Some thoughts about Starfield's world
I wrote a blog post for basically my first time ever. It's a first draft, but whatever. I never share my thoughts because I lack confidence, but I want to work on that. I welcome criticism of the way I've presented my thoughts, but my main priority is just discussing Starfield here! I want to hear what y'all think, mainly about the world of Starfield.
I was starry eyed when I first launched Starfield, but it ultimately left me feeling spaced out. After spending around 25 hours with the game I've realized that I wanted something different from Starfield, and that the game just doesn't keep my mind engaged and imagination running. I feel some guilt saying that. It took a buttload of human working hours to bring Starfield to fruition after all, and I don't want to dismiss that work. It's a very pretty game, with a lot of mechanics, characters, and stories. On paper, it's an ideal game for me. It's a first person adventure through the stars meeting strangers and ogling at alien planets packed in with loot and rpg elements. That's my kind of treadmill to be running on. The type of game loop I enjoy. Ultimately though, it did not fill the space in my head that I wanted it to.
Starting with the core game play, it's what I had the least expectations for. I am no Bethesda mega fan, but I've dabbled in their games. Their combat, stealth, traversal and so on have always registered as just serviceable to me. That's not really even a criticism as I've never gotten the impression that Bethesda's intention was to draw fans on those elements. They want to provide a simple set of tools to interact with their worlds. The tools they've provided here in Starfield feel fine. They all work. Gun play feels fine, traversal feels fine, stealth feels fine. It's the way those tools interact with their environments, characters, and narration that typically attract me, but don't here. Even their newest game play addition in space ship combat echoes their standard approach. It feels simple but solid. No extravagance like a Star Fox 64 barrel roll, but there's enough going on to feel good. Like the rest of the tool set, it's serviceable enough to let the player interact with their world. The world is what has left me cold.
Bethesda introduces us to Starfield's world in a baffling place, a place almost opposite to space, a mine. Sure, they planet isn't Earth, but it might as well be Earth. It's dark, dirty, rocky and far from a feast for the eyes. It's no surprise that mines are in the game as Bethesda has always included similar spaces in their games. Such environments are perfect for stuffing loot and combat encounters into, but imagine if Skyrim had began in a cave instead of out in its beautiful landscape. Starfield could've opened in space on a ship or on a number of visually alien worlds, and I think it's a misstep to begin the player in the most unappealing of its environments. Unfortunately, I think it's telling of a large part of the way you will be seeing Starfield's world. From a lot of interior spaces. It's often easy to forget that I'm playing a sci-fi game set in an open world space setting.
Starfield's world looks like what I imagine it would look like if human space colonization were to actually happen. In that regard, I think they were incredibly successful. It's the realization of this image that I think held Starfield back. Just like a lot of our own real universe, it is often empty and dull. Many landscapes of the planets and moons of Starfield, while sometimes pretty, are more often unremarkable. Procedural generation is an incredible tool that can easily lead to unimaginative results. I'm never able to escape the thought that what I'm looking at was probably computer generated. After visiting around 15 planets, I began to feel as though I'd seen it all before, just in different colors. Often fauna and foliage looked strange but lacked a certain spark of hand crafted creativity. I was never struck by their beauty nor their horror but only their only seemingly random assortment of attributes. On planets with human inhabitants their lacked personality in their work and living spaces with exceptions being the hand crafted major settlements. Buildings and structures felt modular and mass produced by the same manufacturer. All of this is probably an accurate depiction of a real future where we branched out into space, but it doesn't make for a fun video game to see and soak in. Major cities like New Atlantis and Akira City lent much more life to Starfield's world with obvious heart put into their creation. You can see their influences from the sci-fi genre in their construction. Instead of aiming for a large and marketable open world, it's a smaller handcrafted galaxy I wish we would have gotten. Somewhere with its own politics and drama taking place on landscapes with intent and personality. A larger existing universe could be hinted at with follow ups in sequels. Bethesda is bursting at the seems with creative talent, but there was simply too much space to make aesthetically daring from every angle. Instead that talent was stretched an inch thin and a mile wild.
