Starfield (2023)

Enjoyed this. Found the end anticlimatic. I think the loot and weapons were improved in this. Companion interactions and quests also good. Some really enjoyable sidequests too. I used powers about five times just to try them out and that was it. The lack of VATS (although you have something like it in ship combat) makes the game feel dialed back. Lore and worldbuilding is not very deep. Scanning and shooting really satisfying. Dungeons really good.

Still the usual mix of good and bad things, janky stuff, etc. by bethesda

Starfield. The hype for this game was something else. Xbox, which was rightfully criticized for their lack of exclusive titles, now had a game that was going to be THE exclusive title, the killer app which would make the Series X/S Xbox sales soar and competitive next to the PS5. The game that would make thousands want to pick up Game Pass. The cumulation of all the acquisitions, to show that Microsoft was giving these studios the freedom to make the best titles possible.

Unfortunately, the game turned out to be a disappointment, and none of the things I listed above ended up becoming reality. Bethesda is now attempting to salvage this game with new DLC, which has been received with apathy. The Xbox brand in general is in a state of uncertainty. Game Pass subscriptions are stalling, consoles aren't selling, and we are getting mixed messages about their plans for the future. Will Microsoft become a third party developer/publisher? Will Game Pass soon be on PlayStation and Nintendo? Will the Series X/S be Microsoft's swan song for game consoles? While Sony is dealing with their own issues and Nintendo keeps on being Nintendo, Microsoft is likely in the most tenuous situation of the three.

As a Game Pass subscriber and an Xbox owner, I picked up Starfield. I love Bethesda style RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout, so I was excited for another game in this style, and a new IP at that. In this world of endless remakes, remasters and sequels, I always want to support, if I can, new IPs and ideas.

My first impression when I started Starfield was that it followed many of the same beats of other Bethesda style games. Loads of side quests, characters that fit certain stereotypes, and combat galore. There is a lot to do in this game, and the characters are fun to learn more about as you move along. The combat is a blast, and might be the best part of this game. The weapon variety and was to take down enemies provide so many choices and options to the player. Is it better to go guns a blazin', or sneak in stealthy for the kills, or lob some grenades from a distance?

But as you move on, you notice... something. You notice how many of the levels look exactly the same, even down to where the items are located, or where the traps are located, or where the enemies hide. You also notice how many of the missions come down to "find X in Y" and nothing more. You also notice that while you can make decisions in this game, very few of them have positive/negative consequences. This isn't completely true, and there are some missions that do indeed give you the choice to truly make changes, but far too much of the main game is hopping planet to planet to find treasures in similar level setups.

If you play only the main quest, you can finish this game in about 30 hours. The main quest game alone is a 3 star affair, with clunky controls and some buggy parts to bring the score down even further.

So why do I give this game a four? The side quests. This is where the game comes alive, where the characters show personality, where choices have consequences. If this was the main game, this probably would have been a five star game, or close to it, but instead these parts are optional. And the freedom in this part of the game is awesome. Want to be a space pirate who hijacks ships, robs them, and sells them for parts? Cool, go for it. Want to be a bounty hunter who takes down the galaxy's most wanted? Cool, go for it. Want to establish bases on multiple planets and develop your own kingdom of sorts? Cool, go for it. Want to romance one of your teammates and help them out? Cool, go for it. These are all things you can do in the game, but they are buried deep down in a very average action RPG. Some of these elements should have been included in the main game. It would have given it more variety, more character, more soul. Instead, you have to search for them, and it's not always easy to find out what to do next if you do decide to do this.

Overall, I finished this game and I'm happy that I played it on Game Pass. I give it a 3.5. There is a great game here that needed more TLC, more fine tuning, more focus.

Oh yeah, and a five for sure on the soundtrack. The music is amazing in this game and is easily the best part of it.

In the vast expanse of the gaming universe, Bethesda's Starfield has landed like a meteor, leaving players starry-eyed and lost in the cosmic wonders of its exploration. This space-faring adventure takes players on an interstellar journey that's as breathtaking as it is hilariously unpredictable.

Pros:

Uncharted Cosmic Beauty: Starfield's exploration is nothing short of jaw-dropping. The game ensures that each corner of space feels unique and unexplored. You'll find yourself lost in the cosmic beauty, pondering whether to continue the main quest or just float around taking space selfies.

