Starfield is boring (review) 

Whenever someone tells you that the game gets better after 8 hours, it means that the game sucks. If I have to play 8 HOURS before having fun in a game, then it's not a good game.

Man comparing the Starfield and Cyberpunk was such an eye opener. Starfield is so sterile and soulless.

The world just doesn't feel alive. It's sterile and uninteresting. Skyrim's world was gritty yet beautiful. It felt lived in.

My BF waited a long time for the game. I expected us to not have any quality time together before bed when his PC finaly allowed him to play a day late with plenty of lag, I was ready to respect his space while he enjoyed & play......... Thanks Todd Howard for only keeping his interest in your game for 1 hour before shutting off and unexpectedly came to the living room to watch a movie with me 😊😊

Your opening sequence is exactly what's wrong with Starfield: no narrative hook. The game is literally about a miner that finds an artifact and is talked into searching for more artifacts because...well...it's better than being a miner.

Bethesda is like that employee who does just enough to keep his job, but not enough to be promoted and earn a raise.

Man, that direct scene comparison between Cyberpunk and Starfield made me feel ashamed for Starfield. It feels like more like a 'high school project' when played next to Cyberpunk.

Starfield feels like a very impressive game if it came out fifteen years ago.

48 hours in and I had to look up videos of other people felt the same way. Man you nailed it. RELENTLESS fast traveling. Game feels like a chore. So unfortunate.

The dead Bethesda eyes and facial expressions are so much more jarring than previous entries

People actually thought this game was gonna win GOTY 😅

Interviewer: With games like Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout 3 you have continuously raised the bar for open world games what do you have planned for star field? Bethesda: We've come up with a radical new game loop that lets players bypass the exploration, discovery and wonder altogether through innovative use of fast travel and procedurally generated copy and paste content!

It seems like they've generated this game using AI or something.

The contrast between Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield was stark and the point was well made. I’m appalled at the writing in Starfield, it’s legitimately awful. They haven't moved on since Skyrim. It's bland work by talentless writers. There’s no excuse for it, especially given the game’s budget and development time.

My problem with this game is that there is no real choice, in most quests all dialogue options lead to the same outcome. I'm also bothered by the fact that you can play every faction questline with the same character. There should some conflict between joining different factions, just like in Fallout: New Vegas in example. And the last thing that bothers me is the exploration. I remember how satisfying it was to find some new locations in Fallout 3, 4, Oblivion or Skyrim for example. I would have traded what we got to like 5-10 different game worlds with handcrafted contet. Just like in the Outer Worlds but in far bigger scale.

The difference between the cyberpunk and starfield scenes that you showed was night and day. A stressful, tense, and immersive encounter with an intimidating underworld group, vs starfields stiff dialogue, slow dialogue pace, and lack of real stakes.

Real professional developers would be totally ashamed of themselves by producing a 2015 video game in 2023.

All good writing is about character, character, character. It is the only tool we have that can draw a reader, a viewer, a gamer in to a story and make them CARE. It doesn't matter what the story is ABOUT; if you can't draw people into caring about it it could be the most interesting *concept* in the world and you'd still be bored to tears. Back to the Future works because you care about Marty and Doc, not time travel in the abstract. Great Expectations works because Miss Havisham is a lunatic, not because you're worried about Pip's inheritance. People to this day remember Monkey Island because they remember Guybrush Threepwood. I don't understand what's going on at Bethesda. They were starting to lose touch with this even in Skyrim, but even in their sister studio's Elder Scrolls Online they understood that great character writing can hide a multitude of sins (until their lore master left for Baldur’s Gate 3). Seriously, it's not even difficult. Once you know the story you want to tell, THINK about the characters and write IN THEIR VOICE. Sit down with a piece of paper. Give one of them an artificial leg, another a three eyed dog, another a drink problem and three children stranded on Mars. Just anything. And then give them, like, even ten seconds of character growth. BGS really need to sort this out. It is basic. Writing is not an optional extra in an RPG.