The inhabitants of Starfield are offensively inoffensive and so dry they'll leave you parched. They're boring, full stop. They lack nuance and detail in their personalities. They begin and end at their core archetypes. The meaning of their existence is only to facilitate the player and be impressed by you. In my 25 hours of play, I didn't find my self endeared to any character except for a sweet old grandma exploring space, but I only liked her because I like that trope. Characters are very formal and professional which I believe was Bethesda's intent. After all, the context of most every interaction has you acting in an official capacity for one of the factions. You're a representative for the professional work these factions are doing, like being a volunteer cop for the United Colonies or Freestar Collective's Rangers or an explorer-researcher for the stuffy Constellation. It makes sense that conversations would be formal, professional, and often to the point. Ultimately that just doesn't make for compelling conversation. I engage with fiction, especially genre fiction, for its strong sense of personality. The characters I found in Starfield feel like they're just going through the motions of their 9 to 5 job. Their framing as a talking head when having conversations with them only highlights their stiffness.
I believe Starfield is a well-done realization of Bethesda's intent. It's a very corporate and made by committee vision, but it's well executed. It seems they wanted to create a world that resembles a legitimate future where humans leave Earth and colonize the stars. The result is barren unremarkable planets, sterile labs, boring mining and manufacturing facilities, mass produce modular homes, and plenty of empty space. I think they're right, this is what a settled galaxy looks like, but it just doesn't make for a satisfying video game.
edit: fixed spelling from "feel" to "fill"
I agree with all of this. It should've been the perfect game for me, but it just didn't work. The procedural generation was a huge miss. Not every game needs to be baldurs gate 3, but I think BG3 demonstrated that you can have 100+ hours of content in your RPG without relying on procedural generation.
The biggest sin of star field is that, to your point, Bethesda has always been about telling stories, and there just aren't any stories in the game. There are a few good moments, but as you said, most characters are so flat that they become entirely disinteresting.
Take the terrormorph quest. It has some solid bones, but it completely whiffs the finish:
spoilers
At the end, you choose whether to eradicate terrormorphs by reintroducing their natural predators or by deploying a bioweapon. Every single one of your companions recommends the bioweapon, but nobody really seems to have any reason for doing so and they don't really care. There's no debate between characters; nobody takes a true stand one way or another. Even the character who snarks at you to "trust the science," if you do the opposite, is like "well, alright then."
And ultimately, what you choose doesn't matter in the slightest. It never comes up again.
Compare that dilemma to reversing the genophage in mass effect 3. Mordin, one of your (former) companions, is literally willing to force you to kill him to stop him from undoing the genophage.
It really feels like Bethesda was unwilling to take creative risks, and it shows.
Not every game needs to be BG3, but open world games should take notes. Smaller worlds more jam packed with narratives and content. No one wants to play in a pool that is a mile wide and an inch deep.
I think open worlds can learn a lot from Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom by adding more verticality too. A horizontal plane isn't the only way to traverse,
Your spoilers aren't surprising. They just don't want the player to experience consequences. It's seemed to be Bethesda's narrative design strategy for a while now. Perhaps it comes from a good place. Perhaps they just want players to leave happy and avoid experiencing any difficult emotions or challenging ideas. There's enough of that in the real world I guess. Perhaps they want the player to get their money's worth. Consequences can result in missed content I suppose. No matter their reason though, it's resulting in stale storytelling and hollow worlds.
Well said! Having consequences is so important.
And if ever there was a setting where punitive consequences would have been fine it would have been Starfield. As long as you could limp to the finish line, you could wipe away the past and start anew. Why not double down on consequences?
I think it's a fairly open secret now. It was known within days that there was a loop, even if the narrative or specific mechanics were vague.
But someone going into it totally blind wouldn't know, which would make the consequences all the more meaningful.
I'm honestly baffled how people are surprised. Starfield is exactly what I expected it to be. Literally every game Bethesda has made in the last 20 years have felt outdated both from a technical and design perspective.
This is a common narrative, but it really didn't get popular until post-Skyrim.
The hype for Skyrim was unreal at the time, people were buying bottles of mead or brewing their own and lining up at midnight for the release. The notion that the series has been outdated for 20 years is something that didn't exist back then and has been manufactured mostly in the last 5-10 years and is missing the context of what most games were actually like in the mid 2000s.
I think you could definitely make an argument for the last 10 years, but I can't really see 20 being correct.
