this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Starfield sure is popular to hate on
I mostly hate on it because it completely botched a genre / gameplay type that I enjoy a lot (sci fi exploration and survival) and turned it into a loading screen simulator that couldn’t feel less interesting if it tried.
I got the game for free and couldn’t even be bothered to finish the intro. Just a wholly bland, uninteresting setting that at no point manages to make me feel like I am exploring space, or having fun. By far the "best" made aspect is space combat, and that’s only moderately fun either.
I got it for free with my cpu, spent three hours trying to get it to work on Linux and then, finally achieving that, spent two hours in game and just got bored. The Bethesda veneer is fully on display here and it's hard to not feel like Neo at the end of The Matrix when he sees the underlying design behind everything. You just realize it's the same game all over again with a different skin, with no evolution in mechanics, UI, or technology.
I specifically recall getting to the major city hub and walking past a mission board and just thinking "well fuck that" and walking right past it. That is shit lazy design. Side quest emergence should be organic, not a shopping list. I spent twenty minutes trying to travel to a moon that was very much visible to me before realizing I'm not actually able to and have to fast travel. That was an unbelievably frustrating experience and is inexcusable given how long Space Engine, Elite: Dangerous, No Man's Sky, Star Citizen (at least partially) and others have existed.
The writing in the tutorial and Constellation intro fell very flat for me, and the hook was very very weak. The turnaround from "you're a nobody" to "you're a galactically important person" gave me whiplash and the Constellation group felt unrealistically eager to bring a stranger on board (except, of course, for token Mr. Tropey McGrumpypants). It felt less like a story and more like a shoehorn.
I mean, Bethesda writing has always been pretty bare bones and pedestrian, so I guess it's not that surprising, but it is still disappointing and jarring.
Oh and the companion robot was easily the most annoying companion I've ever had in a video game. I put it down after those two in game hours over a month ago and have had no compulsion to revisit it whatsoever.
I feel like Bethesda, from top to bottom, has a lot of introspection to do. Sadly, from this news, it doesn't sound likely to happen.
Bethesda. Bethesda never changes. This is a company that is well known for releasing extremely buggy games and letting the modders fix them for free so it really doesn't come as a surprise that their public response to valid criticism of their half-assed writing and development would basically be "you just don't understand our genius".