After this fiasco, I went back to playing Fallout 3, and I realize that the simplicity and limited scope of those older games worked in their favor. It's a stark contrast between, for instance, Moira's Wasteland Survival Guide sidequest, and most of Starfield's sidequests. It's quantity over quality, taken way farther than Bethesda's usual approach.

comparing these scenes of starfield and cyberpunk was really creative and convincing of how bland starfield is. It's not a next gen experience nor todd is pushing any technology by any stretch of the imagination.

The intro is spot on. Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 (and Fallout 3, and Oblivion, and Morrowind) made me feel somewhat of an emotional hook to the game. Starfield is just...bland

Wow, imagine making a Fallout 4 fan dislike their new game. That alone says enough. Most of the reviews I've seen so far, honestly done, talk about how boring the game is.

I thought i was going crazy The game from the start felt life less and soul less and when i see people praising the game, I'm always wondering "what game are they playing" because i just dont see the appeal People also didnt like fallout 4 but i liked the game didnt understand the hate even outer worlds was better and i enjoyed I refunded my £85.99 on steam and i think i definitely made the right choice...i didnt and can't get into starfield at all Im just confused 😆

It seems like Bethesda abandoned (or at least, really scaled back) the things they do best, which are interesting open worlds with secrets around every corner and environmental storytelling that makes you want to keep going and take your time studying all the details. All I've seen from Starfield videos are looter-shooter mechanics, lots of dialogue, lots of fast travel, and lots of uninspired architecture to run around in

It's the gothic factor. It does not matter the size of the world, but what it contained within it. I was always skeptical of starfield, even if it wasn't a creation engine game where everything in instanced and seperated with load screens... how could there possibly be anything exciting to find in a game with "1000" planets? A single planet is too big for it to be interesting to explore as a bethesda game. Playing starfield and realizing that you cannot open a map and wonder what unique vistas and exciting quests and treasures lie within it's borders filled me with a deep sense of melancholy. What you have is randomly generated plains with randomly generated content, unique exactly one time before you realize that you've seen it all. The concept of starfield itself was a mistake, it is the antithesis of what makes Bethesda games popular. Most people burn out on Bethesda when they realize that there is nothing new to discover, that the chest at the bottom of your 50'th dungeon will have random enchanted loot worse than what you can make yourself. That there are no more shouts to find, no new mechanics to uncover etc. Usually this takes anywhere from 50 to 100 plus hours to happen, be it in a fallout game or elder scrolls game... It happened after only a few hours in Starfield. I just want an interesting world to explore, now I just hope this doesn't torpedo the next elder scrolls game.

man everything you said is how i feel i also booked time of work to play got the special editions and it bored the hell out of me i now cancelled rest my holidays and just going to eat the loses

I always thought it seemed boring from the very first trailer.

That Cyberpunk comparison was pretty nuts. Ive played the hell out of CP2077 and yeah i like it alot but damn that made me appreciate it way more. I cant believe Starfield basically ripped off that encounter and did it 1000x worse lol. The voice acting, animations, dialogue options, its night and fucking day lol. Just wow.

The music in Cyberpunk is one of the most underrated aspects. The clip you showed with the music building really makes it that much more tense and stressful. Meanwhile in Starfield I can barely remember the soundtrack or anything about what I played in my 10 hours before deleting.

I’m so happy more people are coming out and agree with the sentiment that this game is soulless. All I hear people say is the game is fun and engaging yet from the videos I’ve watched and streamers I see play this game, it seems so dead. Other than a handful of quest that engage the player with maybe one or two quest that make it worth playing. It really doesn’t uphold the RPG genre. In comparison to BGS other games, you can clearly see a lot of effort was put into making the quest have consequences with other quest, or the mere immersion of getting lost in different types of side quest. It has been noted by a RU-vidr that a lot of the side quest has been copied and pasted in different systems. Showing the lack of effort in this game, truly disappointing and one of the many reason why I had cancelled my collectors edition pre-order.

This makes me want to finally play Cyberpunk.