Bethesda games always had elements that were dated next to their peers. Morrowind for example had that awful real-time combat that was governed entirely by hidden dice rolls, years after we had already seen action RPGs with fun combat.
Bethesda has always compensated for this by being really far ahead of the curve in other areas. Morrowind's combat might have been terrible, but no other RPG had such an expansive and thoroughly realized open world.
I think it's more useful to ask, what is Bethesda doing in their newer games better than everyone else? Without some big marquee feature that really stands out, it's harder to keep the more dated elements from dragging down the rest of the game.
Even at the time many people agreed that Skyrim was a bit outdated, but it wasn't as much compared to FO4 and Starfield, and it scratched such a unique itch that it was more than an acceptable trade-off as the experience was worth it. I'm aware people were hyped about it, I was one of them and have no regrets. It was a hell of an experience regardless of its datedness.
Sure, but the really odd thing about starfield is that it feels like Bethesda is getting worse. Honestly I'd be fine with stagnant - I thought fallout 4 was great. Fallout 4 in space would've been a huge win for me. But starfield feels like a step back even from Bethesda's own work.
I completely agree. I don't quite understand why people hate on Fallout so much (outside of 76 - I've personally tried it and feel like it mostly flopped, even after the introduction of NPCs). I played FO3 then New Vegas then 4 nearly back to back, and had a great time. The weapon mods in 4 were one of my favorite things. New Vegas is perhaps my favorite setting, but 4 was great as well.
One way that Fallout differs tremendously (from Elder Scrolls or Starfield) is that every location truly feels unique. There's lots of little touches in every point on the map. I explored every single marked location in New Vegas and FO4. And I did it purely for fun, because I was enjoying it that much! And, I even see myself going back to these games to make some different decisions since they ACTUALLY MATTER in these games.
Starfield literally copy-pastes caves and bases across planets that aren't even in the same star system. It doesn't feel like any of the decisions matter, beyond a few that are quite obvious. There's only been one quest so far where I felt conflicted on what decision to make, and I'm pretty sure I've done all the faction side quests. Companions feel like your personal fan club (and not just referring to the adoring fan here). Everyone across the galaxy loves you, except the "bad guys" that hate everyone. Even if you shoot someone or steal, just run to another system's bounty board and you're fine.
And they made a lot of gameplay elements WORSE. If you want to do crafting, never mark any items as tracked, or else those markers might become impossible to remove. Base building has such a high barrier to entry that it feels pointless, and you're better off buying materials than mining them.
The new mechanics should have been a big focus, but... they didn't work out, imo. Space battles are stupidly hard and just feel like you're spamming buttons. At one point I was just getting insta-killed and had to drop the difficulty down to very easy. Ship building is frustrating and you better put some skill points into this early if you're even remotely interested, otherwise it's just going to be super grindy.
But I will say it did do some things well. I really like the gunplay a lot. Stealth system isn't perfect but I enjoyed that too. And the differing gravity between planets and other locations was an interesting touch.
It's just a shame to say that the worst part about this sci-fi space exploration game is... the sci-fi story (which falls flat imo) and the space exploration elements.
Even Fallout 4 was a step back in some areas. It had better graphics and shooting, but RPG mechanics were seriously dumbed down compared to 3 and NV.
Hi, I never played Starfield and honestly do not intent too, just want to say that I very much enjoyed reading your post. Its definitely more interesting than other reviews that I read about this game and different from other reviews in a way that it does not feels forced and feels as a result of deliberation.
Thanks.
That is such a sweet thing to say! You made my day :)
I'm hoping to improve. Thanks for your kind words!
I was quite excited for Starfield, so much so that I took a day off work so I could play it on release. For what it's worth, it's exactly as you described. It's serviceable. It's like a Big Mac. It'll stop the hunger for a while, but not much more. Formulaic, and very little space (hah) for your own stories.
What really gets to me with Starfield is that I love the genre. I mean, adore it. Star Trek was my childhood, and the whole idea of "Space as a giant earth" where little is unexplored and there's political conflict at every corner is really interesting to me. I've written stories myself, and worldbuilding remains my favourite pastime, for that reason. It can be such a great canvas for creative writing.
