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Anyone watching Starfield Direct?
The long-awaited Starfield Direct is streaming in about 30 minutes.
I'm a life-long science fiction junky, and space sims have always been my great escape. Naturally I'm very excited to learn more about Starfield and I'm wondering who else is tuning in today.
What are you looking forward to? Personally, I'm hoping that the 'Skyrim in Space' description is spot-on. I've gotten years of entertainment out of Skyrim, so if Starfield is as anywhere near as expandable and long-lived as Skyrim, I'll be a very happy person. I'm definitely looking forward to losing myself in another universe.
Starfield content is finally showing now.
EDIT: Thoughts:
They're talking up all these "new" features that No Man's Sky implemented years ago. The graphics are nicer, but the concepts aren't new.
Yes, let's just murder random spacers for their space-snacks. Why? Who cares? If they aren't in a proper town, they're targets.
Kind of sad that there's just fast travel to anywhere you've been. Teleporting to each spot is fine, I guess, but it feels less grounded than flying there.
The human animations are so much better than Skyrim or Fallout 4. The look and movement of the people is a huge step up. The constructions and spaceships look great; I just wonder how much they're interactable. Dozens of apartment buildings can either be amazingly deep a la Shadows of Doubt, or they can be a single block of textures. I suppose we'll see.
The level of character customization looks great, and I hope the various traits and backgrounds really matter regularly as opposed to mattering for a couple of story beats and then never again.
I like the balance of skills coming from leveling up plus showing mastery of your existing abilities. I suppose we'll see in the long term how it balances out, but it looks promising.
Glad to see space as well as ground exploration. It looks like there's going to be huge amounts to explore, and an endless number of places for modders to put their own creations.
The depth of ship customization is super exciting. I'm looking forward to building the most enormous monstrosity of a home base. I wonder if there'll be a way to share designs between players?
Assign crew to your ship or outposts? I wonder how big of an empire you can build?
Space combat looks interesting. Rebalancing power on the fly seems like it could be either great or totally useless. I like that there's skills explicitly for space combat. The concept of boarding actions is amazing, and I'm really looking forward to it.
The moment where they show the gravity failing on a ship makes me look forward to zero G personal combat and exploration.
"A massive playground and a ton of toys and setting us free?" Yes please.
Collectors' Edition watch? Does anyone remember the FO4 "Canvas" bag? The Pip Boy? Even the case is plasticy. The X-Box controller and headset look good, but it's all about build quality. Perhaps Microsoft will be willing to put more money into it as peripherals for their platform, but Bethesda has a terrible track record with their tat.
Procedurally generated worlds, obviously. Procedurally generated events and stories on them, with it explicitly called out that different players won't have the same experience if they visit the same place. Not sure how I feel about that. Nothing can be spoiled that way, but it also means that less can be shared.
Surveying rewards straight from NMS. I wonder how they'll actually be useful.
The lighting is quite nice. Interested in how well it'll run on a regular gaming PC.
Being able to build from a top-down view is so nice. Building in a first person view is always clunky, and being able to plot it out from above is great.
Weapon modding and research looks great.
Combat looks better than any previous Bethesda game by a longshot. Stoked that ballistic weapons push you around in zero G. Interested in seeing what the superpowers hinted at in the very end of the combat bit are.
TL;DR: Some of the underlying concepts aren't as new as they're making it out to be, but fundamentally this looks like a huge upgrade from anything Bethesda has done before. If it holds up in the players' hands, of course.
Edit edit: "Up to 5 days early access for Constellation Edition" Hey, glad some people will pay extra to be the final beta testers.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The main sense of novelty I'm getting from Starfield is just the cherry-picking of elements that have been done already and putting them together in a way no one else really has. Procedurally-generated planets and resource gathering have been done by No Man's Sky, the RPG elements are pretty much the same as they were in Skyrim/Fallout 4, and the seamless flying to docking to FPS has (arguably sorta) been done by Star Citizen. But on that last point, Star Citizen is a grift sold on the idea of a finished game, and Starfield has the potential to actually deliver on some of the most promising elements there, so I'm anything but mad about that.
Right about now, it makes sense to expect something along the lines of Skyrim in space, but Bethesda has been pretty much continually iterating on that basic Skyrim RPG formula, and it's really exciting to see all the little improvements that Starfield will bring.
