Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/05/six-months-after-its-exclusive-launch-starfield-could-be-coming-to-ps5.html
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A friend got it for me as a gift on PC, so i’m thankful for not having to spend the money on it. That said i did play and beat it, my feelings on it are fairly mixed as there are things about Starfield that was fresh and engaging, but i also had many moments where i was frustrated over gameplay bugs (often had to search online on how to use console commands to get a quest to work, and some were just unfixable), and there were many UI choices that made navigating menus really obnoxious, and lastly there were many moments where i was left comparing this supposedly next gen game with other titles that were doing what Starfield was doing but way better (I see you No Man’s Sky. I see you).
If i had to grade the game subjectively to my tastes i’d say it’s a B-. It’s actually worth playing, i genuinely had fun with it, but like i just mentioned i was often taken out of the experience wishing for more and better. There’s a ton more i could say about the game but i doubt anyone here wants a granular critique. If you can get this game discounted or gifted that’s the best case scenario. It’s also possible to get way more out of the game if you like modding Bethesda titles, personally i like to play them as-is.
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The UI is clunky, storylines are super heavy handed, you can practically see the various faction decision trees in play, the fetch and carry missions are instantly tiresome, space combat and ground combat are just laughably clunky for anyone who’s played any modern games.
I put a few hours into it, but even free with xbox game pass it’s overpriced.
At least Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man’s Sky were bad because they tried to do too much differently. Starfield feels like someone asked ChatGPT to make a Sci Fi version of Skyrim’s storylines while bolting on a Wing Commander and FallOut 3 combat engines.
It’s not just bad, it’s got no soul.
both cyberpunk 2077 and no man’s sky have made impressive comebacks - it’s not impossible that starfield could do the same, but i’m not holding my breath
Those were both existential crises for the studios. I don’t think it is for Bethesda.
Good point. But also, there was some real effort put into both products, early reviews dinged them for bugs in the case of Cyberpunk and lack of things to do in NMS, but there were sound cores. They had clear, solvable issues.
The biggest problem I have with Starfield, is that it is so BORING. Storylines feel like reskinned plot summaries of the last 40 years of mediocre SF books and movies slapped on top of a some game engines leftover from 15 year old acquisitions.
If you had a good story, combat and repeated fetch and carry wouldn’t be as important. But boring story, bad combat, outdated game loop and bad UX? There’s no core worth building on. It’s like an SF video game built by people who don’t like SF or video games.
There are interesting moments in Starfield, but that’s as generous as i can be. The feedback loop is centered more about gameplay mechanics and loot, and to a certain extent exploration. That said even the gameplay mechanics aren’t as well thought out as they could be, players unlock these poweful abilities in the end game and they feel like a huge after thought and i rarely used them.
I still liked the fun moments and some of the side stories in the game, but it really needed more time to bake. I assume that the (at the time) impending sale to Microsoft put some kind of fire in Bethesda’s ass about shipping this product, but ultimately my mind lands on two things. I hope that now that Bethesda is within MS’s hands it might be managed better, that they’ll ditch a lot of the antiquated game development they’ve been holding onto, and i really hope that the semi-success of Starfield gives them a roadmap on how to either improve it, or make a better thought out sequel in the future.
Even as a fan of “Bethesda games”, Starfield fell flat for me. The magic of their usual formula is in having a dense world packed with interesting places, characters, and experiences, so that going from any point a to any point b always feels like you’re discovering new things.
Spreading that same content across a vast and mostly empty procedurally generated galaxy does not improve it. It’s like taking a tasty beverage and mixing it into a five gallon bucket of water. It’s still drinkable, and now there’s enough to drink for hours, but the overall experience is going to be fairly bland and unexciting.
I wouldn’t call it a bad game, especially in a release year that saw catastrophes like RedFall and Gollum, but with their recent track record I don’t think I’ll be buying any more Bethesda games at release.
If i remember correctly, the original plan was to have the game take place in a single planetary system. But the decision was made to add a ton of systems and planets, which made it more difficult to really craft the experience they wanted
It’s not just the spreading, it’s the copy and pasting of everything there. The same hideout all over the place.
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Minus the space combat, that’s basically what Obsidian used for The Outer Worlds. One system, and your ship was just a static part of each world map that let you travel between destinations.
The story was more linear and the world felt smaller, but as a “Fallout in Space” game TOW was more fun to play than Starfield.
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