Interstellar Freedom: Want to be a space pirate with a heart of gold? Or maybe a diplomatic explorer who trades for space trinkets? Starfield lets you carve your own path through the cosmos. Just be ready for the consequences – the space police don't take kindly to a smuggler with a penchant for dad jokes.

Spaceship Customization: Forget about customizing characters; Starfield lets you pimp your ride through the cosmos. From sleek, aerodynamic spaceships to those that resemble a floating disco ball, the customization options are as varied as the alien species you'll encounter.

Stellar Exploration: Starfield truly lives up to its name with a vast, open universe to explore. From glistening nebulas to mysterious planets, the sheer scale of the game is mind-boggling. It's like No Man's Sky, but without the initial "Where the heck am I?" confusion.

Dynamic Weather Systems: Get ready for unpredictable weather conditions on planets. Whether it's acid rain, meteor showers, or the occasional cosmic dust storm, Starfield keeps you on your toes with ever-changing environments.

Cons:

Inventory Woes: Managing your inventory in space can be a bit cumbersome. It's like trying to find your car keys in a black hole – everything seems to disappear into the void. Expect some frustration as you sift through your space junk.

Diplomacy RNG: Negotiating with people can be a bit like playing space roulette. One moment, you're best buds trading tech blueprints; the next, they're blasting your ship for accidentally stepping on their space flowers. It's a gamble, and the odds aren't always in your favor.

Minor Technical Hiccups: As you soar through the stars, you might encounter some technical glitches that feel like your spaceship is going through a cosmic car wash. While these are minor and don't detract too much from the overall experience, they do make you question whether your spaceship passed its last safety inspection.

Quests Lost in Space: The main storyline might sometimes feel like it's lost in the vastness of space. You're out there exploring, trading, and engaging in epic space battles, and suddenly you remember, "Oh, right, there's a main quest somewhere." It's as if the game encourages you to embrace your inner space tourist and explorer!

Conclusion:

Starfield successfully delivers on its promise of a mesmerizing exploration experience within the vast reaches of space. The game's stunning visuals and dynamic star systems contribute to an immersive and captivating adventure. Despite some technical hiccups Starfield remains a commendable addition to the space exploration genre, offering players a chance to embark on an epic cosmic odyssey.

I have to put a big disclaimer up front on this review. If you don't want controversy, I suggest you don't continue dear reader. Because surely some of what I am about to say about Starfield is going to annoy some people, but probably not for the reasons you would expect. Let's set the record straight on a few things:

In 2023, the gaming community decided three things:

1. Loading screens are bad.
2. Inventory and menu screens are bad.
3. The entirety of the internet decided to wrongly use the word "jarring" constantly to describe both.

I need to get these things addressed before I get into the meat of my Starfield review. Loading screens are a part of games. Yeah, Starfield has a lot, but its not a deal breaker. If its a deal breaker for you, because it "breaks your immersion" maybe you need to spend more time outside. The same goes for inventory screens. I am not a game designer, so please forgive my ignorance, but I don't know of a lot more creative ways to organize menu screens and inventory than how Starfield presents it. You have your quest log, you have your inventory, you have your skill trees, you have your ship, powers etc etc etc. None of these are an issue. Remember when Elden Ring won GOTY? Yeah, it also had inventory screens. Remember when you wanted to get to Roundtable Hold, and you had to open your map to fast travel there? How immersion breaking that I had to open a map! AND there was a loading screen! Also, its not "jarring". Its like a six year old who learned a new word and is now using jarring to describe a damn menu. That's not jarring. Its annoying at best. So stop staying it. Could it have been better? Yes, probably. If you made it this far.. than read on and enjoy the rest of what I have to say. /rant

Starfield is the latest and greatest from our friends at Bethesda, a company renowned for it's sprawling open world Western RPG's. As a massive Fallout fan (like many) I was so excited for this game. A Bethesda universe in SPACE with all of its secrets, and planets, and stuff to explore and see. Oh yeah baby, years in the making. This is the stuff. If by chance you stumbled across this randomly, its a game where you create a character and go on a massive quest with many open offshoots. You do side jobs for people, upgrade your character, or just follow the main story to find out what happens next. Very open, very sandboxy. And that's what us Bethesda players have always loved, an open world to get lost in and wander around. And that's what Starfield is.. sort of.

