After one week I said fuck it. Yes there is a ton of exploration, yes there are spaceships, but the whole thing is just slow, confusing and boring. Hell, if I want to play “Life”, I can just go outside.
The tons of exploration you’re talking about are copy-pasted identical POIs, too, with the same enemies and objects in the same locations.
I honestly don’t understand what they expected us to be doing for the hundreds of hours and years they they hoped we’d be playing the game for. It’s certainly the most “ocean wide, inch deep” game for what it was marketed to be.
I think they expected a Skyrim style modding community to spring up over the next few years. To be fair, I think they might be right, since there are already Starfield mods and I'm still playing Skyrim 10 years after it came out.
And that’s what I like about it. Instead of sitting you down at telling you a story they give you a world to tell your own stories in. I like having the freedom to be creative, and I like seeing and exploring the creative ideas of other people. It’s not something I’ve seen other companies really do.
That's the problem with criticizing Bethesda games. The aspect of mod compatibility and creation is at once one of its greatest strengths, and also its most obvious and provocative criticisms, and the line between the two is very difficult to distinguish from an objective point of view.
I'm glad you're enjoying it. I tried it and decided it wasn't for me. I'd been spoilt by Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield feels like ancient by comparison.
It's kind of the same thing for Minecraft but you can still play Minecraft vanilla and have a good time because there's plenty in there to do and explore. The difference for me is that Minecraft provides a foundation to build upon whereas Starfield is hollow to begin with so just lacks its own identity.
Yeah but dont you already have skyrim for that? What new stories is this giving you the option for that skyrim couldnt handle, except this one doesnt start with magic and does start with guns?
And did the world need to be bone dry in order to be moddable? I dont remember skyrim being devoid of interest at all.
That'd be if you're crazy enough to not do any of the major quest chains or general side quests, those almost entirely take you to unique areas with their own exploration outside of the random exploration ones that you find just by exploring the galaxy.
I think it points to a larger issue with the game, which is being able to to distinguish and access the kinds of content that you want. You could easily randomly explore and end up seeing the same installation three times, or you could also randomly find other quests and go explore three unique locations and dungeons in a row instead. There is absolutely a large amount of unique content to play, though, it's disingenuous to say otherwise.
Your point is fair and works really well on its own, but in the context of the entire game, its systems, mechanics, and the entire experience they come together to create, I just can’t help but feel genuinely bored and disappointed regardless. The writing feels uninspired and generic; contrary to what some people have been saying, the writing isn’t a product of playing safe by the outsourced writers Bethesda used - it’s just bad, like a bad paint job on your car or poorly written software.
Even trying to side with the supposedly lowlife immoral inhabitants of the game’s world, you constantly hear either that they’re all family and friends (despite seeing one murder another because they got ripped off), or that they didn’t have a choice and still try to be “good”.
This isn’t what people expect from a Bethesda game in general, and from a game with ESRB rating of Mature (17+).
Again, ignoring my expectations that the game’s marketing specifically built to be centered around me being able to tell my story and stuff, it’s just poorly written and executed in the vast majority of aspects that matter in a game like the one Starfield is trying to be - the motifs aren’t clear, the storytelling is the most basic straight-up lecture in every quest that never tries to adhere to the “show, don’t tell” principles, the tasks you have to do are just boring and generic, too; it’s 2023, Bethesda has published and made tons of games of various genres st this point, many of a larger caliber, yet they still purposefully choose to go with the cookie-cutter quests that involve no unique one-time mechanics or animations, rely on mostly generated animations that feel out of place most of the time, and have you feel like you’re playing a game from pre-2010 that you should be able to play on a toaster, but are somehow told to upgrade to the latest hardware because the company couldn’t be bothered to develop and optimize a proper experience.
The pain scratches off at way more places than just exploration in Starfield.
