I'm 50, but I'll be the first to admit that I find the rhythm of Starfield's play to be... relaxing. Almost soothing. No it's not a perfect game, but it's a game I definitely enjoy.
Y'know, this is what I hear from my professional friends too. The ones who have, like, awesome real jobs and just play the video games for fun. They love it! The vibe is soothing. Something about the way Starfield operates does right by the Venerable.
I keep coming back to it and haven’t gotten bored yet after 110 hours. That’s a lot of hours for me to put into a game. The Witcher 3 I needed to get back in I was obsessed with the world. Starfield isn’t that for me but I continue to play it consistently. It wouldn’t be a game I would recommend to everyone but it def fits my vibe.
@@ikeduno7973this is how I felt with Diablo too (until I ran out of content). I work so damn much and travel for work Diablo and starfield I can just flip on and get out what I put into it. No cheating glitchers or grieving annoying players. Just my own experience and it’s relaxing.
Starfield is just such a comfortable game to me, I can spend hours on each planet just walking around scanning and mining, looting outposts, and doing the occasional randomly generated side quest from time to time. A lot of people may find it boring to explore in this game, and I get it, but to me it’s fun. I just love seeing all the different biomes and creatures, just the overall atmosphere of the game is what keeps me playing.
It’s the detailed, dense, handcrafted world that makes exploration fun. Not huge amounts of empty shallow places where they bombard you with generic fetch quests. They all are the same, there is no uniqueness, no „I wonder what’s around the next corner“ There is no history to explore. It’s lIke: go and fill that endless emptiness. And have fun doing the same uncomfortable stuff over and over again. Skyrim Special Edition has now a bigger daily player count than starfield. Because an almost 15year old game is far more fun. I really wanted to like starfield but when I heard that they use ingame procedural generation, I knew this would break it. You can use procedural generation but you have to use it to create a ready game that still feels handcrafted.
@@patwilson2546 Thanks man. I respect your opinion too. Btw. I always join games late/later because it becomes cheaper and they may still add content. Maybe Bethesda can pull me in on the „starfield-idea“ if they show passion and add good content. I said what I said because I am waiting for TES6 for at least 10 years and my fear is that they go with TES in the same direction. (Huge space that feels empty, generated and wants to be filled by the player. I really like my handcrafted quests and intriguing stories. ☺️🎉
My favorite was a video that claimed the long promotional video for Starfield that came out not long before its release was "deceptively edited" to give the impression that we would have flight controls while landing on the planet, then proceeded to show the footage from said video where it showed the unedited landing sequence from start to finish exactly as it appears in game.
Dude they cut out every single loading screen... I think I know what video u are referring too. The criticism was that they edited out the loading screens and yes that is "deceptively edited" as people would think by watching the promotional material that showcases "real" ingame footage, that the cutscenes were used as the loading screens....
@@irtdome9522I don't know what to tell you. The video claimed that they deceptively edited THE LANDING SEQUENCE. He showed the landing sequence as portrayed in the promotional video. Every single moment of it, including a black screen right before the player has control again, was shown in that video. It matches my experience in game on my computer beat for beat. The load time might differ, but that's always the case since my hardware isn't the same as theirs.
@@BKPrice I mean u can send the video of it so we know for sure if we talk about the same. Maybe we watched 2 different and still quite similar ones. Nonetheless my point still stands with the editing out the loading screens. If u are referring to a different video than I well can’t say anything about that.
I lack the english skills to articulate, but in short: Bethesda fans should absolutely demand better, when one looks at what the competition puts out, and it's a shame they don't.
Completely agree with your take. Starfield hit the spot for me. I'm about 110 hours in, finished the main campaign and feel as though I still have 100s of hours ahead of me. I love spending time decking out my houses/penthouse, I love spending time working out the outpost system (although some room for improvements here) and I am obsessed with ship building! The level of customisation is incredible. I'm really keen to finish all the faction quests and continue doing more random side quests. I also love how you can randomly explore any place and if you don't give yourself an agenda, but just do whatever is interesting within your immediate vicinity, it's super fun and adventurous. [Spoiler ahead] My only qualm is NG+. If all of my above mentioned ship building and outpost building was to be reset I would be devastated. I also really don't care for becoming some combat god with all of the powers maxed out. For that reason, I'm ignoring that aspect of the game and implementing the mind frame that my player fell too in love with his original universe to skip across to the next.. which to be honest there was actually dialogue options to role play that mind set too... so I'm ultimately still okay with this.
I am at almost 600 hours in Starfield and it continues to entertain me. Always a new surprise over the next ridge. And it was that way from the start. I got off the train, saw the woman mopping the floor, and stopped to talk to her. A cute little quest, the first of many, many more. From Spacers to Space Frog, never a dull moment.
@@daizenmarcurio easily; I play, and come across something new. The fused spaces are rare, but have been interesting, for example. And just yesterday found an abandoned mining camp I hadn't seen before. Adding that this morning I had a new questline I hadn't ever seen before appear, with robots searching for intelligent alien life giving me a quest which led me to a cave, a miner defending his claim, and Ecliptic mercenaries trying to steal it from him. Absolutely amazing storytelling, and all new to me.
Getting her that drink made me feel good, I was like "you know what, lemme hop up to the coffee shop real quick" , like she was someone I knew or something, as soon as I saw that I knew I'd like the game.
i totally agree with you! i have been having a blast playing the game. yes, i think there are areas for improvement - like enemy AI, landers, more info on what stuff does (i still have no idea what my alien DNA trait actually does!) - but the stuff people complain about, like not actually flying to a star/planet/moon - which drove me away from elite and NMS - i don't miss. thanks for this vid!
As I see it, the problem isn't how good Starfield is-not awesome, but worth the price and decently fun-but that we can all see how much better it _could have been_ if they'd done more development work. The map has a thousand planets, I bet even more will appear with DLC... imagine if each and every one had at least one side quest with that magnificent Bethesda environmental storytelling. "Entangled" is a masterpiece of a level, and the Starborn twist reveal, from "High Price to Pay" through "Unearthed" gave me chills. And of course, we once again have to talk about the Creation engine being a stone around Bethesda's neck. We've all seen people do stuff with Skyrim and Fallout 4 in the Unreal Engine. Bethesda's talented game devs are being held back by outdated tools and have been for over a decade now.
Well sure! I don't particularly blame Bethesda for using the same game engine at least once more though. I imagine more than half of their staff is used to only using creation engine and uprooting that will delay all of their games even longer. I think a lot of the expectations on them and their games has to do with the idea that they somehow aren't people trying to make good games. While I think that the game could use more varied encounters, I don't really expect to see a million new things - if I was to travel to any planet in real life, I don't expect to find a life changing discovery every time I landed. I don't particularly think it's a realistic expectation to think every planet needs a side quest. Thanks for watching the video and commenting! I genuinely appreciate it.
@@catvr_18 I mean is it the reason why they keep the engine is because modders are very familiar with it? I don't think they're willing to go an engine like UE5 because I've heard it's notoriously hard to mod.
@@jamesandrews5629 Oh, I'm not sure about that, as I'm not a modder myself. I suppose that could be true, but I imagine if I was a team member at BGS, I would not want to up and switch to working in a completely different game engine after gaining a lot of experience in the first one. I'm not saying it wouldn't be good for them to switch, as I know UE5 has been a great choice for other game devs, but I tend to give people I've never met the benefit of the doubt. It is certainly possible that a good portion of game studios like BGS anticipate the modding community to iron out the flaws in their games, but I know personally from creating projects close to my heart, that no matter how "perfectionist" I get, I always miss something due to being so close to the project, and anyone off the street could come along and tell me how many holes are in it.