Things get messy pretty quick in Starfield. In all honesty, the main quest or the (four) main faction quests are pretty good. There is some good character development, the hand crafted areas of planets feel cool to walk around and there is stuff to see and do. I don't know that anything is overly exciting, but its fun and enjoyable to get though this content. I fell victim early on by ignoring the main content and scooping up all the side quests I could, doing activities or small contracts to start. Surveying empty, barren planets, moons and just flying around looting stuff. However, all that content get very boring, very quickly. The problem is, outside of the main quest and factions, the content isn't great and there is nothing to do (more on outposts and ships later).

Lets paint a picture: You fly off to a distant star (through fast travel, which people... isn't really a big deal) and you find some planets that you want to land on. Cool! Lets go explore! So you land and get off your ship. You might find some cool alien life, or some really nice scenery, or an abandoned outpost.... but that's it. Yep, that just about wraps it up. Look, I get it. Space is empty. Planets are empty. But after doing this a few times, I had little to no reason to explore anymore. There is nothing to find. People in the pro-Starfield camp will argue: but look at this amazing wildlife and scenery! Which I agree, it looks great, and it's fun to see... but only a few times. Because there is nothing to do with it. There is no random encounter that is gripping, the abandoned labs etc. are all procedurally generated so they end up being the same. So your sense of exploration off the beaten path disappears very quickly. That's fine though, you get to go back to the main story. The problem there is there is a lot of go from A to B to C back to A again with thing X you found. It doesn't translate into an amazing gameplay loop because its very fetch focused and not a lot to tie it all together.

The story itself is decent enough, but not enough to make you go WOOOOW! The bigger gap is that Bethesda played it safe, and almost possibly lazy with their writing. If you do faction quest A, it should by default open up a different dialogue with faction B based on the outcome, but it doesn't. The characters are all morally good, and your actions will not change that, nor change the outcome of any scenario. This is also disappointing because the game funnels you into being one type of character, regardless of what you actually use for dialogue in the game. It doesn't allow for a lot of diversity in outcome, at all.

Settlement (or outpost) building is back in Starfield if you so choose. This is something I have never really enjoyed in Bethesda games, so I opted to skip it. However, outside of that, there is no real reason to do it anyway. There is many methods to store your equipment, and the game does not allow you to use resources or outposts in any meaningful way. You don't need to mine for ship fuel, or resources to repair you ship. You make a shitload of money just by playing the game, so gathering resources for income is also useless. Its literally just to be creative and build something, which is fine, but it feels uninspired.

The ship building was also not for me. It was frustrating, sort of clunky and I couldn't wrap my head around how all the pieces fit. I ended up buying a pre-made ship and modifying it to my liking. Again, a very cool system that needs some serious quality of life improvements to be viable.

The hand crafted cities are pretty good, albeit somewhat small and not really reflective of a massive human civilization anywhere. Like one city on a massive planet, doesn't feel right, but again very difficult to achieve a fully crafted planet for each created area. We are talking bigger than a Skyrim/Fallout multiple times over. You just have to kind of make it work. Also, the gunplay, either ship fighting or FPS fighting enemies on land is pretty good. It's no Tarkov, but it is fun and engaging. The AI is a bit dumb, but no worse then any other FPS RPG on the market (looking at you Outer Worlds..)

Before I wrap up, I want to address a few other things relating to loading screens, space flight, outposts, etc. This game is not Star Citizen, or No Mans Sky or Elite Dangerous, and it was never advertised as that. There, I said it. So many people hyped the shit out of Starfield for things like "immersive space flying" and it was never said that would be an option. It's a Bethesda RPG, and it plays like a Bethesda RPG. And you know what? If you really wanted to, you can fly long distances, get up in your ship in space and walk around it and talk to people. It takes a long time, but when you compare it to No Mans Sky like "I want to fly millions of miles in 15 minutes and do something in between" well go ahead. Start flying, get up and start crafting, talk to your crew, manage your inventory, and when you are ready land on a planet. Nothing is stopping you from role playing in that way if you like.