Story disappoints me, open for detailed thoughts & spoilers
But Starfield... it honestly feels like a mockery of the genre. It hits all the trademark tropes, sans humanoid aliens with FX make up, but it's just so... empty. I thought there was a lot of potential with the story. The way you discover that Earth was destroyed by the same thing that enables your space travel, that's cool, and I'm not being facetious. It's such a ripe canvas for good stories. I could come up with a dozen ideas and I wouldn't even have to try. The game doesn't do anything with this. In fact, it ties the core plot into... a canonical explanation for New Game Plus.
That's not what I played this game for. If anything, knowing that the goal of the game is to restart it and lose all your progress is honestly insulting to me. I wanted to live in this world. I wanted to care. I wanted there to be at least two Star Trek shows worth of content, and if I had any say about it, it would have been TNG and DS9. And, to their credit, they definitely tried, but that's where it ended.
Characters are another miss. There's a few interesting ones, and I think it's narratively smart to kill the one you spend the most time with half-way through, but the game just never... commits. You see your favourite companion die at the half-way point. Not ten minutes later, it's revealed that he's still alive in the form of a parallel universe version. Great, way to ruin an emotional gut punch that could have actually worked.
Part of me wants to say that Bethesda has been getting lazy. Maybe that's true, I don't care to litigate that though. All I know is that I trusted them with a genre that's near and dear to my heart, and they clearly didn't even respect it enough to write a story that doesn't end with "Universe big, nothing matters". Maybe that's on me for expecting something sophisticated from Todd Howard and his merry band of mediocres, though.
I love sci-fi too, and my love has only been growing for it lately. It's the kind of escapism I crave. It's a genre with a lot to say about the state of our world, and Starfield just doesn't add anything to that conversation.
Totally agree with your spoilers, although, I won't say the working devs and writers are lazy. I think they are doing exactly what they're being told to do. It's the unimaginative direction of who I assume is Todd Howard and Bethesda C-suite's demands for games that don't have too much of a point of view. They don't want to lose any interest groups, so any narrative or character with something to say gets filed down. They also direct their team to add as many marketing lines as possible which is how we end up with 1000 planets with wide boring landscapes. Then they can trot that line out in interviews. It'll sell copies. I think without Todd Howard and Bethesda's execs, a better game gets made.
Also, I don't understand why they called its aesthetics "NASA-punk". What? "NASA-CORE" maybe. There's nothing punk about the game.
I would argue that Neon stole some cyberpunk elements, but otherwise yeah, I agree.
Fair, Neon absolutely has cyberpunk influences. I haven't spent enough time there to know if its heart is punk or just its visual aesthetic.
Spoilers about main quest in response:
Can I ask when you played Starfield? It hasn't changed significantly since launch, just QOL tweaks and whatnot, but I'd be curious if this is a perspective you had for six months, six weeks, or six hours. The timeline from when you played it to when you typed this could have a ton of time not engaging with the game and building a model of it in your head that exaggerates certain aspects of it. I ask because I'll find myself going back to a game and rethinking it, not that I expect that to happen en masse with Starfield.
That isn't to say anything you've said here is particularly bad or even strong. It's all balanced criticism of a game I genuinely love. I get lost in it and just chase stuff down similarly to Skyrim or Fallout 4, where the world serves as a simulator and sandbox more than a series of levels to traverse.
I have beef with the game, especially after 244 hours on it and have cooled a lot in how much I play, don't get me wrong. Here's my issues so I don't look like a fanboy (I am, but I hope to be fair in any assessments):
Exploration: Fast travel to this degree kills the game. It's almost required for something on this scale, similarly to how Daggerfall was designed with the worldspace as a massive stage with scenes on it.
It's kinda safe. Without spoiling the game has beats in it that were emotional for me (and others), that BGS hasn't really done in the same way, with the same impact, but it is pretty clean. It doesn't have to be Daggerfall/Arena levels of messed up (if you know that weird ES lore, you know), but it definitely was safe.
I think this sums it up nicely, tbh. A lot of the game's issues come back to this, whereas Morrowind, for example, was absolutely bonkers because it was made by a handful of people with crazy lore ideas.