I feel those who buy it early on/at launch will be also be beta testers
I really want this game to be amazing, but I also know the consequences of being impatient :(
I bet Microsoft is making them, at least the controller. They've been doing their "Xbox Design Lab" with custom colours and decals for controllers for awhile now so I'd be surprised if these didn't get shoved down the same pipeline. The controller looked pretty swish, though I wouldn't pre-order any game for it. I might pick one up if they're sold separately.
Yeah, The game in isolation looks dope but I'm starting to be irritated by Bethesda's audacity. "Innovative new skill system! Every time you level up, you get a skill point..." ...how innovative...
I do think that the combination of leveling up and getting a skill point to unlock a skill, and then requiring proof of use to upgrade it more is a clever upgrade to their old Skyrim system, where you could make 50k daggers and be at 100 blacksmithing, and then enchant them all and be at 100 enchanting. Having a wider variety of experiences in order to advance is a nice change. But yeah, the marketing is writing a lot of checks that we'll see whether the game can actually cash.
It's better than past bethesda, but not innovative. A bunch of games have done systems like that at this point, and I'm bothered that they're pretending they're making it or popularizing it.
Yeah, I'm ok with it. If we only talked positively about truly novel mechanics we should be complaining about how TotK is just BotW mixed with Garry's Mod and Fortnite. It's ok to be proud of doing a mechanic well... Assuming they do it well.
I wouldn't call TOTK new or innovative, but I am really enjoying my time with it, and I do think they do the mechanic well. I also appreciate that they don't pretend like they invented it. It may not be as freeform as garys mod, but it's probably as much as they could allow within the confines of an actual balanced game over... whatever the hell garys mod was.
I think only the minor stuff is being randomly generated, the main story beats are going to be the same. It's just a fancy way of saying "we only have radiant quests on the planets that we didn't hand craft". Surely that also means more can be shared, because more people can show off their cool thing that happened to them?
Either way I’m gonna PatientGamer™ my way into this one. Bethesda being Bethesda and the modern AAA scene being what it is I figure sitting this out until a GOTY edition or something equivalent and possibly beyond are done is probably best for my own sanity.
Hnnnngggg. Its going to be hard because it sounds like it might tick all my boxes (I haven't watched the stream yet) but I'll wait AT LEAST a month for this one or maybe I'll force myself to finish one of the other games I didn't PatientGamer™ and never finished because the release was a mess.
At this very moment exactly 49% of my brain agrees 100% with this sentiment.
I definitely feel that, and I'm usually patientgamer... But the scifi setting just looks so enticing
After watching the stream I gotta say. Yeah. Luckily I do have a game pass sub so I’ll just run it that way early and see how it works.
This looks exciting; hopefully this is a Skyrim/Fallout style single player that isn't riddled with scummy monetization hooks or Day-1 paid DLC
Agreed. Evidently some information has already leaked, including vague details on pricing, which has me a little bit on edge. Still, even if those details are correct, I could still buy whatever the "premium" edition is without spending as much as I have on Skyrim over the years. The "collector's" edition on the other hand...
I heard it's gonna be on gamepass day one. So I probably won't be buying it.
Here's the Eurogamer summary article with all the trailers and such from the event: Everything announced in Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct
Isn't it the Xbox direct followed by the Starfield direct? Either way I'm definitely going to watch!
You're right, it's the X-Box Games Showcase, followed by Starfield Direct. I don't have information on the expected length of either, so I just went with the beginning of the Showcase.
I do hope that Starfield is good on its own merits. If so, I'd love to pick it up on release. Alternatively, I hope the modding scene is strong, in which case I'll pick up the definitive, all DLC included release on discount in a few years when there's 500 extra mod worlds and tweaks to fix all the awful, incomplete mechanics. It's possible that Bethesda will put out a strong, bug-free release immediately, but if they do it'll be a change from form.
The game might be fine, but this video is so "perfectly" manufactured and everything is scripted. The woman talking about being a pirate and taking sandwiches trying to subtly hint at the wheels of cheese from Skyrim. This game doesn't seem like a labor of love, but a checking off of boxes.
I'm not holding out a lot of hope for this. Again, it might be good, but it just seems too "DAE Skyrim/Fallout!?" and corporate.
I feel like the expectations are off here. It's a prerecorded video for a showcase, I'm not sure how it wouldn't be scripted. On that angle, if you're actually featuring the real developers and leads, then it's going to feel more like this video - more stilted, because their skills are in development and not in acting.
oh please, these videos used to feel way more genuine and human than they do now, even from Bethesda.
