7/10 really seems to be an appropriate rating for this game. It’s not bad, it’s just a Bethesda RPG and nothing more.
I'd agree with you, its a solid 7/10, if reviewed it after only playing the game for a couple hours.
but from the 10 hour mark and beyon, to where I am now, I'd say its a 5/10.
Theres just to many small things that make the game frustrating to hell once you get out of that initial starter window.
Like, Ship parts. You get great details on engines, shields, reactors, etc. But no detail on landing gear, which would be great to have when your error message is screaming at you for more landing gears, and you dont know how much each one supports, or what the difference is, and you have no numbers to tell you how many more you need... And Hab components. Just tell me what work benches each one has, at least, and if things like the infirmary are just cosmetic or provide some boon to having it.
And surveying planets. You know why exploring was fun in skyrim/fallout4? Cause you were going from point A to point B, and were discovering things on the way, and getting distracted. on Starfield, land in the middle of a map, and have to wander around hoping you can find enough to scan to complete the survey for the planet, or at least the biome, before fast traveling back to the ship. This can take hours, even with amp.. and amp's buff time is so little that if you plan on using it you have to stockpile a lot of it, and micromanage it.
Speaking of buffs like Amp.. theres no HUD display that I can find that indicates how much time you have left on your buffs. I barely use any buffs cause of this alone.
And speaking of the HUD.. Why are the things we get given tucked up in a corner where we cant see, at a time when our eyes are in the bottom middle reading text? I have no idea what I've gotten from quest rewards, because I never see the notification.
Also, the artificial delay and slowness built into the interface. Why? Theres mods that easily remove them.. but why are mods necessary? Why make the menu system artificially worse?
While individually, any one of these things (both the mentioned examples, and the unmentioned ones) could just be ignored with a sigh and moved on from, the fact that pretty much every system in the game missed its mark by an infuriatingly tiny step, that would take almost no effort to polish in to a gem, I cant help but just be utterly frustrated with the absolute potential the game had, thats left on the vine to wither, because they decided to stop right before getting things right on seemingly every. single. mechanic and interface.
And not to mention the bigger issues, like improperly handled DirectX calls that can cause bad performance and crashes, that was discoverd yesterday, or the fact that to much basic outpost shit is locked behind perks.
Yeah, they already covered all of your complaints when they said "It's a Bethesda RPG" lol.
But agreed, not terrible but there's a lot holding it back from being great.
The "Its a Bethesda RPG" excuse doesnt cut it this time. at least with their previous games, they managed some kind of improvement over the previous games.
Starfield is a straight regression.
it is actively, mechanically worse than previous games. The perk system and the settlement building is actively worse than Fallout 4. The exploration and inventory management of Skyrim and Fallout 4 are actively worse in Starfield. The Menus are actively worse. The faces and facial animation are actively worse.
and I don't say this to heap mindless hate on the popular thing. I say this because I want it to be better. It had so much potential to be better. But they got within like 5 feet of the finish line and just.. stopped, and said good enough, for some bizarre frustrating reason.
Have you recently played fully vanilla fallout 4 or Skyrim? Because without a doubt the menus are exactly as bad as those games, but mods like FallUI and SkyUI make them amazing.
Faces and face animations are definitely improved, I have no idea how you could say they're worse, much more fluid and much less jarring generally (again unless you're mistaking heavily modded fo4 and Skyrim, which both have mods that improve all of this)
Settlement building does seem to be a regression, but I have only put in like an hour on it, and again vanilla Fallout 4 is VERY limited compared to modded.
Perks eh, I do like the more detailed Skyrim and fallout styles (I think skyrims was better overall but they're intentionally different) while Starfield feels much more basic on that aspect, but I don't really feel like it "needs" a whole lot more on that aspect, it works but I'm sure a perk overhaul mod will come through.
It really feels like the creators didn't do much playing of the game itself. So many things that are just lacking for a game like this.
Just so many things. Yes modders will fix it probably, but they shouldn't have to and there will likely not be as much interest in doing so since the game isn't as majestic and awe inspiring as skyrim (IMO).
Yeah I might even go 8. A lot of the game is very high quality from the quests to the level design and details. Dogfighting is good, the rest of space stuff is meh. Ship designer is good overall.
I really wish they could have let us fly more freely, or at least give that illusion. There is also a lot more room for polish and quality of life improvements. Like let us walk through ships before we buy them, and maybe fly it in a simulator without spending money. That tech should be easily available. Ground vehicles would be a no-brainer, that could certainly lead to more gameplay opportunities.
Oh man of I could customise a buggy as well, and have that buggy drove out of my customised ship, I'd be so bloody happy about that
I cannot possibly disagree more with your assessment that the interstellar setting is necessarily boring and that’s something we should accept.
But, if so, then why would we need to “just get used to it”? I’ve certainly never felt compelled to force myself to play a boring game
I don't think OP made the point clear, but I agree with the spirit.
Fundamentally it is this:
Sense of scale
Meaningful content at every turn
CHOOSE ONE
Examples
Daggerfall - infinite scale, but quests, dungeons, meaningful content have to be specifically targeted or else be lost in the gigantic procedurally generated world.