Two things I really like are the artstyle and building my own ships with actual interiors, but the latter actually falls short due to massive restrictions in terms of said interior designs and the fact that space is basically a big mostly empty room to teleport to and from, akin to many other places in the game; no wonder an SSD is required to play, and for the worst reasons possible in a modern AAA title of that ambition.
I loved the game at first, but a lot of that was due to my huge interest in the niche it could cover, space, and science fiction, and white unfortunately, I’ve discovered way too many prominent flaws while simply trying to have fun like I always managed in similar games, even from Bethesda.
I hope that mods and DLCs may save the game, but none of that is ever going to fix the game’s broken carcass of poor writing and uninspired practices.
Overall pretty valid criticisms, I am able to enjoy the game pretty well because my expectations were very tempered, and I still find it to be enjoyable in most of the Bethesda ways I've come to expect, which is really a culmination of too many small touches for me to exert the effort of writing down and cataloging.
The only thing I'll say to all of that is that when you said that the writing quality wasn't what we expect of Bethesda or a mature game, that's a bit silly. I'm a Bethesda fanboy, basically, and even so I've only ever expected serviceable to middlingly poor writing out of any of their games, and that's about what I feel the internet expects as well, not that that makes the criticism invalid, the writing is... well, serviceable at best or middlingly poor at worst, and I don't really come in with any expectations for good writing out of a game rated mature, either.
All a mature rating means is whatever specific traits are listed on the rating, leisure suit Larry box office bust is rated mature, and that game's writing is not emotionally mature by any means.
You are correct about most of these issues, though. Somehow, by sheer amount of story content and stuff to acquire and build, I'll probably still spend about a hundred hours in it before modding, and modding will probably take it to unknown lengths. I do believe when Todd Howard says the game was made to be played for a long time that he's indirectly talking about the mod support and the game's premise and interplanetary setup being the most ripe for user generated content, and I believe that that'll add much beyond the game's natural life, in an even larger ratio than older Bethesda games, which is its own possible criticism.
Even still, I'd have to say that the game lets down on enough critical fronts that it'll be my least favorite Bethesda game, with the top two spots going to Oblivion and Fallout 4, for me, personally. I do also have to admit, when I look at the big picture, getting more than a hundred hours of enjoyment out of a game, even for the full $70, is good value for time spent, to me, and I do enjoy the game. I don't enjoy it massively, but I can spend time in the world and accomplish tasks and feel satisfied, or enjoy the gunplay or conversations enough that I can't complain.
I've bought other games of higher critical opinion that I spent far, far less time in, and didn't get the same amount of cumulative enjoyment out of, because they just don't tap into my brain in whatever primal way that Bethesda games fit in, even Starfield, puzzlingly enough.
It was incredibly disappointing when I was exploring a world and landed near a factory, killed everything then I pick a random spot and I land once more near a factory, to my surprise EVERY SINGLE THING was completely the same the same Vaa Run loot hidden in the vents, the exact same food in the living quarters, the same locked weapon rack and the same enemies at the same positions. This is the laziest fucking game I’ve seen in a while.
This is the most crybaby thing to complain about. Reminds me of the reviews on Steam that are “I do not recommend” (this player has 3,432 hours logged)
The state of video games is wild to see. People will play a hundred hours of a game and say it’s lacking. Players expect endless content and it’s honestly unhealthy for gaming at large.
It’s completely unnecessary as well. We are absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to video games, I pick up more for free than I have time to play, and with services like gamepass, offers like humble bundle, and the ever-present steam sales, there’s no reason to ever have to fork out big money for a game you feel you need to play a hundred hours in just to feel you’ve got your money’s worth. If you don’t like it after a few hours then just move on to one of the myriad games in your backlog and you’ll soon forget the boring one.
They went downhill since Morrowind… it was their last game that managed to capture players on its own merits, with zero mods.
People forget that Bethesda used to be a sports and arcade game developer back in the day and that Elder Scrolls was very much uncharacteristic for them. They tried and made some interesting things for a while but once they hit mainstream they never went back to the interesting stuff. It also means I don’t think we’ll see an ES6 game worth talking about.
