a Bethesda game, and those usually frustrate me. I didn’t buy it. Maybe in a couple years when the Ultimate Edition is on sale I’ll try it.
I’m over 100 hours into it and have enjoyed every minute. I had to use mods though to make some aspects manageable tho. Like the UI and some bat files to increase merchants money. Little personal tweaks. Well… A lot of personal tweaks lol
I didn’t expect the game to be the best thing since sliced bread. I expected it to be a Bethesda game in space. That’s exactly what I got and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
Personally I think Bethesdas approach to their game design is EXTREMELY dated and frustrating. Also they made Fallout 76, one of the most dog shit games I ever played.
They need some new talent making decisions on their games to make them more modern. The problems they have in their games should be inexcusable from a “AAA” studio in 2023.
They’re still using the same engine they’ve used since Morrowind. That’s a big reason their games feel dated. As for Starfield itself it tries to do a lot of things but it doesn’t do anything perfect. Everything it does there are other games that do better.
Yep. I don’t play it either, but it looks great. UE5 can look amazing, but it’s built up from the engine they made for UT in '99. People don’t understand engines.
Apparently you’re not super mad about Skyrim having bugs in 2012 because that was just so unforgivable I’m still mad about it /s
Sadly while I’m sarcastic here this is literally the truth for a lot of people. PS I played Skyrim like 200 hours and saw irritating bugs maybe like 3 times. It didn’t really bother or deter me from playing in any way.
The haters of Bethesda games clearly have never written code. What they are doing in these games is honestly mind-blowing that it could be done so well that the games are actually playable
As a programmer, it isn’t mind blowing. Some of its neat, but pretty much all of it I’ve seen before at least as pieces. It’s also doing a lot worse and less than I’ve seen before too. Bethesda games are not known for their technical capabilities though, so I’m not too bothered by any of the technical stuff. A lot of the design is what bothers me. There’s so much friction for the player that you (or at least me) can never get immersed.
I have played every Bethesda game since Morrowind. Sure it’s a Bethesda game. That’s come in many forms though, and they will say they’ve learned lessons but continue to repeat them. For example, they said they learned their lesson with the “yes, no, sarcastic yes, more information” dialogue wheel. In Starfield it’s technically gone, but dialogue is functionally identical. No one complained because it was on a wheel, it’s because it didn’t provide options.
Bethesda has gone through many forms, so “a Bethesda game” means different things to different people. Starfield they advertised as a return to form (as in, back to the classic style of actually a role playing game), yet it’s probably the game with the fewest options for role play. If you are young (started with Skyrim and later), then I can see not having the experience to know better. For those who do remember them and saw all the marketing of them acting like they cared about that style, it falls flat. It doesn’t help it released after the best RPG of the past decade or more probably, but it comes short of my desires (but not expectations) regardless.
I’d argue that Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best RPG in at least 20 years. It’s been so long since we’ve had an RPG on its level that I had almost forgotten what it felt like. It makes me feel like the original Fallout games (from Black Isle Studios, not Bethesda) made me feel back in the day.
Yeah, it’s quite possibly the best ever. It takes what made classic CRPGs great but brings it into the modern era with everything we’ve learned. Compared to when it came out, it’s probably not the greatest, but comparing them all to each other directly it quite possibly is.
It’s been out longer and has improved over time. I’d wait until Starfield has been out for about the same length of time, see if things even out or continue to trend down.
What needs improvement in Starfield, though, isn’t likely to actually be improved. Can’t even think of a time where a game’s story was re-written over time to be better.
I really really hope that the expectation vs reality of Starfield is the final straw that makes people pause the next time a game markets itself as having an scope and quality that is absurdly beyond anything else on the market.
We have seen this story time and time again and the claims never, ever, materialize on launch. Maybe they get closer to the initial scope over the next few years if they can afford continued development and support, but that's exactly the point, that you need way more man hours and budget than what is acceptable in a realistic development cycle to reach that kind of scope while maintaining overall quality of the game.
The next time that a game claims to have absurd size or whatever million planets or that you can be anything you want or whatever other immense thing like that, ask yourself what parts of the game have taken a significant backseat to achieve that. Because we are well past the point of the industry having proven that the limitations for the scope of a game are not technical anymore, but budgetary. And there's only so much that can be done in 8 years.