Elite Dangerous - spending 20 minutes supercrusing across a binary star system really makes you feel the size, but also that's 20 minutes of not doing anything.
No Man's Sky - The universe is effectively infinite, and there is something useful almost everywhere! But (almost) none of it is handcrafted, so the random content gets stale in the scale.
Star Citizen - Basically no content, but absolutely unmatched as an immersive space experience, as it doesn't compromise on scale for QoL or filler content in the slightest. Worth noting that most people hate this.
Meanwhile Skyrim is impressive because the world is pretty big, but there's also something interesting to do every 5 steps. Starfield tries to maintain this while also tossing in some NMS-style randomized infinite content, but ends up suffering the same feeling of staleness once you spend any time exploring it.
This is the best, most succinct, and fair assessment I’ve seen of Starfield since launch.
Starfield has the advantage of 100+ hours of hand-crafted, voice-acted quest content, of course. What they need to do about the procedural content is the same thing Hello Games did, just add more procedural pieces that can get put together in novel ways, so the planets and outposts aren't so obviously exactly the same. I'm hoping the system that inserts buildings on planets will just take new content, because modders could really blow that wide open.
I've honestly never seen this much of an unapologetic shameless dogshit take. To actually think, "no, it's the players who are wrong" in this situation takes some real delusion.
Like this is the most "mask off" fanboy post.
It's just a number. Play the games you like and don't care what others think.
I know, gameplay is more important than tech, but for an AAA game it's kinda disappointing techwise. No 32:9 support, HDR is mediocre, no FOV settings, language cannot be properly changed,...
That's what happens when you've been using the same engine since 1997, and just slap a fresh coat of paint on it every few years instead of actually improving it like Unreal.
Hey look, elden ring doesn't have even 21:9 support, hdr was broken for a while at launch, and no fov setting
From software has always been pretty crappy from a technical standpoint.
Starfield is the classic Bethesda experience but the hype around it implied it wouldn't be. The classic Bethesda experience is fine, it's a good base of a nice, free-form game that lacks polish. They are also games that need at least a few mods to actually be good. Vanilla Skyrim, etc sucks after you start modding it. Even if all you download is an end, a weather, the unofficial patch, and the better dialog and message box controls mods. Playing starfield I was immediately like "where is better dialog and message box controls?"
The game has potential but a thing that bothers me is landing on a planet and it says I explored 90% of it before I even exited the ship. I went to earth and there was no evidence of there ever being life and major cities. No ruined homes, no cities, no like... Mt Rushmore head that broke off and found where it isn't supposed to be, no statue of liberty torch. Nothing. They could have crafted a really cool ruined earth and instead it was just... sand and rocks. What do you think is behind that rock? Another rock. And when it comes to Earth, you don't need to have everything be where it needs to. The tip of a pyramid in Egypt makes sense but I see nothing wrong with finding the broken Washington monument in the middle of what was the Atlantic ocean. Or the broken big Ben in the middle of what was Japan. If any planet should have gotten randomly generated assets of ruins or even just manually crafted, it should have been Earth.
Most planets are empty and give you almost no reason to explore them. The game is about exploring planets, but playing this game makes me want to play Starbound instead.
I also don't know why everyone compares it to Skyrim when I feel like I'm playing Fallout 4 instead of Skyrim. Skyrim would have been an improvement, I wasn't a fan of FO4.
classic Bethesda experience
I messaged my friend a couple hours into the game and said “…I dunno dude. This feels like Fallout 4 but in space.” I’ve never finished an FO game, despite trying many times, because they just feel boring and overwhelming at the same time (for me anyway). I was late to the Skyrim party, first played it on Switch and loved it - loosely because the story drove me forward and kept me engaged.
Witcher 3 and CP2077 had me hooked the entire time. Even though they’re entirely different games, I also miss the little nuances in NMS - like actually flying into a planets atmosphere and landing, being able to zoom around the planet in my ship, engaging “warp.” All without a whole lot fewer loading screens or opening menus. To be fair, I got tired of NMS super quickly because resource mining and grinding aren’t my thing.
All that to say that I’m enjoying it though I’m not sure how long it’ll stick with me. It’ll hold me over until Phantom Liberty comes out.
that lacks polish
I’d say creation engine is showing its age more than it lacks polish. The game looks pretty good and I’ve encountered virtually no bugs so far. People’s faces are a bit off though, as many have pointed out.
Creation engine is a double edge sword, on one had, it is super moddable. The mods you can put in for skyrim are insane. You can turn it into a completely different game.
I would say that the game isn't unpolished because of the engine though. Not in the ways I'm talking about anyway. The quests, dialog, locations, animations are all just a bit off, unpolished, and stiff. None of these really have anything to do with the engine aside maybe animations and locations. And given the eldersouls mods that give very animated combat animations, the combat mods that add wound systems and combos, etc, I don't think that's what's holding them back.
Yes creation engine is old, but I dont think it's what makes the game feel unpolished for me.