@@catvr_18 The problem with that is there is a limit to how long you can reasonably run the one engine without updating before lack of optimization begins to catch up with you. The Gamebryo engine was first released in 1997, was updated to Creation Engine in 2011, then Creation Engine 2 in 2021. Unreal Engine was initially released a year later in 1998, but in the 25 years since, has had *four* major updates, not two. And Creation Engine 2 has far more code in common with Gamebryo than UE5 does with UE1.
@@catvr_18 But this also highlights another problem..... This is the engine thats going to be used for ES6. And they have not proven that it'll hold up as current gen engine, much less a next gen engine Todd is claiming it to be. So even if we assumed other engines were not potentially better options, CE2 has years to go just to catch up to what their modding community has done with CE1. And we know a total engine overhaul is possible, because X-Ray64 (the community created fork the Engine for STALKER) looks like a decent last gen engine, despite the fact its code base dates back to 2007.
As a long time Bethesda fan, Starfield fell completely flat for me. I don't think it's a bad game. But it's absolutely not the game I expected. I don't think the world/lore isn't remotely interesting. In Fallout and Elder Scrolls, the lore and environment makes the lackluster writing work because my brain fills in the details. I'm genuinely glad people enjoy the game. And I hope Bethesda takes people's criticism to heart. We all want amazing Bethesda games.
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, and I'm truly not here to defend a game studio full of strangers, but I did want to share why I moved on from downright hating it. I hope you will come to enjoy it in the future like I did! Thank you for your comment and thank you for watching my video.
@@catvr_18 I'll definitely be checking up on it's progress from time to time. And I'm genuinely excited for when the creation kit comes out. One benefit from all the loading screens, is the game is just a collection of individual cells. So mod making should be just as easy as Skyrim.
Starfield absolutely doesn't hold up against any modern Space Sim... because it's not one. Starfield is an entry in an surprisingly rare genre of RPG, the Space-centric Sci-fi ARPG. It's a genre that doesn't see a lot of entries, but Starfield shares genre with classics like the Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and, more recently, the Mass Effect Trilogy. Those are the kind of game from which Starfield takes the bulk of its DNA. And when you stack Starfield up against KotOR and ME, you get a much better picture of where it succeeds and fails, rather than the false comparisons to E:D, NMS, or SC. When stacked up against others of its actual genre, Starfield pushes the boundaries of the genre in absolutely *incredible* ways. It represents a massive technical leap forward for the genre. Mass Effect's lackluster planetary exploration, expanded. KotOR's idea of a hero ship, expanded. Space combat, expanded. I could go on, but while it doesn't knock it out of the park in *every* category, it deserves a huge amount of credit for how far it has pushed the boundaries of its genre.
The point you made about the POIs is exactly what I thought every time I hear someone complain it being empty. Starfield is only a few hundreds of years into the future with humanity almost at the brink of extinction. Space is empty, just like real life. Humans have only managed to travel inside the Milky Way in Starfield. That's not very advanced compared to most popular sci-fi space exploration stories. The fact that Constellation has to exist in Starfield's world shows that their generation has stopped advancing, with so few people that's willing to spare their free time to explore further into space.
10:27: The thing is we came into this exact situation in 2015 when everyone was making Witcher 3 vs. Fallout 4 comparison videos. Many commented on how, as longtime BGS fans, they expected more from the story department that they now realize were in other competing games. Come 2023 where the direct competition is an open-world RPG game is Cyberpunk 2027 and a traditional isometric RPG games with Baldur's Gate 3, it's getting harder and harder to sell this particular niche. Something I always watch for with these sorts of trends are longtime BGS gamer reviewers or content makers - the type of people who have been playing since Daggerfall or Morrowind. The type of person who knows these games by heart. If you're getting critiques from these individuals, who may enjoy the Starfield formula, but find it wanting when compared to predecessors because of things like the exploration and emergent gameplay narrative lacking? I would argue a Zaric Zhakaron's voice matters even more than your general, highly popular game reviewer's voice like dunkey or Luke Stephens. Also, I believe the ex-Skyrim lead developer commented on how BG3 had a very different design philosophy compared to Starfield. The latter game fears people missing out on any scrap of content so it makes it available to everyone, even more so than it's predecessors which emphasized a degree of roleplay restriction to a finalizing choice. All these singular issues culminate in a worse game for both newcomers and oldtimers alike to the point where I don't see this as just a trend.
After initially hating it and giving up completely after a few hours, I finally gave it another go. And it has hooked me completely. This game completely ignores any modern standard of space games and realized its just a big Bethesda RPG with a heavy influence from 80s space games, mostly the Starflight series which I guess should have been obvious being called Starfield. Once I got onboard with that I haven't stopped playing.
This is it: "Just because you want a piece of media to be something it isn't, doesn't mean it should have been what you wanted it to be!" [12:32] I believe we should stop treating games as mere products to be consumed, and treat them more as people with specific strengths, flaws, quirks and requirements. Sometimes there's going to be a person that seems to not be liked by a large group of players, and that can colour your experience of that person, but if you gave that person a chance, they might surprise you and be a really great friend. And if you gave them a proper chance, met with them on their level without preconceived notions, and you still feel like you can't hang with that person, then that's perfectly fine as well! No person is universally liked by everyone, but that shouldn't be the failing of the person. I know the comparison is a bit messy, but I hope you get my meaning. I absolutely love Starfield! Great video! 👍
Starfield is the first BGS game I've ever quit before finishing - from terribly written dialogue and quests that don't even connect correctly and a main story that's AWFUL literally 15x the same fetch quest, to ugly hollow NPC's, to the clunky, multi-gated crafting system that hard discourages crafting weapons, to ONE OUTCOME for all quests removing the last vestiges of RPG, to all the weapons feeling so same-y it's basically like 3 different guns and one melee weapon, to "city" design that makes them feel like small, mostly empty theme parks, to the mind-numbing slog of procedural generation, it genuinely feels like every single system in starfield was a notable downgrade from prior BGS titles, and actual gameplay is just a boring, monotonous chore - it feels like they sat around an ideas board for 7 years and then 2 weeks before release, just asked ChatGPT to generate a generic space game lol - was genuinely miserable playing it and sad/angry I was duped into buying it - thanks Todd.....When every single system feels janky and lazy and unfinished, I don't think it was just unrealistic expectations - the game is just badly made. I didn't need them to deviate from their formula - I just wanted it to be not lazily copy-pasted crap with extra resource gathering chores added in for no reason to waste more of your time.
I was following this game religiously, and I noticed a hard shift on how this game was being discussed before launch and before we found out it was going to be an Xbox exclusive. I remember everyone was hyped and hopeful about this game when Todd Howard announced along with TES: 6 a long time ago. Then Xbox bought zenimax, people were still speculating Starfield was coming out on ps5 anyway. Starfield is made an Xbox exclusive and that’s when the slander and hate really started. Now I only see PlayStation fanboys refer to this game as “Starflop”. Which it very clearly wasn’t a flop, financially and as a game in general. Not hard to see how the negativity tainted the waters.