Honestly, seeing this AAA game play like a shit-tier shovelware game on my pretty fucking robust Linux gaming PC makes me kinda fine with Star Citizen taking its sweet time now.
LOL star citizen is taking its time to vacuum up money, not develop a good game. They haven’t even decided on a flight model. In a flight game. After a decade.
Its more than that. Its bland. Fucking Skyrim had more going for it than neon. Tavern wenches shows more skin than Neon Workers. People actually bleed in skyrim. Drugs even, I think skooma has better writing tham Aurora.
Okay, but just because they’re not titillating the desires of teenage boys doesn’t mean they “sold out” or “got more corporate”. They’ve been pretty consistent about presenting their creative vision for the game since the beginning.
Also, you’re premise is wrong. I just shot the hell out of someone iin the game and there were absolutely blood splatters all over the wall and floor. Have you played the game, or are you meming influencers?
That said, I would never consider Beth games to be particularly risque. They’ve always faded out sex scenes. Oblivion and Skyrim aren’t particularly bloody games. Fallout’s bloodiness is more in line with the IP and considerably tame compared to Obsidian’s games.
There is blood splatter, but it looks silly, when you loot things off of dead bodies they still have the same suit/helmet/whatever left on their bodies you supposedly just looted.
I’ve put over a hundred hours into the game, I’m not a teenager, and the game is definitely more tame/sterile/corporate in many aspects compared to previous games. Remember bloody mess in Fallout? Or the fact you can goo enemies with laser weapons? Yes fallout under beth is definitely more tame even then compared to Fallout 1 and 2 but still Starfield has none of that.
There’s dibellla in Elder Scrolls, and cannibalism, and skeletons (im mot talking about like necromancer skeletons, literally bones for corpses of prior-dead, in Starfield there are corpses but it’s always the “frozen over” look, even on warm planets with atmosphere where decomposition should definitely have taken place instead)
The blood looks way better than vanilla Skyrim did…
Also you’ve gone from calling the game “corporate” to “tame/sterile” which seems to be an admission that you now understand this was a purposeful and consistent creative choice towards building a “positive sci-fi” world ala Star Trek. A choice they were pretty clear to market and a choice you disagree with. That’s fine. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, it just means you weren’t paying attention and bamboozled yourself into thinking this game was ever designed for your sensibilities. Not every game made by a studio will be the same - especially when it’s a new IP. Hell, Tango made Evil Within and Ghostwire then turned around and built Hi-FI Rush.
Oh well. But since it’s a Beth game, you can be rest assured that there will be a ton of mods to help your realize your dream of watching people die and decompose in the most realistic way possible. Heck, there are probably already a bunch that do.
I disagree they said it was Star Trek like at all, this is most definitely not Star Trek utopia the game, you’ve got Neon as a shining example of the corruption and corporate espionage aspects (not that it’s a bad thing at all, just not in line with classic trek ideals)
I know newer trek has moved away from the utopia aspects a lot, partially why I don’t enjoy them nearly as much.
I do think (like with most beth games) the game itself is a great framework for modders to really make the game their own.
Oh, also, I never said it was a bad game, I just noticed they sanitized it a lot compared to what I was expecting, it was noticable to me as some who who has thousands of hours in prior beth games, modded and unmodded.
Wait, so first you were complaining it’s not dark enough and now you’re complaining it’s too dark and not utopian enough? Bro…
Also, I said they were trying to capture the tone of a positive sci-fi story like Star Trek, not create star trek fan fiction. The game world shows significant progress towards solving various social, equality, and health issues, but we haven’t quite gotten rid of money, and as such, greed. For this reason, we still have economic disparity, corporate evil, pirates that do evil things for money, and a monopoly banking system that uses it’s power to use an abuse it’s opponents.
Furthermore, there’s plenty of people who have a problem with an overbearing singular government and want to do things their way - thus why the freestar collective and crimson fleet exist.
Its earth + 1, better, but still flawed. Which is honestly, a lot more realistic than star trek ever seemed to be. Perhaps they wanted to show a “missing link” between current humanity and star trek humanity. There’s progress, but there’s still work to do. Which, given the lack of aliens, its probably a good move to make sure humanity still manufactures drama.