I have done lots of research in the past 24 hours to try and gather my own opinion on the game, and I have found myself agreeing. The game seems slow and very much uninteresting for the large part. Great video BTW. Love when you upload

The Maelstrom meeting was so tense, I actually felt the tension in the air like it was about to kick off. Brilliant game

Good grief that voice acting and atmosphere in the artifact "scene" is just painfully bad.

your assessment of the ending was spot on. with a good RPG, you feel excitement and anticipation as you get close to the end. with Starfield, i just wanted it to be over

I got the premium edition with my new graphics card. I have played about 15 hours so far. And I must say this, if ever there was a definition for 'average' Starfield would be it. Hopefully the modding community lifts the game from mediocrity. The more I played the worse it got. I initially gave it an 8 out of 10, now I am down to 6 out of 10. It is just...empty. I think if they added more (intelligent) alien races to discover, vehicles like hover craft or dune buggies and flying in the atmosphere - the exploration part would have been much better. Also, why can't I swim under water? It is so immersion breaking.

The difference between the Starfield scene and the Cyberpunk scene is mind blowing, I don't expect cinematic style on par with Cyberpunk nor do I actually think that the story overall of Cyberpunk is that good, but damn their writing and presentation skills of making people seem like people is so far apart.

It looks like the outer worlds but without a soul lol

Cyberpunk in that mission you have so many hidden ways to go : No boss fight at end, remove chip make friends with the gang fight the corp, betray the corp and rescue the gang leader get rich get he corpo arrested, pay the gang with chiped credits screw them over, dont pay them keep the money kill the gang and resuce the leader, kill the leader and the gang and keep the money.

Your not the minority lol. People are waking up and actually saying the truth

a lot of modern games are empty and play it safe which is sad because it creates very bland characters and stories, it's like they're afraid to do crazy things

Every time I watched a stream it was 90% boring dialogue.

THANK YOU!!! This is exactly how I've been feeling about Starfield! The introduction to the game is soulless and bland, as is the narrative, characters, combat and world. It just feels so empty. Exploring the planets reminds me of the randomly generated levels from the old .Hack games on the PS2. I get the same empty feeling from them. I loved Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3+4, but I don't love Starfield. It just feels like it's missing the magic Bethesda's previous games had in their time that made them special. I also loaded up Cyberpunk tonight for the first time in 2 years thanks to your video and am now playing through it again. It's like night and day compared to Starfield.

Mass effect >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Starfield

Al the characters talk so slow and without emotion. Their inflection is all wrong. It's like watching a movie written by AI and acted by robots.

First 6 side quests in New Atlantis were literal fetch quests. After that I stopped taking on side quests. Great game design, Todd. The dialogue, setting, quests, characters, everything is so lame and dull. I cant force myself to play anymore, around 5 hours in. I spent an hour doing nothing but fetch quests, not a single bullet fired. Just running from one dude to another picking up shit and delivering shit. I'm done with this game. One of the most boring games I've ever played, and worst designed. This game feels like it was designed by some committee, where the goal is to make everyone happy. Not someone with passion. Its absolutely soulless.

You know that feeling you get when you get off work or school early just to get home to start that new game you’ve been waiting so long for? And you’re like riding that high during the start of the game and makes it an even better experience? Yeah not the case for this game. For 2 hours I experienced boredom, frustration (from menu clicking simulator), and a poor looting / shooting experience. Shame

I was really interested in this title as my next game after BG3… so I have seen a lot of reviews. It looks like a “wait until they improve the game” title, or a “wait for sale.”

I got bored after the first day, ditched it for Hogwarts Legacy. Lol

One thing I found to pass the time is take pictures of ridiculous looking NPC's and other stupid things so that they show up in the loading screens. My main mission is to find the worst looking NPC in the universe. Hope this helps someone bored out there.

After 28 hours in I gave up, this game is never getting interesting. A few strange things I noticed in the story: during my talk with the Hunter he says this was the first time I did not die when he attacked the Lodge and that seems to intrigue him. But a few sentences later he says we had this conversation countless times. That is not possible: if I died every time before we could never have had this conversation afterwards. Also, Sarah told me she feels pressured by Barrett too much lately which does not make any sense because Barrett was the one who died during the attack on the lodge. These are probably scripted random lines but the game should keep track of who is dead and who is still alive. Very disappointing.