Starfield its just a relaxing comfort zone most players will enjoy and few, like me, will love coming back to. It’s just that gamers nowadays are constantly searching excuses to praise or hate developers. Probably in few months this game will be the “underrated Beteshda gem”
I'm 45. I've played a LOT of games. STARFIELD IS GREAT! It's just enormous, and those who bother to play the hell out of it instead of semi-speed-running, should really enjoy it. Yeah it's full of bugs, but few are really annoying, much less game-breaking. Yes Elite: Dangerous will kick its arse in terms of ship flying and combat, but I get around that by just flying less than planned, and focusing on other things. It WOULD be great if Starfield and Elite were combined! But all the Starfield hate is WAY blown out of proportion. I play an evil kleptomaniac psychopath in my Starfield videos, and I have an absolute blast doing so. I'm also sure that with future updates and DLC the game will become even better, and once modding is fully implemented... it should be S-tier. P.S. the death of Sean and my wife in Fallout 4 still haunts me! 😂
If I pitched a movie about space and we'd be exploring 100's of barren planets, no doubt people would agree that it would be realistic and maybe serene, but not entertaining.Video games are in the entertainment industry after all, their success unsurprisingly ties in with their ability to entertain.
I had 0 expectaions for this game. I wasn't planning on buying it. After falloet 4 and 76 I was pretty much done with Bethesda. Then my GPU started acting up. And I decided the 6700xt was going to be the best new GPU in my price range. It came with Starfield. I've been playing since early access and have nearly 500 hours in it. It's not the best game of all time, it has some annoying things, but it's fun. I like exploring the universe. Ship building is so addictive. I haven't even started using mods yet.
Same for me. Im only 333 hours in as of right now and I havent felt the need to use a mod yet. I'm still really enjoying the base game. Glad others are in the same boat
This not Fallout in space. The SPECIAL traits allow for much more varied character. The character depth might be 10% of what we found in New Vegas. Having the passive skills not take character levels might've made for a more fun experience. Do you want to make scanning slightly less shitty, or do you want your weapons to do more damage?
Literally one of the best reviews I've seen. Maybe the actual best because you assessed yourself to understand what you found objectionable in Starfield. That's probably a superpower in 2023 and beyond. IRL, I'm a 50+ year old computer engineer. I've been playing video games (mostly PC) for well over 3 decades. Includes: 1000 hours in NMS; 400 hours in ED (I've been to Hutton Orbital) . I played D&D 40+ years ago before it had "editions." My D&D rulebook was mimeographed copy given to me by my uncle, a Navy submariner. It had literally traveled the world. I am a Freestar Pirate, hero of the Crimson Fleet, essentially a dark Robin Hood. I help the truly needy people I see left behind by the corruption rampant in both UC and FC. I see their false morality as mere convenient levers of power and control. I found myself in possession of a Constellation ship and space suit, but don't really spend much time there on this play through. I honestly didn't know much about Starfield until weeks before it launched. I had been consumed by running a Valheim server (1300 hours) and a few solo survival games (to fill in some idle time). I heard about BG3 just before it launched and was told that they moved their launch to avoid conflict with Starfield. What is this Starfield you speak of? :) I had almost no expectations of either. I quit BG3 after 150 hours (just starting Act III) to shift to Starfield. I'm just under 500 hours into Starfield and have very few complaints.
Great video. Always felt like I was living in my own pocket of reality when it came to my enjoyment of this game. Much of the complaints I see don't actually feel like legitimate criticisms. They feel more like pouting and projection, which is why discourse around this game feels so alien and off putting. Think you hit the nail square on the head
That's what I thought. When I heard about all these crazy "game breaking" bugs, I could never find a single video or source to confirm these complaints. So it makes me think that these issues are being blown out of proportion. I've been thoroughly enjoying Starfield. And the journey has always felt organic in my experience, never forced.
And that's it. Release your expectations and just play the game. Stop trying to force it to be what you want it to be, and see it for its own thing that it is. That's where I found my satisfaction. Now I can spend hours just scanning, mining and selling like a space trucker. May be boring to others, but it has found this place of relaxation for me. The negativity that so many have for this game is that they can't let go of this idea of intellectual ownership for something that was never theirs in the first place. I can't describe this sense of entitlement that so many games (not all) seem to exude when they don't get what they want. Do they even know what they want?
I totally agree with what you said. There are maby ways to play the Starfield. I've spent most of my time, outside of ship building, surveying planets and moons as a brainless mode that earn respectable xp, but ive also learbed how certain resources are connected to certain types of terrain which makes base building an interesting prospect. But, there are the game breaking bugs. Ive lost 2 ship rewards, lost 4 crew(including the fan), unable to complete separate 4 quests with one of them the main quest that prevents me from unlocking the space magic.
the game , i was told , was not what everyone wanted . the game , i discovered , is exactly what i wanted . i am on level 53 and have not yet started any mission with constellation . i have done loads of missions , talked to loads of npc's , scanned loads of planets and found some fantastic weapons and armour , at my pace . i will be 70 next week and this game , to me , is really good fun . if npc's and animals did not try to kill me , i would not kill them . i am loving the pace and the only thing i think is lacking is a land vehicle , but i got over that . as long as bethesda keep their 5 year update promise i will still be playing then .
Starfield is a great trap for misunderstanding and self-manufactured misery (where you play a game a specific way that makes it harder than it should be). Truthfully , people don’t know what the game is supposed to be. Its easy to see a game like minecraft and say “I know what this game is doing and its not for me.” But because Starfield does so many things, its super easy for people to form a preconception on what it is and is supposed to be doing. People are running into loading screens because they are landing, getting loot, then selling it to vendors that dont have alot of credits, so they have to jump to another location to sell again. This causes people to run into loading screens alot. If they engaged the game based on its intended design, you can literally go a large amount of time without seeing a single loading screen. If there was one thing Starfield certainly did wrong, it was marketing it to the masses, as it is a niche game and many will not find it entertaining.
I'm onenof the few whonhas been able to enjoy this game, and I believe it's because I took it at face value. I had no expectations for it as far as comparing it to.other games or experiences. I've enjoyed every minute of playing through missions, looting, exploring planets. These days, folks too often begin a new game biased. You really just have to try and come into a new game with a blank canvas perspective.
Ok another "good review" of Starfield seeking to explain how to grow to love it and that it's failings aren't really failings. If you have to explain to someone that they are wrong and something is really a good game when they've played it, maybe it's really not a good game. What you expected it to be by the way was exactly what all their hype tried to make you think it was. As for the BG3 example, I only had to play it to immediately love it, no one needed to explain to me how I might eventually love it if I played it longer. Just like a great book or a great movie it gripped me from the start and still hasn't let me go. Also really? They would have had to delay another year to have good writing like BG3? Starfield was in development longer than BG3 and had a bigger budget. They had time for better writing and they had plenty of resources. The reason a lot of triple A studios started telling us we couldn't expect the scope or quality of BG3 from them when it came out was panic that we where going to see how low their value proposition was by comparison. That's actually what made me buy BG3, any game which causes panic and excuses from other big name developers and makes them get excuses for the scope and quality of their own games in early must be worth a try and it was best game I've played in at least 20 years. Starfield by comparison isn't an awful game and it's not a classic, it's a mediocre game by AAA standards with a number of obvious flaws many things it doesn't do as well as Skyrim and fails to really live up to the hype it's developer put out about it. Coming out as it did in the post BG3 world just when that game had made people question the value proposition for AAA games from big corporations was an added unfortunate circumstances and made it a bit of a lightening rod for the things many gamers think are wrong in AAA gaming today. So yes I expect without that it still wouldn't have been a classic but would have been a little better received. Also excuses like real space is empty so our game is empty are lame and it does you no credit to repeat them here, realism is only great in a game when it's also fun, because it can add to emersion without making game play boring. Incidentally I am also nearly 50 and have played and enjoy to various degrees many games in my time.