I also think they made a few significant gambles that led to a fairly polarized opinion of the game. People like me who enjoy(ed) it thoroughly got everything we wanted out of it (with some warts), but it also fell flat for even more people. I don't mean this in a "BGS can't please everybody" sense, but I think for having the impact for those it did, Bethesda did a good job. I do wish they made a game that was better for more people, and they could've done that by making it overall more interesting, having proper NMS-style mechanics like flying to the surface of a planet (even if they negate the 8-hour flight to the planet with fast travel), and whatnot. I was disappointed by how heavily it leans on fast travel as well but get enough out of it in other places.
Have you tried No Man's Sky? It takes the barrenness to an extreme with minimal humanoid contact, but is an amazing space game. It's nothing like at launch, and has had a massive overhaul. If you liked Astroneer you might like it as a complement with an emphasis on interplanetary/intersystem travel, instead of as a deep dive on one system.
Hi! Sorry for the delayed response. Not been feeling well.
So, when the game came out, I played about 10 hours before I got sidetracked. About 2 weeks ago I decided to give it another chance so I continued my original save and played it for another 5 hours. I felt really detached from everything during that 5 hours. I was thinking about starting a new character when I returned to New Atlantis to visit The Lodge and was promptly attacked by city security. I know why, it's because I accidentally attacked a UC ship during a space fight 2 hours prior. It turned other UC ships in the area hostile and not wanting to fight and kill them, I jumped to another planet. It pissed off Sarah Morgan, but I fixed that through a persuasion check then didn't think about it for a while. I didn't consider everyone else would be mad. By the time I figured it out it, I had saved over any save that was prior to that moment. I wasn't sure what the solution was and was already leaning towards a new character, so I made a new gal. So on the new character, I put in another 10 hours before realizing a lot of my feelings that I've posted here. I don't want to call my thoughts here a review, I think it'd be unfair to call it that without finishing the game, but I think 25 hours of playtime is a reasonable amount of time to put a game down after if I'm not vibing.
tldr: 10 hours at launch, 15 over the last 2 weeks.
I think loving the game is totally valid! I don't want to come across as though I think the game objectively IS the things I've said about it. What I wrote is just what the game is to me at this moment. I would love to hear what you like and love about the game if you have time sometime. I'd give the game some more playtime if you have any suggestions for quest lines or a different approach to playing it.
Solid criticisms. I want to hear about the beats that were emotional for you if you ever have time. You can spoiler tag, and I'll read. I'm not the type to have things ruined by spoilers generally, and I'm not sure I'll reach those beats at this point. Your Daggerfall comparison makes me realize that Bethesda has used procedural generation like this before to mixed results.
I've only dabbled in to No Man's Sky, not enough to have strong thoughts. I've always read their patch notes for big updates, and I know the game has a crazy amount to do now. The game seems much closer totheir initial vision, I'm really happy for them. I'm lukewarm on survival games and their game play loops generally, but I plan on giving No Man's Sky an honest chance soon, probably in the next month or so. Currently I'm playing Cyberpunk 2077 for my 2nd blog post. It'll be more of a review as I'm going to finish it.
25 hours total is an effort for a game you don't like. I'd say two is noble. I was a little worried I'd come on like "you don't have the right!" and was going to move on, but I was thinking more about how I've led myself to the wrong opinion of a game by thinking about my impression of it, rather than the game as it exists.
As far as the bits that worked, first was the opening sequence to when you meet Constellation, I had goosebumps the whole time, even their showcase that July worked on me. Though I legitimately cried when I started the game the first time, which weirded me out a bunch, but this game feels like it was designed for me, I just mesh so well with so much of it.
There were a bunch of great smaller random moments and minor beats, but the mid-game climax worked extremely well for/on me, and the ending, though a little cheesy, was rather beautiful.
Major spoilers
The loss of your primary/secondary follower, which comes down to a choice to stay in The Lodge, or go to The Eye had me crying because whatever you do, it's your fault in a sense. From there you meet them again as The Emissary, find out Keeper Aquillus is The Hunter who turned to a life of peace. Then, after the climax you're brought back to the story, the quest is still being in Constellation and their mission to explore the universe, there's just one more huge thing to explore.
Going into the end, I liked how they kept the stakes comparatively low, make you think there's this huge thing happening and then the stakes are revealed to be purely about exploration again. You get to do it again, and make your own future. The game slightly underdelivers on this premise, but it's basically Starfield from square one with a cool ship and suit, and the opportunity to improve your magic space powers.