I went back and watched some of the e3 skyrim content and the only difference was that Todd did more of the speaking. And that does make it smoother, because Todd is a far better than average presenter. But it also belies the other point: ironically, the more you actually include the people working on the game, the more it's going to feel stilted, because those people do not have experience nor training in presenting.
I don't particularly feel this lacks any kind of humanity. It's a straightforward trailer where people talk about the game. They're not particularly trained in public speaking - it is what it is.
I used to shoot and edit videos like this for one of the largest consumer product companies in the world. There was ways to have people give you lines you're looking for without feeding them and making it look like someone is reading from a script.
This wasn't done. This was just a script.
Just finished watching. It looks like it's filled with so many features. I'm actually a bit exhausted just watching the deep dive. Let's hope playing the game doesn't feel like as much work.
With so many features, the surface area for bugs is increased massively. Might be one worth waiting for community patches for - have they announced if modding will be supported? If not then we might have major issues!
It's just my personal opinion, but I really don't care for these large procedurally generated worlds. They always feel completely soulless and empty. "Exploring" something generated by a seed doesn't enthrall me, even if they did accurately model the sky colour depending on the type of star and atmospheric composition - where have we heard that before?
Landing on a planet and getting resources reminds me of no man's sky which I found a bit dull. I hope the outpost system is more engaging than FO4's. I got pestered by Preston so much in FO4 that I stopped caring about them.
Thousands of dead eyed NPC's doesn't do it for me either. I kind of want to actually interact with NPC's in an RPG. Cyberpunk was full of NPC's but very few said anything original or unique. Stumbling around 1000 planets probably isn't going to be too easy to find crafted narratives, we'll need signposting towards the actual content or otherwise be looking at wiki's all the time which isn't super fun.
It looks like there are a fair few 'key' locations where there's quests and interactive NPC's. Hopefully if you just want that classic RPG style you can spend time in these spots.
There's an awful lot of elite dangerous inspiration here. The galaxy map and planet info. The cargo missions and bounty hunting missions The ship outfitting looks even more comprehensive than elite. I love the ship handling and the combat (but not the grinding to get mats for the combat) in elite which they seem to be going for - pips especially. Let's hope it handles as well as elite.
The Odyssey ground exploration is dull to me though which ties into my earlier concern.
The character creation looks like it'll be somewhere I spend way too long as per usual. Character models look great. The background thing looks like cyberpunk, let's hope it's deeper than that one though.
Combat looks like like the best yet from a Bethesda game!
Challenges for skills looks quite cool! Points to unlock skills and challenges to upgrade them is a really nice way of handling progression. Much more interesting than just sticking points on a tree.
Overall it looks like they've combined features from a lot of successful space games. Hopefully it's a cohesive game in the end. If it's executed right this could be a brilliant game. I am concerned with what the ratio of soulless generic generated content to unique created experiences will be. I don't really resonate with things that are generated like chatGPT or procedural worlds. I want to play a Bethesda game for the quests and stories.
Avowed looks like it's coming along really nicely, so there's that to look forward to in 2024 if this doesn't pan out.
The gunplay looked a lot better in this showcase than it did last year and was a major sticking point for me. This looks pretty good and I'm excited for the game.
I am a little worried about how big the areas on the planets are to explore. I'm used to playing Star Citizen, which is a truly "You can go everywhere you see" style of universe without load screens and planet sized planets. The only option to select predefined(?) landing zone areas to explore with no gameplay showing a ship flying in atmosphere under player control or any faster modes of ground transportation makes me think each area will be a little square on a planet to explore.
It looks so damn good
I missed the XBox side.
I think it did a lot to temper my expectations. I had been initially hoping for a No Mans Sky meets Skyrim, but will gladly settle slightly for a gigantic The Outer Worlds meets Fallout 4 experience as that's a different, but likely not inferior perspective.
This is also filtered through Bethesda's history of being slightly janky and having rough releases.
I'm curious about Avowed and what Obsidian is doing with it, but I'll have to go back and watch that trailer.
Okay. It looks good. Launch day will be the decider of course but this game is, as presented, quite impressive.
I thought it was probably one of the best single game presentations I've seen but I'm still not pre-ordering it. Too many times getting burned by Bethesda games at launch.
Looked great, but kind of concerned that it didn't show colony building. I just hope it's not like fo4's first person stuff
They showed a brief bit of it. There is a top-down mode for designing the overall colony layout
The last Beth game was Fallout 76. I'm very interested in Starfield's potential but I'm going to be waiting for a while post release before opening my wallet.
I think that's the main takeaway from any game release over the last few years lmao. Preordering is a no-go.