Most issues are completely self-inflicted. Don't have a manpower to custom design tons of planet? Then DON'T DO AN ENTIRE GALAXY. Can't do seamless space flight? DON'T TEASE IT THEN. Can't make big maps? DON'T DO ENTIRE CITIES THEN. And so on.
I'm sorry, but I'm literally a pilot of a spaceship who can craft advanced gear and cuisine... But can't craft ammo for my guns, and not move a weapon attachment to another gun that is literally the same? I mean, game is okay but there needs to be some quality of life here. Have fun with the game while I sit here and want to use my big gun my whole run without having to go and wait at a vendor 200 times for ammo.
That’s interesting because after 150 hours I concluded that Starfields real problem is indeed Starfield. Not going to write an essay as I’ve detailed its many issues elsewhere but the overall feel of the game is disjointed and disparate. The many systems of Starfield are either incomplete within themselves or lacking efficient connection between them. I don’t think the game has one major problem, but many, many small choices that work against immersion, worldbuilding and role-playing. Some work against enjoyment altogether. I’ve described it as “Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Game”. Is it a bad game? No. I enjoyed the majority of time with it. Playing in 4k the game can be quite pretty and the shipbuilding is the single strongest and addicting part of it for me. Is it an amazing game? No. Its many flaws accumulated the more I played it, got more difficult to ignore/justify and towards the end made it unbearable and frustrating. I love space and sci-fi. I really enjoyed some of the questlines. I actively tried to love Starfield for what it was, and there were times I got close. Then I would encounter one of the many terrible game design decisions and sigh. Aside from the many reviews that lambast the game as pure hot garbage (a simplistic take I don’t agree with) there are many others that will label it as simply bland, mid, disappointing or just ok. Some of those reviews were made by people who have indeed played the game for over 100 hours. Some of them are made by people who love prior BGS releases. Some older, some much younger. Some are exclusively players and some who have modded many previous BGS titles. One such review basically said for every one element that Starfield gets right, there is something attached to or missing from it that makes that element less fun. I found that statement to be accurate. I understand why many people adore Starfield or just think it is a solid worthwhile game. On the other hand I can understand why some people put it down rather quickly and got a refund. It had great potential but never rises to it, fluctuating from brief moments of inspiring genuine satisfaction to wondering how some features even got approved at a AAA studio with decades of game dev experience. In my opinion many of its flaws are fundamental and cannot be fixed by mods. If you know the kind of player you are and do some research to understand the kind of game Starfield is, you can have a good time, whether that means buying it now, waiting for a sale, waiting for mod support or skipping it entirely. EDIT: For someone who decided to not write an essay this is a long post. Guess I couldn’t help myself.
I agree. I have been a BGS fan since Oblivion. I anticipated Starfield since the trademark filing. I learned to expect with each new game release to have a hot mess of bugs and crashes, but the world they developed was always compelling, immersion, and cohesive. Starfield lacks cohesion. It is a collection of disjointed activities. The quests and faction stories fail to unify the various worlds and activities together. At the end of the day it is 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that', but nothing compels me to reload my last save. Previously, I looked forward to continuing the adventure of exploring Tamriel or the Wasteland. I hope they continue to invest in this game and try to flesh it out. Maybe focus more on the dynamics between the factions or build more compelling reasons to explore. Surveying Planets for credits is a very poor excuse and motivation to spend hours hopping around, encountering the same bases over and over. The same goes for space. Add a critical need for dangerous spacewalks, satellite repairs, busy spacestation trading hubs with other ships and crews that you meet and join, compete against, or have conflicts with chasing resources, tech, or bounties. There are so many possibilities for the Starfield canvas, but Bethesda failed to really develop and integrate the elements. Hopefully, the mod tools will be released soon.
I played this game since day one by just wondering around the different systems and was amazed with richness each place has, from side quests to the random dialogues from the NPCs as you walked pass them. I am already 300+ hrs into the game and still haven’t finish my first play through, and I believe that there are still many things that I have not discover yet. yes, I am staying away from as much spoilers, tips as much as possible, the joy of this game is the exploration and discovery of new things. I also stayed away from the rants on how bad this game, and when I do click on rant vid, I often found that they give this game a fair chance, didn’t play it as it is intended for, condemnation is a uncalled for. Finally, glad that you decided enjoyed the game as it was meant to be, that is what I love BGS for.
Great video! Definitely feel Starfield really begins to shine after your first playthrough. For me, I felt like after learning about the world and mechanics provided in Starfield, I could create a character to play that would actually fit in it and would want to interact with the factions in my second playthrough and it was so much more fun!
I feel like they made a very niche game and released it in a mainstream spotlight. Niche games can be great to certain people, but the reason they're niche is often that they're not made to be accessible to a broader audience, which is what it sounds like to me when people say it takes X hours before it gets good.
This exactly. It was my first Bethesda game (aside from a brief attempt at fo4 back in the day) and although I enjoyed my first play through I have enjoyed all my consecutive play throughs more. I get the world, I get the people. I can make a character that accurately fits into said world. Love this game
Good take. You have to engage with what this game is, not obsess over what it isn't. The reception Starfield has gotten underscores why developers don't really try to make this kind of game very often. Every time a dev announces they're working on a space exploration game, on some level gamers immediately expect a game of essentially infinite scope, completely seamless, and 100% handcrafted. Such a game does not and cannot exist.
2:25 “but what if they weren’t goody two shoes.” 2:30 asking bartenders if they’ve heard of rumors or work needing done isn’t horribly unbelievable. Hell, asking a bartender for work in some bars is a good way to find out contractors that are low on workers.
Finally a review that's out of the "I want likes and views because of the drama title, saying the same thing as 100000 others" box... And I didn't had to put on x1,25 or x1,5 😂🎉❤ I have Gamepass Ultimate and still spend the +100€ because I can see the future 👀😉😂
I agree with almost everything you mentioned in this video. I am enjoying this game a lot. Got over 440+ hours in on 1st play thru. In my time playing I have not had nearly as many bug issues. Some I think add a true Bethesda flavor to the game, like when you are in a moon base killing spacers and you shoot his jet pack launching him into the air. Except there is a ceiling above him and his head gets imbedded in the ceiling. Now he is dead hanging from the ceiling like a hung up boxing bag. The only things that really bother me is, 1. Not being able to fly my ship to and from the surface of the planet/moon. I spent dozens of hours designing my ship till I got my desired look (SR-71 Blackbird), but hardly get to actually fly it. Made me think it was a waste of time building but, I did enjoy the time building and trying diff part merging methods. It was fun. 2. the immersion with npc's. They are all emotionless droids. Bump into them, no reaction, they dont even budge. Pull your weapon out and wave it at their face, no reaction, start blasting your guns off, no reaction. I never tried BG3, for I have no interest in playing it. its not that Im hating on the game, if you enjoy it, play it. For me, I played Skyrim from day one. Im done with fantasy themed games. Just like all the zombie games, they are over played and waaaay to many games with the same theme. This Space (semi)RPG is what I have been longing for a while now! Its not perfect but still loving it. Sorry for the long ass comment. lol Great video, just sub'd for more!