Regardless, the theme and tone of the game can be best described as “hopeful and wide-eyed optimism”, which is very different from the distopian unease of Fallout and sweeping fantasy epic of Skyrim and, starfield was very clearly marketed as such from day one.
No no no, I’m saying your claim that they said it’s supposed to be like Star Trek (which I never saw mentioned at all) doesn’t make sense.
Though I agree with your latter paragraphs 👍
I’ll add, I’m not a hater and have absolutely defended the game in many aspects (check my post history if you’d like), I do think there are valid criticisms and odd choices though. I’m at 177 hours with it, played through all the side quests I could find and started ng+, made it most of the way through again but now I’m already at the point of, “eh, theres not a whole lot left to do but rehash what I’ve already done for slightly better rewards”
I have high hopes for the mod community as they have been able to consistently breath life and add addition QoL fixes to Bethesda games for years, and I am massively appreciative of them giving me more reasons to jump back into some of my favorite games :)
They never said “star trek in space” because, first of all, that’s redundant, and second of all, would invite lawsuits. I’m not even necessarily saying that they’re copying star trek in any way.
I’m using Star Trek as an illustration of the positive sci-fi genre and the tone they were putting out in their marketing. No, its not literally star trek - but unlike their other titles that are either distopian sci-fi or a semi-dark epic fantasy, this one has a more positive tone - there’s a sense of hope and compassion that even persists in more distopian areas like the well, cydonia, ryujin, and ebbside. And furthermore, the main story’s focus on the excitement and wonder of exploration, and traversing the unknown, is a love note for Star Trek and all the sci-fi novels strewn about the environment.
And though this clarification is quite separated from it’s context now, I only brought this up to say that this game is far more hopeful and optimistic than their previous games and I feel like their marketing illustrated it quite well. And the reason it matters is beacuse the lack of the “darkness” and “grittiness” you are looking for can be explained by this difference in tone.
Honestly, I'm amazed by the hatedom for Starfield. It's ... a Bethesda game (and it's actually better at being a Bethesda game than Fo4). I'm not sure what people seem to have expected?
More progress than “better at being a Bethesda game than Fo4”.
I was a die hard Bethesda fan prior to 76 and they need to do better than par to earn my favor back. They scorned me and my wallet isn’t going to forget that any time soon.
Maybe but why should I consider playing anything they have anymore? They ripped me off. I never got my canvas bag with my pre order and the whiskey was a over priced plastic shell with mediocre whiskey in it.
The whiskey wasn’t part of the deal but the pre order was and I want what I paid for damn it. There is no excuses for their shitty business practices.
Nothing. I didn’t buy it nor review bomb it. I watched the gameplay and scoffed at how yet again we were being spoon fed more mediocre Bethesda content.
The thing is, I want to love them. I used to be obsessed with the lore from Fallout and I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I spent playing ESO. It sucks but if I keep giving them my money I’m just basically saying “it’s okay you screwed me over”. If they really want my money again they have to shape up both their buggy software and their business practices.
Yup, I’m right there with you. For me it started with their paid modding nonsense with Valve. They apologized, I forgave them, and then they literally did it again with the Creation Club. Totally betrayed our trust and clearly only did it because they were so desperate to monetize their modding scene in any capacity that they were fine with going back on their word.
Fallout 76, along with the preorder BS, the atomic shop, and their overpriced subscription service, all added to my growing distrust in Bethesda. And tbh even Fallout 4 really let me down and made me nervous about future games.
All that being said, I still really wanted to like Starfield. Unfortunately I just didn’t.
My hot take on Bethesda is, they simply don’t do game design. They take their previous game, slap whatever is the fashionable mechanic of the day on top, and just roll with the punches until it sorta kinda works.
They haven’t done any real game design probably since Morrowind. Since then they’ve added weapon armor crafting in skyrim, base building and weapon customization in fallout 4, and now in starfield they’re adding procedural planets, resource mining, Ship building… the game is collapsing under sheer feature count.
The problem for me is, it’s not enhancing the core Bethesda experience; they are rather diluting it. All this extra crap just distracts from the actual thing I want from a Bethesda game, which is a big open designed world filled with interesting locations, characters and quests that you’re free to discover as you like. The procedural content especially is, like, antithetical to the formula.
The procedural content especially is, like, antithetical to the formula.