The difference in dialogue and atmosphere between Starfield and Cyberpunk is night and day. I dont understand how anybody can enjoy this crap. Actually just makes me wanna play Cyberpunk now lol

Im actually replaying Cyberpunk now with the 2.0 update. What I love is that a lot of the decisions you make DO have branching paths. Like the clip showed in the beginning of this video with the flathead. Theres a point where you can negotiate with a corpo beforehand who with offer that you work with her. She'll give you a credit card to pay for the flathead but it's bugged. You can either debug the chip and keep the money for yourself and let the story play out as shown here. Debug it and work with the creepy robot guys. Or not debug it, give it to the creepy robot guys and work with the corpo which leads to being able to romance her later on.

5:25 oh my god the writing is so bad. They have generic vague lines that will cover for anything that will happen "Am I to assume that briefcase has our item of interest", "i have the amount we agreed on". Most generic writing ive heard in a while. I thought i was listening to the new Saints Row game. Its like they wrote the script and recorded the lines before they even knew any of the details of the game. So the voice actor were given super vague lines with no actual detail that would work for any situation. The voice acting is also below average.

I knew Starfield was mid the moment I heard Microsoft-Bethesda WEREN'T giving early review copies / codes to a not insignificant number of reviewers prior to launch (in order to boost their Metacritic at launch). What's more, I can't think of a WORSE year to launch Starfield (not just because Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur's Gate 3 were / are so incredibly good).; 2023 has been an INCREDIBLY STRONG year for games... and it's not even over yet! There are some very hotly anticipated games scheduled to drop in the next few months, e.g. SpiderMan 2, Alan Wake 2, Lies of P, Phantom Liberty, AC: Mirage, etc. etc.

Oh, wow, you're such an expert on Starfield. I'm sure Bethesda is really worried about your opinion that the game sucks. I mean, who else could possibly have played the game as much as you have? You're truly a master of the game.

Great review. I've got about 120 hours of gameplay and as of 2 days ago...haven't touched the game in these last 2 days. I had already started to become fatigued by the load screens. Going into a shop, space, elevators...ship...next planet...next star system.... or all the locked doors to hack only to find a level 1 gun and some ammo. I've got 11,000 rounds of almost every type of ammo in the game. I have so much ammo I can't imagine using it all. I have the game on hard and I'm currently level 46...I've never felt like it was 'hard' and the only time I've died is in a space battle because mainly the flying of your ship and allocations etc...is janky as all *&^%. I've got 500 hours of gameplay in No Man's Sky and still return to that game after it's release multiple times over the years. Sort of like Skyrim or Borderlands...where it always feels like returning to an old friends house and they're cooking a nice steak for ya. Starfield always feels tedious. Run..fetch...load screen...return...dialogue that is written by High School level writers. Like many I was at first enamored by the game...it was new...new guns, new armor, cool ship....but then the honeymoon feeling wore off and I started seeing the same p.o.i.'s over and over on different moons, same layout, same loot that didn't match my level. I went to further distant stars hoping things would change and it just stayed....'the same.' Long walks across a barren 'open world' to a cave that's got 5 ores and a pile of rocks with some amino acids or sealant etc...same loot again. Same mine, same settlement with the same buildings and same enemies in the same spots. Lackluster guns....And the companion NPCs have become the most infuriating part of the game for me. F@&& all...in 20 years Bethesda's A.i. is worse than ever. Bouncing grenades off of Sarah because she walks right in front of me as I throw and killing me is just...the best? Looting a locker that I'm literally a half foot away from and she somehow squeezes in between me and the loot and activates the talk menu. It's hard for me to say very many good things about the game as it's flaws compound over time to make it a frustrating, tedious and boring experience over time. No matter what the initial reviews have said about the game, I don't believe any updates are going to fix this massive open world of nothingness. The main story is the most non-sensical illogical mumbo jumbo of sci-fi I have ever had to deal with in a game. If anyone can actually make sense of the story please enlighten me. I'm a avid reader of hard sci-fi and this attempt by Bethesda is cringe and absurd. ^ Spoiler Alert^ Multiverse garbage with reset to the past. New Game plus you reset the game keeping your powers and skill point or perks, everything else is lost. You start the game over. You re-enter your timeline....from where the game started. But yet, the Hunter who is Stroud at one point there are 2 hunters and mr stroud...all in the same room? Only one person in that timeline/universe gets to use the unity and skip to the next, and yet here we are with 3 of the same character....dah fah? Not only that, but there are other Starborn in the timeline who have somehow made it by using the unity and they get a special ship made of unknown materials and a fancy uniform....why, how? who? Again, hard sci-fi plot ...yet with writers who are unable to make it work intelligently. The game offers up something that it isn't smart enough to pull off or explain in any real intelligent way, just play the game and make believe...even if it hurts your soul. I struggle to enjoy something written by folks who are clearly out of their league. I just rolled my eyes and skipped the whole NG+ thing. Some of the other quests are interesting at times and were actually the better part of the game...The Ranger quest line is by far for me, the best and I truly wish that this had been the main push of the game...becoming a Sherriff like the old westerns, but in space...would've made for a much more interesting and believable story than Shouts...errr...Shards from an artifact that gives people magic and presents an impossible load of crap for a story. Maybe they shouldn't have attempted to shoehorn a knockoff of Marvel Infinite War/End Game storyline and found some other way to do the powers/artifact thing...I can think of many ways, but the multiverse time travel reset story has been overdone to death. I don't hate the game...I've become numb to it. I think the release of Cyberpunk 2.0 is going to completely overshadow this game and Starfield will be on sale within 1 to 2 months from now as players begin to see thru the veneer and abandon ship and move on...Unlike other Bethesda titles from the past...this one is going to fade into Oblivion.