Except, for some of us, we didn't get Fallout in space. This game absolutely does NOT have Bethesda's "special charm" for me. I seriously doubt that this game will not become beloved as time passes. For too many of us, it's just not good. Exploration is dull and unrewarding. Seeing the next place in Fallout is engaging and fun. In Starfield they are mostly the same. The NPCs are less interesting than Fallout 4. IN Fallout 4 I liked several of the NPCs. In Starfield I like none of them. Vasco is the only one I find remotely acceptable company. I don't think Starfield's vision is necessarily wrong, but the execution is off. I don't think that I would ever think of Starfield as a great Bethesda game. I could think of it as a good one, at least in the sense of do a play through, put it down and feel like it was OK. For me, the killer was the NPCs, the dialogue, and the quests. For me (and apparently more than a few others). they were incredibly uninteresting. Far from being a Bethesda hater, I have enjoyed every game they ever release until Starfield. I have played and enjoyed every Bethesda game back to Daggerfall, playing through each multiple times. I am playing Skyrim as we speak. I gave Starfield well over 100 hours. There are aspects of it that I find enjoyable, especially gravity impacted gun play and ship building. But the gun play is identical every time, and the ship building is of no value when you just "fly" the ship via menus and loading screens. it's just not a good game in my opinion. With that said, if you are enjoying it, great.
This is an excellent video that hits the nail on the head. I am someone who really enjoys Starfield, has 120ish hours in the game since launch, and was really hyped ever since E3 2018. While I do enjoy it, I still recognize that there are some flaws that need to be addressed by BGS. The main problem with Starfield is not actually Starfield, like you said. It's mostly people and their overblown expectations, expecting BGS to do something completely different. Before launch, I was basically running crowd control on r/Starfield saying that people were setting their expectations wayyyy too high and were expecting BGS to deliver NMS+ED+SC+Fallout with all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses. When we got exactly what BGS promised (a BGS RPG set in space), people were livid because they projected their wants, dreams, and ideas of what they thought they game should be onto Starfield. Many got really disappointed because it didn't live up to their image of what the game "was going to be". I set my expectations from the beginning--Starfield was always going to be a BGS RPG in space. I never expected (or wanted) a deviation from the formula they've been using since Oblivion. CohhCarnage said it best--if you go into the game looking for flaws and trying to nitpick it to death, you're going to have a bad experience, because that is what you're looking for. If you go into the game looking to have fun and to play in the sandbox BGS created, you're going to have a good time. There are certainly legitimate issues that people can have with the game, and I'm not saying people can't dislike the game either. I do, however, think a lot of problems stem from people expecting BGS to cater to their exact preferences, and then being disappointed when it doesn't, instantly polarizing their opinion to the far extremes of negativity and hate. This feeds the hate train of review bombing and negative videos on YT about it. I do think in a year or two, people will undoubtedly start putting out "Was I Too Harsh on Starfield?" and "Starfield Was Underrated" videos. Just as Call of Duty has the COD cycle, BGS has the BGS cycle--current game is trash, last game was underrated/good, next game will be the best ever, repeat. EDIT: I also wanted to add that I don't like the game out of a "consoomer" mindset where I have to love everything BGS creates. I'm also a big fan of the real Star Wars (PT+OT+EU novels), and I have been relentless with my critiques of the sequel movies and TV shows and their "consoomer" fans that are fine with eating garbage as long as it has the logo on it. Starfield is not that--it's a good game with some flaws, but at its core it is a solid experience and is an enjoyable new IP in an era of remakes, remasters, or unnecessary/endless sequels.
There are so many ways this game could have been improved but even as is it is really really fun and at the end of the day that is what makes a good game, not being groundbreaking or changing the world of gaming. That's great and all but if a game is fun it has done it's job.
If you could be anything other than a good space cop it might be a real RPG. As is it is just an FPS with some RPG elements that do not effect the story at all.
@@samiam4544 What are you talking about? I'm currently playing a thief/con-man. Are you sure you've actually played this game? You aren't one of those people who's just watched videos and complain about it, right?
@@r.rodriguez4991 No, over 600hrs trying to like the game. Over half of that ruined by game breaking bugs. It is just boring after first play through. Not saying it is bad just not as good as I expected it to be.
I mean you can say that about every game..... Every game can be improved a lot.... and above all I hate when people sit and compare it to games which have had 3 to 6 yrs of constant updates.... I say you give the same time to Starfield and it'll become an unstoppable force.... Give it mods, dlc, major updates..... It's just a matter of time really
I think it's worth pointing out that a lot of the people who weren't satisfied with Starfield weren't looking for Elite/No Man's Sky/Star Citizen, but also wouldn't necessarily have been satisfied with merely getting Fallout in Space either. A lot of games have come out since Fallout 4 and many of them have set new high-water marks for exploration or storytelling in AAA spaces. If Starfield came out before Elden Ring or Breath of Wild set new bars for open world explorations, or Baldur's Gate 3 set new bars for storytelling reactivity, it would've been received much more warmly, but that's not the world we live in, and I don't entirely think it's unfair to expect more than merely "Fallout in Space" from Bethesda.
Nah, I'm disappointed at this game even as a Bethesda game. Mechanically I have issue with the lack of a minimap (or even a detailed city map on the non-randomly generated cities), lack of land vehicles, and the loading screens between area of a city or ship or within a solar system. I can accept that grav jumping between solar systems will necessitate loading screens, but I think once you're at a solar system, everything should be seemless. This is a current gen game with the consoles that have 12-16GB of RAM, this should be possible. Storywise I really liked the Freestar, UC, and Crimson Fleet storylines (not so much on the Ryujin), but the main storyline is boring and all the temples being the same is uncreative. So to me, this game is a 7/10, not a bad game but compared to the previous Bethesda games that I've played and loved (Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4) this is a downgrade.
Remember, the game has to keep up with alot of stuff, including changes that you make in the environment and things that you build as well as random encounters. And each planet you land on has great potential for any of those things. Doing this without loading screens would be an astronomical feat.
@@sagearmaggedon7307 Even then, loading an entire planet including the city's building interiors would've been nice. I'm basically a pirate in the game, so I'm in Kryx a lot. Having to load even within the Key makes the game feel so small and disjointed. I understand PS3/PS4 can't do it in their past games (Skyrim, Fallout3/4) , but this is a current gen console only game, it should be able to do that.
It's my understanding that they actually removed systems so that they could introduce them into DLC's, or so I've been informed. If they truly did this, all I can say is that it was a huge mistake because people don't want the DLC(s) to introduce new mechanics that happen to be old mechanics from previous games, they want, especially for RPG's, New Story Content. So in my opinion, they should have kept those mechanics in the release and worked on new additional mechanics and new engaging stories. Oh well, maybe they'll work it out one day.... Ground Effect Vehicles don't have to be wheeled they could have devised low-level Grav Field Floaters or Hovercraft.
Practically anything that was a useable mechanic in F4 should have been available in Starfield, they may have upgraded the creation engine but the base systems are still in there. So dismantling item benches for instance. Walls and Gates. With regards to someone lying or not. I took it with a grain of cynicism as per my second comment. Don't mind the edit I have to correct the spelling. Don't get me wrong I've enjoyed my 400 hours in the game. However there are some things obviously missing which puzzle me. and some of those missing mechanics or items frustrate me at times.