Agreed; I don't even understand why procedural generation is popular anymore. It was novel in its first uses, but where devs see convenient shortcuts and marketers see "infinite replayability," I see "this shit is all going to feel identical after like 5 tries tops."
Oh look, it's the skybox from 3 planets ago with the ruin from 2 planets ago and the enemy selection from 5 planets ago. And I think this might be a new shade of blue in the grass, or is that just the skybox casting a weird hue over everything?
I believe it amplifies some of the worst aspects of their games. If I think back to what I liked about Oblivion, it was a world that felt lived in. Objects had purpose, characters had homes, content was discovered. It relied a lot on procedural content, but it felt like there was a strong level of cohesion between the procedural elements and mechanics. The disparate aspects of the game fed into one another. With Starfield, you get this huge increase in scope, but each individual part feels kind of empty and boring and clunky and slow.
Here’s a contrasting example:
In Oblivion, imagine if you wanted to steal something from a vendor. You have to wait for night, you have to pick the lock, items have actual value, you have to stealth in case they catch you, you know if they can see you, there are other things to do in the city in the meantime, and during all this you might find something unexpected along the way that completely tangents you off into a different direction. All these elements come together to create interesting player stories, and none if it needs to be tied to any guided narrative.
In Starfield, all of these elements fall apart. The scope of the game means you’re constantly fast travelling from location to location. No single location has too much going on, and half the time what is there is sending you back out to space anyway, so you never really feel much connection to any physical place. The relative value of items is totally skewed because of the scale of ship related expenses compared to anything else, so what’s the value of stealing a cool rock? It’s also very difficult to tell relative weapon/item quality at a glance. I know that a steel sword is better than an iron sword; I have no clue why a Reflective Terrablazer is better than a Targeted Blurgun - and the default weapons usually don’t matter anyway because I would much rather have cool modifiers. The stealth and lockpick mechanics are both behind skill tree unlocks, so you’re far less likely to engage with those mechanics in the first place. The shops are all open 24/7 (I think? honestly don’t even know) so the day/night cycle seems irrelevant, so sneaking in to the shop is a no go, and I feel pretty limited in lockpicks and don’t really know where to reliably buy than a few at a time. And you never, ever, find anything surprising or compelling, and if you did it would be reduced to a quest checkbox.
So to summarize: I don’t know who I’m stealing from, I don’t know why I would care to steal anything, it’s not obvious how stealthy anyway I am unless I skill into it, it’s not worth using my lockpicks, I’ll never be caught, and their door is always open. There’s zero motivation to actually engage with the world in a way that makes it feel alive. But it’s critical to note: all those systems are still there! You can do all this stuff in the game! But because of how things are structured, even though the game on a fundamental level is extremely similar, the way you interact with it is totally removed from the kind of emergent fun that makes exploring those worlds so fun. It’s just a smooth path of monotony to the next thing. The systems often amount to less than the sum of their parts.
Now I’ll admit, some of this could be on me. Maybe I’ve changed. It’s possible. But man, I tried. Hey, what’s that cool cave on this planet? I’ll go check it out! Oh uhh, it’s nothing? There’s… a dead crab and a box with some old glue? Okay I guess?
I think vendors being open 24/7 was a quality of life choice. Different planets work on different time-scales. In skyrim, you fast travel from Riverwood to Whiterun, and it only takes a few in-game hours. You leave Riverwood at day and likely load into Whiterun at day as well, so shops and quest-givers are more likely to be up and open.
In Starfield, the day/night cycle and the distances are so different and vast that every time you jumped anywhere it would be a 50/50 on it being night and you having to find a bed or chair to wait or not. I think that would get tedious, so the shoddy solution is that everything is open 24/7.
Oh you’re definitely correct. But I think many decisions were made in this way, and it compromises the core experience. There’s all these friction points between the different systems that make the experience feel disjointed. They are each fine in isolation, but they don’t talk to each other very well, in my opinion.
Even Skyrim arguably suffered a little from problem of locations not mattering, but at least you needed to first visit the place to unlock it as a fast travel point, which meant you needed to travel there on foot, which meant exploring the world, which requires other design work that supports that experience. But for Starfield of course, these are planets so you can just fly there. It makes sense for what the game is, but it doesn’t make for a compelling experience. See that mountain? You can go to your map and fast travel there.*
*I know it doesn’t work that way once you land on a planet, but you know what I mean
It doesn’t have the same impact from the world design or story telling. It’s generic. It’s boring. It’s bland. The game play is exactly the same, but the motivation to give a shit about anything is gone because nothing about the world is very interesting aside from the aesthetics.