I actually started with Skyrim:SE, had a super silent heavy armor mage and loved it, then I made something and destroyed my save file;
[overexaggeration ahead]: A week later I was riding on a unicorn as Waluigi through a HelloKitty cave, throwing spells of NSWF towards everything. Fun times.
Morrowind was excellent, but I don’t think knocking oblivion out is totally fair. Especially when you add the expansions sans horse armor dlc. Martin Septum frowns upon you.
I’m content with my ~120 hours played so far even if I don’t play again. But I probably will, especially with mods or future content. It doesn’t quite have the build flexibility of an elder scrolls game though. Hopefully they’ll add more variants to the bases etc. Generally happy if a game has 40 hours of gameplay and there’s easily 40 hours of content in Starfield.
The NG+ stuff is interesting but after playing it a bunch it’s both a plus and a minus, like it’s neat to have the options there, but also might’ve been better to start actual new characters.
Yeah I have been pretty addicted since release – getting a month’s enjoyment out of a game (in my case, 50hrs, but I’m still going back), is good value for money.
There are too many great games, especially this year, to spend all my time only playing one.
While I enjoyed my time I really struggling to find what I feel like I would different on a new playthrough making me worried about longevity of this game.
It really feels like unless bethesda (unlikely) or moders could do something drastic I would not return. Just pick the game back up and do the new thing.
Feels not enough to do by only stick to space. Not enough ammo to not use a variety of weapon. Nor that much other ways to deal with combat that it would warrant a new play through.
I only played like 15hrs of vanilla Skyrim. But played like 1000+ hrs of modded Skyrim. I’ve now played about 30hrs of starfield. If the modding scene gets as big as Skyrim, I think it would have merit in longevity.
So, what, bethesda games are now just fancy Little Big Planet sandboxes? Where the main game is just something to keep you busy until the real content creators arive?
Oh definitely the modding is going to carry. But what point I tried to make is I will need something big for me to consider a new playthrough. Not just adding in bunch of mods to existed save file.
Unlike Skyrim where I felt start over for mods I could actually feel like I had choice and it kinda made a difference in play style to be a mage or a knight.
I totally agree. Half the content is mostly irrelevant. The outpost system is useless, the crafting system is unnecessary, the ship building is unnecessary, etc…
This game feels more like a chore with a million fetch quests. I never made it out of new Atlantis in my play through. Bg3 is so much more nuance and a way better game.
Yeah I don’t know why they can’t make space travel to work similar to NMS. That would have been so much better. I don’t really feel like I’m exploring anything jumping from system to system. Hell even planets to planets.
Yeah I don’t know why they can’t make space travel to work similar to NMS
Because the Creation Engine is a pile of shit stacked on top of another pile of shit known as Gamebryo. The only way it even is able to handle high speed vehicles for the space combat is by having much smaller external cells with absolutely nothing in them.
What they could have done, though, is make the planets fully walkable. For some reason, those are also not seamless. You eventually hit invisible walls in any sector you land at. The engine is very capable of handling that, though. Especially if it’s just empty terrain.
Seriously, I wish they had dropped that engine. It’s so hodge podge and lacking, they had a decade to make starfield in a new to them engine. Instead we get this shit in 2023
I’d love an open world game where you start as a Star Trek ship and just explore for hundreds of hours, stumbling upon adventures/civilizations taken directly from the massive repo of lore that exists from all the shows.
Have you tried Bridge Commander or the not actually star trek, but still totally star trek game Artemis?
They’re basically that. Randomly generated scenarios where you, and a few friends, command a Starfleet vessel to solve dilemmas or just exist in the world. The fun is mostly in the MP aspect (though Bridge Commander can be played solo), and the missions are pretty samey and mostly explained through text briefings. But it really feels like being on the bridge of the Enterprise.
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