The real problem with starfield is Bethesda and the design decisions they made for the game. I wanted to like the game because the setting is a noteable change from their earlier game and their initial pitch sounded interesting. After playing for a month the games flaws were too numerous for me to be able to enjoy the pieces that are memorable. Two issues stand out - oversimplified core gameplay loops (looting, crafting, gunplay) and technical limitations (already starts in the elevator intro with the handles being offset and clipping through the structure, NPC tracking and "wiggling" on player position changes, pathfinding code and so on). The games modules feel strangely disjointed like they were designed by independent developer teams that did not talk to each other. If I had to put it in only one sentence - for me Starfield fails to form a cohesive whole experience. And this makes me sad because there are moments that are visually stunning and memorable and the game often hints at what could have been possible with more time for final focused polishing and balancing.
Finally. A video that doesn't absolutely crap all over Starfield. All the mob mentality is driving me nuts. It's not perfect, but it is exactly what I expected from Bethesda. I never went into the game thinking it was going to be like NMS or Elite Dangerous. And I think that was the downfall for a lot of people...they simply had a false expectation of what Starfield was going to be. But unfortunately that's not Bethesda's fault. With that said, I know Bethesda will listen to their audience and aim to give them a positive experience.
YES. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. I don't know why people still expect this to not be a traditional Bethesda game simply becuse it's set in space!
Regarding planets being empty: you're not in the "final frontier" you're in the "SETTLED systems" they should have either gone completely empty or really settled the systems.
It is a very fun game but I do hope they improve the exploration part. They already did a bit in the patch vastly boosting the random encounters on jumps.
It IS a Bethesda game... as someone who has played Bethesda games since Morrowind, It didn't disturb me... You can consume me with side quests while ignoring the main Quest. The variety is enough for me... Kill the hype, and enjoy what s there,... It is a decent game
I hope it isn't insincere to say something like this, but Starfield feels like a Space Simulator than a full RPG like past Bethesda titles. It isn't really *bad* , just a different vibe than what most others have seen in other games or are used to when they try to compared other other space-centered games. If other's enjoy it as is, more power to them^
I've been looking for a video like this. I played the game when it released for about a month, and experienced many of the same frustrations you described. I put the game down and picked it up again two weeks ago. I was able to accept the game for what it is, instead of hating it for what it isn't. It completely transformed my relationship with the game.
The two main issues I have with the game are how exploration feels under-baked with how often places repeat, with a lack of unique stuff dampening the main reason to explore(compare that to Skyrim where every bend in the road might lead to something new), and how 'safe' Bethesda kept the narrative and supporting cast(Constellation in particular has sticks up their butt, even about entire questlines). As mentioned by players, the Vanguard and Crimson Fleet story-lines might be considered the peaks for the game, which isn't really a compliment.
In my opinion, exploration (a la Skyrim style) is not possible in Starfield because you can't traverse the verse. With travel being all menus and cut scenes, you can't 'bump' into anything interesting along the way. I think it's one of the reasons you get quests yell at you in major cities, it's one of the few spots for that to happen. By missing this key part of why Skyrim continues to be amazing, they made a BGS game that's worse than Skyrim.
@@jasonbow1926 It could be as easy as having 30 special locations queued into the system, which would then be dispersed across the systems whenever a new game or character file is started. But the basic locations would benefit from having different layouts or events that would be determined one way or the other when your ship lands. It isn't so much of an issue to have standardized "pre-fab" buildings be the norm for space deployment, but whenever you see a location name from the 20 or 30 static locations in the pool you know exactly what to expect. Caves, as boring as they are otherwise, are the slight exception as they can sometimes be filled with live critters.
@@XoRandomGuyoXThere are tons of ways to make the current game more interesting. Better random location pool, spreading them out in a realistic way, making the universe more lived in, random settlements and economies. Having every surface of every planet and moon cluttered with POIs, equally distanced 3-4m apart, also doesn't make any sense. But to have space be sparse, you'd need a way to travel, explore, scan to discover rare POIs. These are all mechanics that don't exist in the game. And mods won't be able to fix that :/
*"with how often places repeat"* The reason this happens is because there really is no good way to do it. We are talking about trying to fill in empty space that is vast and practically infinite from a human perspective. You can either fill in these locations with procedurally generated structures, but then you run into an issue of quantity over quality. Procedural generation just isn't that good when it comes to man made structures. And chances are, they would all feel the same anyway even if the layout is slightly different. Instead they chose quality over quantity. They hand crafted these locations, but because they are all handcrafted there is a limit to how many they could realistically make while simultaneously developing the rest of the game. Cause remember, those random places are a very VERY small portion of the game. They are practically the equivalent of radiant quests in Skyrim.
@@SilvyReacts There are methods they could employ to break things up. One option is to have different groups or enemy layouts that can be randomized. Bethesda does set aside special circumstances for the buildings for quests, like changing the Deserted UC Outpost to just Deserted Outpost for the Eleos Retreat quest, swapping the usual Crimson Fleet for automated defenses. Another is to make 20-30 'special' encounters that are randomly seeded among the thousand planets upon character creation, or starting a new game, so that there are intriguing things to see in 20-30 of the star systems that aren't directly tied to a quest.
I've played NMS and ED. People say space isn't seemless in Starfield. That's false, as proven by Alanah Pearce. It took her 7 hours to fly to Pluto from another planet. Sure Pluto wasn't actually there when she got there, but she still proved that Pluto is seemless. I can explain why Starfield has loading screens. Its because the random encounters don't load in without the loading screens. Now, whether Bethesda couldn't figure it out or not I don't know, but this is why the loading screens are needed. I played ED more than NMS and Starfield (Starfield time about to pass ED time). In ED, when you want to go somewhere, you have to pull up the menu, mark it, face it, go into frameshift drive and go there. Btw, random encounters in ED DONT happen without being in Frameshift Drive's Supercruise. That might as well be a loading screen. In Starfield, you pull up the menu, mark a location, leave the menu, look at the marker, and activate your Grav Drive. This is the literal exact same process as ED. The only difference is you have control in said loading screen in ED.
All Bethesda games are better later, after they release DLC, mods... patches. And yes Fallout 4 also had such comments, but not this much. I enjoyed the game, but even for me this game isn't as fun as the previous ones... And it's not because of unrealistic expectations.
I thoroughly enjoyed my 200 hours with it, but now that I've beaten it my adventures with Andreja have come to end... for now. I have about a million other games to play this year and not enough time to play them. I miss the old days when I had fewer adult responsibilities and the industry wasn't pumping out a dozen games a week.
I don't know man, you didn't really touch on anything substantial about why this game is good. It's not. It's a razor thin illusion, a theme park. Like driving a car on a track. No freedom, no depth. With lore and world building so basic, it doesn't really sell the game you're in. Why is there no communication devices in the game? No entertainment (tv, movies, games etc). All Stores are run by one shop keeper and you can barter like it's the middle ages or a post apocalypse. Same old shanty towns like Fallout, except they're not made of trash. No context, just same game, different coat of paint. And the empty space point? Yeah, space is big AND empty, but not boring. Planets have such a variety of landscapes and biomes that Starfield doesn't present. Ice volcanoes, diamond planets! Planets where the star only shines on one side, permanent day and night. Let alone comets, asteroids, nebulae, supernovas, neutron stars or black holes with time dilation. Binary starts with weird gravity fields. The list goes on. The way you explored that could have been so much better than just scan things. Go out and physically find these rare places and find something to make special weapons/armor/ammo base habs. Or find miracle plants for perks. Damn, anything.