Shit, man, even the books in the game are just excerpts from real books. Like… humans haven’t written anything new in the 200 something years since Earth’s exodus? Cmon.
I don’t think it’s a bad game at all. But the Bethesda formula is definitely showing its age and the muted tone and presentation of Starfield, compared to Elder Scrolls and Fallout, accentuates this. I have like a dozen other games vying for my attention and a huge backlog of other titles, and I’ve been struggling to find motivation to play Starfield as a result. If I’d paid CDN$90 for the privilege I’d probably feel more strongly about it either way.
I did actually enjoy starfield (it wasn’t amazing or anything, but I don’t regret my purchase), but I have to say, I hate this argument.
For one thing, being a Bethesda game doesn’t just immediately grant a pass for being bad in all the ways Bethesda games are generally always bad (bugs, bad facial animations, outdated mechanics, etc). Each game should be judged for how good of a game it is, not how good a " Bethesda game" it is.
Secondly, and more importantly, the fact is that this time around is especially bad simply because all the typical “Bethesda” issues are just starting to become more and more egregious as time goes on. The fact is that if you handed me this game and told me that it was a heavily modded copy of FO4 I’d 100% believe you. Nothing in this game really shows a meaningful step forward either in tech or gameplay from what we’ve seen before. The only real “new” thing is ship to ship combat, which is frankly very lackluster.
As for what people expected? Better. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it. They expected it to feel less clunky than FO4, they expected space travel mechanics that weren’t just glorified fast travel menus, and new gameplay that doesn’t just feel like the same shit Bethesda has been doing since Morrowind.
That being said, the worldbuilding is phenomenal, as is typical of Bethesda, and at least for me, that’s where most of the fun came in, just wandering around and doing side quests to explore more of the world. But once you’ve more or less explored the world, there’s not much left to draw you in. The gameplay itself certainly hasn’t been fun enough to make me seriously consider a newgame+ any time soon.
Their biggest, most consistent fault isn’t bugs orjank, it’s the stale as fuck writing. They desperately need the hand the reigns to some new talent in that area.
It feels like they’ve been incapable of writing a compelling narrative with interesting characters for decades now.
Skyrim had some very compelling narratives, however it has the prior games lore buildup to build off of
I feel like Starfield is a lot more “matter of fact” about it, wherein things are told to you moreso rather then needing to go out and “find” the lore.
I also don’t know of any mysteries in the Starfield world that aren’t just… Explainable
For example, terrormorphs or starborn, the game just tells you the details with hardly any effort needed to uncover the info yourself.
Maybe I’m just way to into the FromSoft narrative style at this point where there’s tons of deep lore but they don’t just hand it to you on a platter, makes it more fun to theorize and dig
I got it for “free” with my new cpu purchase. I played about 5 hours. It was a total slog. Put it down and have zero regrets. Bethesda has been making some very boring games lately imo.
Skyrim was one of my favorite games for several years.
I tried watching my husband play Starfield but I kept zoning out, using my phone, or getting up to do something else. I’d rather do laundry. Starfield is boring A.F to watch, and I have zero interest in playing it
Fair point on Skyrim being more fun to play than to watch. I agree. And if you like Starfield as it is- then so be it! I’m not trying to shit on anyone’s enjoyment of the game
BUT…my husband likes to try to optimize everything. So we’ll spend time looking at different aspects- some of the graphics just infuriated me. Some things looked so amazing, but others… meh or… wtf. The facial expressions are way behind the times, and everything he showed me seemed lacking in one way or another. Like that Aurora nightclub. The NPC’s are talking about what an amazing experience they are having, meanwhile it’s like 15 of them badly dancing or just standing around. They certainly didn’t look like they were having fun and they moved around like a group of homeless methheads
He ended up playing some more of the game once I went to bed, and then conceeded that it’s lack-luster and moved on to something else
Yeah, I got about 150 hours in, did all the side quests I could find, went through NG+ did almost all the things needed to ng+ again but now I’m just like… Meh why?