Because of the way the game is designed, my brother and I have a pet theory that the main story quest should be done all at once with minimal distraction for maximum impact. This story isn't like Elder Scrolls where you're either sorta-but-not-really The Person of Destiny, or Fallout where you get wrapped up in some sort of weird conspiracy that is unfolded across the universe. I think I cleared it in about 30 hours on Normal, but from there it justifies NG+, which then sort of conceptually opens the game up so you can be a UC Vanguard captain this time, Crimson Fleet next time, and it makes more sense than the Elder Scrolls model where you can be in all the major factions.
Daggerfall did this by creating a huge space that was impractical to traverse in anything approaching a reasonable player timeframe.
Daggerfall did this successfully by allowing us to engage the space if we chose, however impractical it may be. Starfield tried this, but deprived us of mechanics that make the massive worldspace fun, like ways to rapidly traverse them via vehicles or skip-drives like No Man's Sky where you have a game on a galactic scale, but you only fast-travel between systems, galaxy sections, and galaxies until you unlock base warps and space station locations. I know NMS and Starfield comparisons are a dime a dozen, but I think this is one major, valid complaint that bugged me when I started Starfield.
I don't mind the procedural generation if there are some handcrafted gems buried out there. Otherwise, yea, it's kind of pointless.
But the biggest miss for me has been the required fast travel that just takes you out of the game loop. I have to think they thought they were going to make the travel seamless at some point, and then scrapped it. As it stands, I can't really get lost in this game, except navigating the menus. And that's really whey I play a Bethesda game.
Procedural generation is an incredible tool for sure. It just makes sense to use it for certain elements. I'm sure it saves devs ton of time and stress. But without creative use and thoughtful parameters, it's going to result in a lot of cookie cutter environments. Give the algorithm its parameters, get a good foundation going, and then go back over adding and manipulating what procedural generation gave you to create something unique and with personality.
The fast travel wrecks immersion for sure. Ground vehicles like a small bike or ATV attached to the ship would've felt a lot better than blinking across large distances. They should've decreased the distance between key locations and added fun traversal.
And no joke about the menus.
I personally don't hate the fast travel. I have the game on a fast SSD and never wait long.
But I was also craving some ground based transportation method. I played Astroneer not that long ago and it did an incredible job with this.
Imagine being able to keep a rover in your cargo hold and exploring with it... and even having a mobile storage box with you.
Agreed. Taking a page from EVE Online's method of inter-system travel would help (it's 'seamless' by way of having a warp tunnel loop play after the jump animation plays, while the new system is loaded), and technically seamless intra-system travel is already possible, it just needs polishing. But no rover is a big miss, if only solely for the fun idiocy of full speed revving it into pirates and hitting a mine along the way
I wouldn't mind the fast travel if it was an isolated problem. I'm lazy af and abuse fast travel in the games I play. I just think it exacerbates my other issues with Starfield.
Astronomer is a lovely game! I hadn't thought about it in a while, I might have to install.
See I would love a rover with a cargo hold and mobile storage! Starfield has us imagining what could've been and me unsatisfied with what's there, which I don't think is a good sign.
Keep writing :)
I dropped off Starfield pretty fast. I really did not like it. I did see an interpretation later on though that at least made it make some sense to me. Starfield is not really about exploration and discovery; it's a procedural dungeon crawler set in a science fiction universe. From that angle, it is doing an ok job - it needs some more content, and progression needs some revision, but the foundation is solid enough to build upon. It rubs audiences the wrong way a bit over time, because their expectation hewed closer to Bethesda's more recent titles. Starfield specifically eliminates a thing I think is central to how those games work - it marks all locations, and allows fast travel to them. There is nothing to find outside what's marked. That means you've eliminated a certain kind of experience, of "getting distracted along the way", which imo is what fuels the sense of exploration/discovery.
Personally, I can't square why Bethesda would do that, unless they were aiming for something else from the jump. Starfield wasn't burdened by the history of a franchise, it could be (and is) its own thing. The last time Bethesda did its own thing, was a very long time ago. They're also a much larger company, so it's possible this alternative interpretation is wrong and it's just a case of a badly managed project. But when I look at it as a procedural dungeon crawler, I can see how it could be fun.