I think the problem is the discrepancey between the hype and expectations built up. If the advertising started with humanity starting over in space after the hyperdrive incident in a Noah's ark kind of way, , I would have had different expectations but there is a lot that should have been in it at release instead of as updates and bugfixes.
Starfield made me play Cyberpunk 2077. While Cyperpunk had loads of bugs when it was first released, there is one thing that was there from the start: The writing and acting. There is no saving bad writing and acting through modding, the problem will always be there for Starfield. Somebody did a comparison between the Cyberpunk quest when you get the Flathead from Maelstrom with the Starfield quest where you get an artifact from Neon. In Cyberpunk, it makes you actually feel something, like you are in actual danger. In Starfield they just sit there talking slowly almost without any animation to actually help the scene. I have played Starfield like you, visiting Cydonia and doing all small things there etc, but it just gives me nothing back for what I do. The term "Talking heads" comes to mind.
Maybe it's just the people I've watched talk about it, or maybe it's just because I really wasn't super invested in it, but I never really saw hype for the game. A lot of people seemed like they decided they wouldn't like it and it'd be a bad game before it came out. I've talked to people who bragged about uninstalling and refunding the moment they reached the character creator like it somehow made them better than everyone by deciding it was a bad game before playing it. And everything that's been on my recommendations about it seems really hyperbolic. It could really be a bad game. I haven't played it, probably won't play it for a while, and really haven't watched much content on it. But from an outsider perspective, a lot of the hate around the game feels more like an internet trend than something organic. Like even people who dislike it or think it's meh or never even played it are carried away by the mob to say it's the worst thing ever. If you want to know if you'd want to play a game or not, go to one of those "no commentary gameplay" channels and watch like an hour of it or something. And then if it looks good wait for a sale (fuck paying $70 for a game). Maybe it's just because I aggressively hate trends, but I think people should form their own opinions.
I have no idea what it is about Bethesda games that gets such a strong reaction out of people. I've legitimately seen people say that you're an idiot and sheep if you dare enjoy Skyrim or Starfield or any of their games. I like the Elder Scrolls just fine, but I wouldn't call any of the games masterpieces. Yet so many people treat these games as either the best things ever made or a blight upon gaming. It's okay to like something that's good but not amazing, just as it's okay to dislike something that's not for you. But forming hate mobs over a damn game where videos like this are a refreshing change of pace is getting ridiculous.
I am not sure what people are thinking or seeing. I love the game. I just started my 2nd NG+ and plan on going again after so e adventures in my current universe. My save file is over 300 hours, maybe closer to 400 at this point. Soon we will have mods ... oh glory! It will be amazing.
I told a friend the same thing you said here. So many of the content creators speculated how the game was going to be, and when it came out and it wasn't what they wanted they started to trash it. Sure it has bugs,,, all games do. Yes there are things about the game I do not like, but I can find something I don't like in any game I play. That's just life! Starfield is a good game and there is so much to do: you just have to dig around a bit to find it, like talking to NPC. I have 604 hours in the game with NG+10 and I still keep running into stuff that I never saw or did. I like the game and I will keep playing it. I have over 1400 hours in NMS and I like it as well but it's not the same type of game. I think Bethesda understands that a space genre game is hard to make for the masses, Games like SC, Eve, ED, and NMS are really for a niche crowd. I think they wanted to make a game that even someone who is not into space sims would be able to hop in Starfield and enjoy it. Like in SC after a few take offs and landings I myself want fast travel. To me after a few time the fun is gone and now it feels like a job. Anyway I agree and I glad to see this youtube,,, thanks!
Watching your video was a breath of fresh air as I’ve grown tired of the cry club and crap creators grabbing at low hanging fruit for clicks and sub’s. There literally is far more of us that enjoy the game than of them that haven’t stopped crying endlessly into their pillows every night because a game isn’t how they demand it to be. Bethesda has a long track record that’s been very consistent game after game and watching so many reviews it’s clear so many lack that basic understanding or lack any kind of history. You earned a sub from me as this was well done and well thought out and articulated. Keep up the good work.
What people excpect starfield to be is unrealistic theres a reason why starcitizen a game was planned to be released before Fallout 4 was even released is still in developement and not even close
No, it is not a bad game. It is just kinda meh after one playthrough. I put in over 600 hrs really wanting this to be a years long game. I had 2 out of 3 playthroughs get bug locked on main questline. The last one just got boring after NG+3.
I am pro social justice and all that comes with it, and I'm a fan of Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 & 4 and put thousands of hours into those games. I hated Starfield for how uninspired, void, sterile and tedious it was. I'm not going to buy another Bethesda game until they overhaul their engine and start respecting their players
Firstly: I've played 531,9 hours by now. I can relate to the criticism around. This game is simply getting reptitive and boring after aprox. 100 hours. In the beginning you don't notice the copy + paste elements on different planets because they are all new to you. But after those 100 hours or so you begin to notice it. The planets are empty and become boring. Exploration is based on templates creating the planet surface accompanied with some kind of weather/geological structures. You have X numbers of bases and buildings thrown into the planet surface mixed with some 'mushrooms', glowing rocks or circular trees to make it look alien (and these special types can't even be scanned). Adjusting the gravity level a bit here and there. They are stereotypic and you can find the same elements on every single planet. No special designs or environments made here. There aren't even any alien intelligent life forms at all. There is nothing exiting to do on the planet surfaces except from wasting ammo on shooting animals, collecting crafting materials, scanning and farm legendaries. Of course you can always use a lot of your free time to scan the planets for ressources (which Bethesda in this game has raised to even higher and more boring standards). The planets can only be used to farm items and perhaps create a few settlements for your unassigned crew. So, in general the planets are more or less unimportant - which was not the impression in Bethesda's advertisement. The worst thing about the planets is that you have to use so much time to walk towards structures or settlement before you eventually have some action or maybe a little quest. And getting a quest will in 99% of all cases be "go kill those or get this and come back here for your reward". The hostile bases are the same more or less, occupied by pirates or spacers with stupid comments meant for children. You are also restricted in progressing faster forward because in this great space faring future they didn't invent something as simple as a MAKO or boost packs that pack a punch. I am extremely annoyed because I have to use so much time collecting crafting materials and see some action that matters (not just wasting time killing dumb animals all the time). One thing I am very puzzled about is where are the aliens? We have local wildlife and flora but no stages of development (evolution). Where are the Asari, the Kroogan etc.? This would of course demand a LOT of work for Bethesda since they would have to build history and cultures for each of them. And I have a feeling they don't want to 'waste' their time and ressources on this. Its much easier to go down the simple path and use already existing ingredients where they will not get in conflict with Bioware or Lucas Art. The result, though, to create a huge game like Starfield and skip the most interesting parts is very dangerous. People will be disappointed in the end. As I am. The game suddenly becomes 'dead' and boring. The game is simply empty somehow. There are a few fairly good quests, although I don't find them very well directed though, a bit clumsy to be honest. Like 'Grunt Work' for the UC and the Crimson Fleet quest for SysDef, which I see as secondary main quest. It's not that Bethesda didn't create a lot of locations to visit. They did. You have a fair amount of settlements and main cities. But the game is simply too big in scale to make it feel exiting. I guess this is due to the fact that