I’m sure it’ll be a great game for modders, there’s already a good bit that help with some of the basics (UI, beth wtf) so I got pretty good moneys worth from the game and here’s to hoping I can take many more trips in like FO4 and Skyrim with mods to vastly improve things :)
On the Aurora thing, I mean… You ever been in a club with people on Molly? They look out of their minds so… Doesn’t seem too far off lmao
Bout to start a fresh run on New Vegas, been many many years so I’m excited :D
So far I’ve seen a lot of Bethesda typical bugs, but nothing game breaking yet.
Yes the first few hours of a play through are a slog, after it opens up more it becomes much more enjoyable. A live another life type mod would make me immensely happy.
That being said, Bethesda does a good job of making a platform for modding, and thats the KEY thing that keeps me buying, and playing again and again, Bethesda games.
For that reason ESO just never had the magic to me, I understand a lot of mods found for single player games would be highly unbalanced and its not an option for an MMO. That said, without mods Bethesda games are lackluster and I quickly lost interest despite trying to enjoy it a few times. I like MMOs too, don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone who only plays shooters being introduced to an MMO.
I’m excited to see what the modding community can do once the tools are released in 2024.
Every time I go play it I barely make it an hour before I get incredibly bored. I think the Bethesda formula really didn’t translate well to the bland space theme and has just run its course in general, at least for me. The nagging issues like endless loading screens, forced fast travel, miniscule carry weight, annoying UI, and lack of basic settings don’t help either. I know there are mods to fix some of those, but we really shouldn’t have to rely on mods to do something as basic as change the FOV in a game published by a billion dollar company.
Solid points. I’d of preferred they just made another decent fallout game. I think I tolerate some of their shortcomings in those games better because of nostalgia…
Honestly, I was surprised to hear that the game forces fast travel. I mean, a small indie company like Hello Games managed to make a procedurally generated universe where you can hop in your ship, fly off the planet, and either cruise through the galaxy or turn on warp speed and leave it all behind. Hell, you can even do it all in VR.
Yet, somehow, Bethesda made a space exploration game that doesn’t really let you explore space.
Of course, this is only what I’ve heard about it. I’ve been way too busy playing Baldur’s Gate 3 to play anything else. But my hype for eventually playing Starfield has dwindled to a solid “meh”. Maybe I’ll play it sometime when I don’t have anything better to do.
I’m not surprised…it’s just okay. I’ve put maybe 25 hours into it and it’s not grabbing me like I hoped it would. Fast traveling everywhere is boring, inventory management is a nightmare, and the UI is frustrating. The last straw for me was during the " Rook Meets Queen" mission >!where I’m supposed to be deep undercover in the Crimson Fleet yet I can’t progress until I pay them 45,000 credits because there’s a bounty on my head. Seriously? Either I’m undercover or I’m not. !< So I put it down to revisit Cyberpunk, and I’m hoping once I get through that the kinks will be ironed out and the mod tools with MO2 support will be ready. I still have more fun playing a heavily modded Skyrim.
What? The developer whose UI has been consistently shite from game to game, only for mods to come to the rescue, has released yet another obnoxious UI? Whose games are pretty much universally “great with mods”, is meh right out the gate? Colour me shocked!
Funny, that’s the exact mission that made me lose interest in the game as well. >!I hopped on that day for the base building and eventually ship building but I guess I had a stolen item on me and triggered the mission. I don’t want to be forced to do this mission or pay the fine when all I wanted to do was play a different portion of the game that was available to me.!<
Game is kind of ‘meh’ at the moment. I paid more for this game than any other in my life, yet I am disappointed in what it’s achieved.
The outpost mechanic is completely and utterly pointless, inventory management is a disgrace, questlines are forced and inflexible.
I will revisit in 6 months or so in the hope that modders finish making the game that Bethesda started. I have learnt my lesson to not buy a Bethesda game straight away though.
I forgot I was paying for game pass, so that’s why I’m playing it now. I’m having some fun, but the revisit when mods finish feels pretty true. I only have one loaded atm, but definitely considering some others.
The outpost mechanic is completely and utterly pointless
I’d say it’s worse than pointless. The only reason I can see to use it (outside of XP farming) is to make the grind for research/crafting easier, but it even fails at that since you can buy/loot any resources you need for less than it takes to set up the outposts. It can’t even make one of the other half-baked systems less of a pain to deal with.
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