Personally, I'd like to see it lean hard into character building and gun-play. Expand what your character can do, give us some customizable actions. Let the procedural systems shine by filling them up with cool stuff and come up with some neat things to do inside the dungeons. Stuff like "blow up a planet", "eat mutant food and become a mutant", "liberate/eradicate the child colony", etc etc. Just go ham on design and gameplay, tie it together with simple stories and archetypal characters. Get a writer with some wilder ideas and also get them an editor.
As it stands it's just bland as hell and doesn't do anything in particular well enough to keep me interested. I think it does represent a pretty severe step along their journey of game-making, too. I can't help but compare, there's multiple studios putting out what anybody would call their "magnum opus" products and those are going wildly well. Starfield feels like a wet fart in the middle of a really good concert. The show goes on and it's gonna pass but what the fuck did you eat?. Really hope it gets improved and worked on, because I like seeing stuff succeed. Working it into a robust set of systems could yield some interesting results and allow them the space to break free of Skyrim's grasp.
Appreciate you leading a discussion. A lot of what you said covers exactly how I felt about it. I was really unimpressed and came away with a very "corporate" feeling. Regardless of future plans, I think the company is in dire need of some reorganizing and internal clarification. Having a unified purpose makes a difference, as does ensuring that purpose is in fact shared among everyone. Starfield feels a whole lot like a game where parts were developed on their own and then smooshed together. Each thing is serviceable if not good, but as a whole nothing particularly interesting comes from it.
Beautiful.
Honestly I’m not sure how much staying power BGS has at this point. Skyrim was an incredible, fantastically realized game. Still one of my all-time favorites, even after *checks notes* 13 years. Nothing the company has put out since then comes close, and in the software world that’s an eternity. How many of the developers, artists, writers, etc. from the Skyrim team are still working there? I’d be amazed if that number was in the double digits.
I know Fallout 4 is highly regarded in some circles but it was a departure from everything I personally thought made New Vegas a joy to play. Bethesda’s mistreatment of Obsidian after FNV still leaves a bad taste in my mouth… I feel they’ve ruined the franchise in the intervening years. On top of that, Fallout 76 was universally panned and Starfield is lackluster. I don’t have any confidence that TESVI will be a worthy successor to Skyrim. For companies delivering an equivalent experience, my attention has fully shifted to Bethesda’s competitors. I hope BGS will prove me wrong but I’m not holding my breath.
Yup totally on the same page as you! I wish there was more WEIRD.
Which is WILD to me! People love stumbling upon things, it's super satisfying. I think it goes to the problem Bethesda has with people missing content. Being led by the nose from point to point makes an open world game feel linear. Idk, maybe there is more between markers than I think, and I need to be more thorough in exploring. I usually just find rocks to laser and the odd creature here and there.
I agree Bethesda could be shaken up some. I think letting the writers spread their wings would be a good start. Let them write weird, complicated, and dare I say, political, sometimes. And stop letting marketing lead the games design and let the game design lead marketing.
I was so excited when Starfield came out. I had some time off so I could dedicate some time to playing it, and I loved Skryim and Fallouts big open worlds with hundreds of hours in each of them. I came in with such strong expectations for it that carried me though the game far longer than I would have played otherwise, I think (~60 hours?) and it was all just so... bland?
There were a couple bits that stuck with me, but they were all tiny bits of creativity around the edges, like the starting perk that let you have parents you could go visit and occasionally encounter in the world. Those were the only characters that stood out to me — I remember being really suprised when I reached the end of a companions questline and had the option to start a romantic relationship and thinking "was that it? I've barely met this character."
I think my criticism, the great criticism in your post, and the other criticism in this thread could all easily be leveled at Bethseda's previous games, but I feel that there's something that makes them stand out when directed at Starfield. It might be the lack of any real exploration and finding the unexpected, or just that none of the many parts of Starfield seem to work together. I always described Skyrim as greater than the sum of it's parts, where the total experince was fun because of how it all fit together even if many of the systems on thier own weren't very good. By the time I decided to put down Starfield for good, the main emotion I'd got out of playing it was nostalgia for Skyrim and Fallout.