Harsh. I avoided most marketing for this game and honestly it's a great game. Alternating between PC and Steamdeck works great. I haven't had any tech issues or crashes.
The largest single issue with the game is the atrocious menus. I get that the radial design benefits controllers, but even with gamepad layouts it's ass. Editing ships is ass, selecting destinations is ass, God forbid you try to find out which mission is closest to you without memorizing which systems are connected to where.
The user interface at nearly every turn is bafflingly obtuse. On top of cool features like the option to go to your cockpit or board a ship, you get insanely weird decisions like no waypoint system? There is technically a waypoint option but it's definitely not a usable system.
Also what's with the galaxy map? Fuckin mass effect had this shit figured out 15 years ago. With a banging soundtrack for the menu lol
Also why the hell is there no tutorials for these crazy indepth systems and menus... like if they need to suck tell me how to bear it
They should have just pulled an outter worlds and made several hand crafted planets.
It's crazy how much better the plot and setting are in that game despite the fact it has maybe a 1/10 of the content Starfield does.
Man Outer Worlds was so cringe to me. I tried really hard to get into it but it felt like it just kept rehashing the same jokes over and over. “Haha I’m owned by a company and they’re cheap and I’m silly!” Just over and over and over. After 10-15hrs I put it down for good.
It’s like someone delivering a punch line and waiting awkwardly for the chuckles packaged into a game.
I played Outer Worlds and, I think I completed it. The setting got old and the plot.. what was the plot again..? I'm like 90% sure I finished it but I couldn't tell you what happened.
Contrast that to Starfield, I've completed two faction quest lines and they were both superb. They took unexpected twists and turns and were full of lore and interesting characters. The Crimsom Fleet quest line was epic, and payed off in just the right way for me (seriously the discovery at the end is 🤌). The Rjujin quest line was also great, and took such an unexpected turn from the initial thing of applying for an office job. Also the toy you get from the questine is really fun to play with, crazy that someone might play the whole game and miss it because they thought applying for a corp job would be boring.
At the moment I'm taking a break from story missions, and I've been taking pirate hunting bounties, and just exploring. I've found loads of random encounters and followed threads to some epic stuff. And I've still only just started the main quest line.
The game is so much deeper than Outer Worlds, while also being far broader. Also, Bethesda make open world games, if they had released something as stripped back and linear as OW, they pull have been torn apart for it, even more than they are now.
I'm viewing this game as more of a modder's platform. It's really the whole reason I play BGS games. As such, it works perfectly the way it is. It's decent out of the box, but once the CK comes out and the mods start rolling in, it's going to be perfect.
There is a big issue with tedious repeating animations. Like standing up from the cockpit. Or docking a station. The hand made content is still there it's just placed into the world procedurealy.
I just don't understand why some key binds are random. Why am I using b to add favorites? Why not f. Or x to exit the ship. Why not q? It just seems like the binds are just chosen at random when there are available keys where my hands are already resting.
I love that 0 is to heal but O is to repair my ship. I'm constantly just mashing both because I can't remember which is which when my shields are down and I'm trying to dodge a missile.
My biggest complaint is still an RPG being consolified, meaning its menu's are all shit because of controllers.
Interactions in this game would me so much better if it were designed from the ground up for mouse, point and click, drag, etc.
My only other complaint is I wish I could fly and land the craft myself similar to No Man's Sky. You can land on planet, shit is still random gen, but there's some hardpoint spots where your ship can land in a city or outpost.
The positive sides that surprised me is the ship building is great. Always wanted a game that allowed this kind of ship building.
Space Engineers or similar are great, but can be too much detail. This snap together modular blocks is nice middle ground.
I'm also impressed the engine is able to handle so many micro collisions of items on the ground.
My biggest complaint is still an RPG being consolified, meaning its menu’s are all shit because of controllers.
That's weird because I'm playing on console and the menus and UI are shit with a controller too.
I don't think the engine allows for such an open world. The engine is built around cells, and BGS shot itself in the foot by making a game in a setting that requires open-ness using an engine that only works with enclosed spaces.
"Not recommended. This game is so boring. 150 hours played"
You can't fault them for not giving it a fair chance.
I played for about 25 hours before I gave up.
Those 25 hours were mostly me waiting for the moment when it would finally get better. The moment never arrived.
Most common bug for me so far is the invis cloak glitching and becoming visually permanent (but not the effect on stealth. Boo)
Honestly not even a tiny problem for a Bethesda vet.
7/10 basically space skyrim
I haven't played a new Bethesda game since Skyrim came out in 2011. So I went into starfield expecting Skyrim in space. I knew it would rely on more radiant randomly generated systems. I knew it wasn't going to have entire planets. Based off my expectations, I believe they have all been met. I'll probably log a ton of hours into the game. Was it overpriced? Maybe. But I don't really buy new games all that often, so it's hard for me to say.
When you do the math on pennies per hour, it's hard to argue that it's overpriced.
Honestly I haven't been looking at the public reception at all because I've been playing it since it released. I didn't even know people weren't loving it, it's exactly what I want from a Bethesda game and more (136 hours so far)
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