Even Elite Dangerous when it launched had more excitement than this. I constantly feel as if I'm playing Fallout 4/76 from graphics, aesthetics, music, sound effects, bugs/glitches. What a dud of a game.. wish they had worked on ES6 instead.

Bought this game. Couldn't even load past the main menu. Guess the refund was for the best. Wished for more from a company like Bethesda as I love Skyrim and still play to this day. Even funnier my dog was born on Skyrim day lol

It's crazy how BGS' writing keeps getting worse and worse with each game. At least FO4 had the cringe-worthy sarcastic responses, but Starfield doesn't even try. Everything is so dry and artificial, lacking any personality or subtext.

Dang I really wanna play Cyber Punk now, that short interaction really got me hooked

I forced myself to play it for 70 hours... I can't do it anymore. It's lifeless, the quest design is old generation, the graphics looks like Fallout 4 This video made me uninstall. Thanks

It's about the stakes. There's none in Soyfield. Everything seems like it was designed for children.

The Dialogue is basically for 12 year olds

Finally a great review by a non Bethesda bought content creator. Ive love Bethesda games since skyrim and was hyped for Starfield but really suspicious of all the bought great/ perfect YT reviews. The Bethesda charm of crappy games at release doesnt cut it anymore. Its 2023 and Bethesda has the budget to make a fun and polished game at release. Glad I waited to buy the game until someone had the guts to actually give a real “honest” review. Im platform agnostic so play games on all platforms. Never felt inspired to leave a comment on most vids but this review seemed so genuine. Like he said, if you love the game and having a great time Im happy for you. Everyone has different definition of fun. Just so sick of all the hype mongers that are scared to post a real review because $ talks. Thank you for having the courage Nath!

I'm glad others can see through the veneer and marketing.

I played for about 4 hours. The dialogue is all bland, and like it was all written by a 12 yr old. The town was uninteresting in every way. The ship flight was boring as hell, it doesnt even feel like its moving. And the load screens. 16 times the load screens. I have uninstalled it and started playing no mans sky again.

They managed to make space freaking BORING. And there is NO actual space it is all fast-travel

The music behind the scenes and the voiced protagonists helps in those examples. I played Disco thinking it would be fun but i got sick of it and fell asleep twice

I saw an Starfield Ninja edit: A guy with an invisible suit and sword and a pistol kill some enemys. This was called "stealth gameplay" In Cyberpunk you can do the same. Plus you can hack camera systems, turn on lights, led microwaves explode, controll their cars or rase into them, let enemys think their friends need backup etc. You can burn them, freeze them, blind them or attack them with cyber psychosis - all while they have no idea where you are. That`s "stealth" to me. Starfail is from beyond yesterday.

Starfield isn't about playing a game; it's about sucking up your time for algorithms and 'player engagement' numbers to show corporate types.