you are forced to use LOADS of time walking through deserted and empty landscapes. Add to this all the menus and submenus you have to go through when you travel. Bethesda focused more on lengthen the game in every aspect instead of giving you an exiting adventure with lots of different static environments. Collection of crafting materials, endless desert walks without anything interesting, loads of locked doors and safes to pick with no gain. The only thing this game really does is wasting your time. Bethesda made it too boring by lengthen the game way above anything else with blockers and derailing elements. You have to clean up your inventory very often because you constantly obtain so much junk (which they do everything possible also will happen). Add to this the chosen PG-13 which in many situations makes the game too childish for many elder players. Starfield is simply too cute for people who played Mass Effect and Star Wars. It's almost Disney-like to experience, and that makes the game uninteresting for me as an older player starting off with Quake, Unreal Tournament and Tombraider. But I guess somehow younger players might enjoy this game? I played Starfield in a considerable amount of time. The reason is I invested in the game as well as a new SSD and RTX 4070 just to be able to play it. I want a little for that money spend. This and the fact I simply couldn't believe there was nothing that would keep me awake at night, looking forward to start up the game again. I can only HOPE Bethesda has some kick ass DLCs coming up that changes the game considerably. If not the game will be dead for me. We know Bethesda has plans for DLCs. That's how they make a lot of money. My ten cents are they withdraw some material from the base game and decided to release it as DLCs. That is why the game is so empty. And that is exactly how the game feels like. There is a second thing that annoys me a lot: You are prevented from viewing your own character's face as it always turns it away when you move it to the side. You are also prevented to view your character from a convenient angle. It feels like as if your character is a secondary thing and not YOUR character. My character doesn't have any spoken dialogues, meaning no voice. This is a bad choice I think. Fallout 4 was voiced (just like Cyberpunk 2077 and Mass Effect). Why should I use my time on creating a character I can't enjoy? Before you punch me for the criticism: I've played Skyrim in 3355,9 hours and Fallout 4 for 7.003,6 hours. In Skyrim the base game was somehow ok for me, but it was Hearthfire and Dawnguard that made this game so wonderful and exiting. Regarding Fallout 4 it was practically only the base game and Far Harbor that was exiting. But both games was an exiting experience for me. I played it day and night, but I just can't seem to find my place in Starfield. It is so extremely boring to me. There's a huge difference between having a good time or wasting it.
I’m so confused… you spent over 5,000 hours on a game that you think is “dead” and “boring“? Wow, you have far more patience than I have because I would not have waisted my time being bored. After 100 hours, you spent 1 dollar per hour for entertainment. After 1000, it’s like .10? Regardless, you should feel like you got your money’s worth from the game. I have more than 300 hours in the game as does my husband. While there are things we would like (fewer loading screens and maps) (people’s facial expressions are odd and sometimes NPCs don’t respond) we are still enjoying our time with the game. We don’t have experience with NMS nor other space sims. From everything I can see from their marketing, this was to be an RPG not a space sim. So, I can’t say from experience how this game compares to those games because we have been playing RPGs. I can say that when compared to BG3 as an RPG, it doesn’t compare at all. That said, there is a lot of choice & consequence in Starfield. I understand that for some, the exploration isn’t the same as other Bethesda titles but I haven’t been disappointed…I have gone in, done things, gotten sidetracked, and then gone back to what I started doing…. And still have yet to progress the main storyline past the stage of discovering the second temple. I don’t use those star powers anyway. I’m sorry you’re not happy with the game & the storylines. I think I would move on to something I did enjoy. Clearly, after more than 5,000 hours, I’d say you really got your moneys worth out of it regarding entertainment value.
@@marilynnbuss3730 It is only 500+ hours. Problem is I just don't feel I have found anything of value to me in this game. That is the reason why I played so many hours. I couldn't believe the game was so empty and kept searching. But I have more or less archived the game now. I started Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as a warm up for Suvivor. I know these two games don't have hundreds of hours of play, but it will do until the next game arrives I think.
I’m 39 and completely agree with what you said. I have around 120 hours into the game *edit I just got my year in review from Xbox. 640 hours played… oops. Time is relative right? Anyhow, I still really enjoy this game. I had no expectations going into. Sure there’s some bugs but I honestly haven’t had a single game breaking bug yet. I know they exist but I have not experienced it.
It's nice to see a take on the game that doesn't ignore the issues but isn't blasting negativity all the time. I don't know what it is about Bethesda games that gets such strong reactions out of people. I am truly curious to see what people's reaction will be years down the line. After first impressions and a packed year have gone by what the game's reception will be. I'm tired of the whole "it's a masterpiece or the worst thing ever made" mentality that plagues RU-vid reviews for both games and movies.
Yea the comparisons to fo76 or cyberpunk at launch is pretty fucking annoying. Also the constant need to bring up baldurs gate 3 like i have to pick a side even though the fucking devs of bg3 have come out telling people to chill because its that bad. Seems like its just a meme to hate this game.
Radio waves in space would of been nice and still viable through whatever they add to the game. Different regions with different radio broadcast from different periods of time.
This is the EXACT problem a lot of people are having whether they want to admit it or not: they refuse to accept the game for what it is. I expected a Bethesda game in space, and I got a Bethesda game in space. I also find it really ironic how gamers bitch and complain about companies not making new IP and want something new, and they get angry as soon as they get exactly that. “ThE lOrE iSnT vAsT lIkE eLdEr sCrollS!” Well no shit, who would’ve thought a game franchise that’s like 30 years old would have more lore than one that’s been out for 2 months??
No, it’s a bad game. I went into it with a love of Bethesda games, didn’t read any bad reviews or know there was negativity around it because I wanted to avoid spoilers. A few hours in I started to just get a huge feeling of boredom. Bland story. Bland locations. Bland NPCs. Every time I spoke to characters in the game I just wanted them to shut up. The game is just too big, but with the content of a smaller game, so it’s like butter spread across too much bread. The game was so big that it felt like nothing you did mattered, too. Some ideas are just better in concept than in practice.
It's not the content ruining the game, it's the glitches. I spent several hours building a colony. Then I left the planet for a while. My character gets killed trying to return to the colony and is suspended somewhere in space. The game crashes frequently. Can't use a crafting machine without having to sign off and re-enter game. Quest doors are sometimes inaccessible. Cargo ship taking off and landing without an inter planetary link. Colony objects floating in space. Andreja's head is invisible in her spacesuit at times. Sarah stays mad at me for over a month. Error message saying I could not fast travel even though my character was sitting in cockpit of ship ready for take off, Other than that, it's a great game. lol. Bethesda should be offering refunds or fix the glitches that are killing the game.
I disagree with the point you make about the "lack of handcrafted POIs.", It doesn't have to be handcrafted POIs; it just needs more variation in POIs; I often notice a lot of structures with the exact same layout. It doesn't necessarily have to be handcrafted; it just needs to feel different most of the time. If I keep encountering the same layout repeatedly, what's the point of exploring? Also, the comparison between real life and the game feels a bit odd, especially in a sci-fi game. It's a game; give me something else to do besides walking to the same structure over and over. Maybe add some random NPCs that are also exploring the planet like I did. I've come across occupied caves multiple times, but despite the name including 'occupied,' I found no residents whatsoever. Similarly, I found an outpost, but it was empty with no one inside. The least you could do is sprinkle some NPCs in POIs, adding a generic line that corresponds to the NPC's location, just to make it more lively and not empty. Do you understand what people mean by the world feeling empty?