Mass effect 2 start was intense

I don’t believe that you are in the minority with your opinion

Usually I can tolerate crap games due to copious amounts of Marijuana. Unfortunately mary doesn't even make this game bearable, I'd rather continue my 1000th skyrim play through

Way to many Essential unkillable NPC's in an RPG game

The "open" world just feels like level select to me. I cant unsee it. And regardless i'm tryimg to force myself to enjoy it. But its just to damn dull. I fell asleep behind the pc on release day. Thst has never happend to me.

Thank you for a great review. It really helps me to decide what to do about Starfield. More than anything else, your video convinced me to play Cyberpunk 2077.

As a working man, I would’ve been more p’oed taking 2 weeks off for a massively disappointing game. Vacation time is precious

Whenever I watch a Starfield review and they do a gameplay segment I unironically have to skip through it with the arrow key, it's too boring to watch :(

Seems like a fair review. I don’t own it myself, I’m waiting for the dust (and price) to settle. It amazes me that the main story is so short. I was under the impression this was an epic “play it for years” sort of game. Anywho, I’m keeping an eye on it, but not getting hopes up too high.

Its crazy how the first thing you do in starfield is mine rocks

The thing that blew my mind the most about Starfield was how it's trying to be an RPG with backgrounds and quirks, but you start off just as some dude taking a side job mining on some random planet. If you want to roleplay as a bounty hunter, you don't get to start off chasing a target then finding the artifacts. Even Cyberpunk let you choose 3 different ways to start the game.

A slow start is fine. It's just that everything else is slow too. The game never changes its pace, doesn't look impressive. It just doesn't have anything going for it really.

I felt this coming. You’re probably right on how B+ it is. Maybe Armored Core is the better choice this season.

I felt this way about the game from the OG trailers. I was looking for this review but among 95% of the reviews its nothing but high praise. I had my hopes up but i know this game isn't for me, truthfully i dont know how anyone sincerely enjoys this game.

It's so crazy to see so many people praising this game so much. I feel like I'm being gaslighted. Are people just going throw the 7 stages for a game that was hyped, and stuck at the denial phase?

Bethesda should be ashamed of this, and the employees who were too afraid to tell Todd this game is boring, congrats you kept your job and became a shill, What happened to your passion? Why do you even have the job you have? The people that bought this game and are just coping because they spent $100 or more should also be ashamed for not having conviction to a higher standard for games. This is a disgrace. They smell the roses and sing praises for the colours, all the while cutting their hands on the thorns and not even flinching in pain.

BSG will forever live in Osidians shadow

I completely agree with you. I had it refunded after three hours and thankfully they granted the refund. I wanted to like this game, but it's so dull. Everything is dull. And I noticed that right from the start.

Imagine starting a game where you're told to do a job. A mining one at that and all you do is fetch stupid artifacts. I quit starfield.

Starfield is super boring. Puts me to sleep. Got early access as well. Everything is a boring fetch quest. Just not having much with the game at all. Nothing like how Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are.

Play BG3 instead.

I'm going to do what I did with Skyrim which was focus on thieves quest storyline so whatever is a strong storyline alternative

Just finished Starfield. Both main quest and side quests. The game feels like it was designed to be as boring as possible.

At last an honest review. Have had to rethink which gaming reviewers I watch after some of the reviews for this game. Clearly some very big bucks were spent persuading some youtubers how "good" this game was.

My roommate is so desperate for this game to be good, and now the rest of us are stuck hearing the god-awful NPC interactions all day

thank u for pointing out the love and soul in cyberpunk as someone who was lucky enough to get almost no bad glitches on launch in my first play through i absolutely love the game and thing its severely underrated (also i didnt follow the hype so all the cut content wasnt known to me till after the fact)

12:21 romancing panam in cyberpunk was fun af

Absolutely love Skyrim and Fallout but Starfield looks so boring to me. I have not played it myself so maybe I’m completely wrong but from what I have seen I don’t think I will enjoy it. And I own a Series X before people wanna call me pony again.

I felt the same about Elden Ring. I found it boring and tedious and I didn’t get why so many people loved it. But that’s the thing with video games, no matter how good / or bad we think a game is, it doesn’t mean that’s fact. It’s just our opinion. People like different things. The mature thing to do is to accept it’s not for everyone, and let others enjoy what they enjoy.