Look, Starfield is a good game, but it admittedly does lack in some areas. I imagine Bethesda will introduce some form of survival mode where you have to produce fuel, and mine resources to build a ship or fly far distances. I believe they commented on that and said that wouldn't be fun for people, and they aren't really wrong. I don't want to mine a ton of resources just to fly around in an RPG. Maybe if there was a "survival light" where you do a bit, but not as intensive as a "hardcore" mode that might be a sweet spot. There is lots of room for improvements, updates, features in this game no doubt, but honestly, space is hard. To create a big, immersive, functioning, engaging space game is very difficult, because it is big and empty. Likely, they went overboard with the "space is big" theme because there is too much content that few people actually want and that effort could of gone elsewhere. Overall I liked it, not as much as Fallout, but I do think its worth a play. Just don't expect an expansive universe packed to the brim. Focus on the main highlights, with some off shoot exploration, and you will probably have a good time.

When I first played The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, it was a revelatory experience. The world of Tamriel first came to us as a fairly standard fantasy world in the series' 1994 debut, but by the time Morrowind arrived, it had evolved into something very unique, and sometimes surreal. Combined with the open world, player-led sandbox RPG style they had already developed, it felt like the stars had aligned. Todd Howard himself has talked about how Morrowind came to be during a time where Bethesda was about to go out of business. While such a situation may have inspired another development team to seal their fate with a safe product, Howard viewed it as an opportunity to take a risk. He put it best during a Polygon interview a few years back, where he said, "For me, it was kind of a no-fear moment...When you’re given another shot, my view was not to be conservative." This risk panned out with one of the most interesting RPGs I've ever played, one that I still consider to be a personal favorite.

20 years later, Bethesda's new games are still built upon the bones established by Morrowind. Starfield, which is Bethesda's first original new IP since the 90s, was a unique opportunity to break out of the boundaries established in past games--to take another risk. It is not an opportunity that they have chosen to take.

Instead, Starfield feels like Skyrim in space, much like Fallout 3 felt like Oblivion in the nuclear apocalypse. When you're on the ground, things unfold pretty much exactly like they do in any other Bethesda game. You, the adventurer, are dropped into a massive game world, which is filled with countless combat encounters, locations to discover, factions to join and NPCs to interact with. You are also free to interact with the "main quest" as much or as little as you want. The game is peppered with plenty of side quests of varying quality and complexity to keep you busy until Earth freezes over. When the game takes to the stars, things go in a highly predictable direction.

Of course, the main twist is that Starfield takes you into a galaxy filled with hundreds of game worlds, rather than just one. The concept that was presented prior to release felt overwhelming to someone who is very familiar with Bethesda games. But at the same time, I found it to be promising. Sure, such expanse would necessitate a ton of procedural generation, but this is something that I've felt has been done well by Bethesda in the past with a game such as The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. In fact, this is the classic Bethesda game that came to my mind the most while playing Starfield.

Like with Daggerfall's Great Britain-sized landmass, the scope of Starfield is simply too large to make casual travel feasible. Daggerfall had a fast travel system that retained the fantasy and immersion of the game by allowing you alter the travel time of your trip with options for your transport method and level of caution. Starfield, on the other hand, throws immersion out the window. You have to navigate through a clunky star map that makes traveling to often-visited locations into a total chore. The only way the game tries to retain the space fantasy here is by limiting your range based on your ship's available fuel. And don't even get me started on the local map, which is almost completely featureless and tells you nothing about your surroundings.

I certainly don't have a problem with fast travel in concept, especially when it's there to facilitate a world with a grand scope. But my main issue with Starfield is how the combination of its quest design and fast travel systems mean that you spend what feels like an eternity mired in menus and loading screens. Here's the typical loop of the game: You pick up a new quest at your latest quest hub, such as the Lodge in the city of New Atlantis, where you'll get most of the game's main quest objectives. You open up your map from there (You don't have to return to your ship, thankfully), pick out your objective in the game's star map, and set the course for your objective. After a loading screen, you'll be on your ship above a planet in the particular star system that you selected. Now, you open up your star map again, find the location on the planet where your objective is, and fast travel there. Another loading screen. Then your ship lands, and you need to select whether to disembark your ship, or to take off (Why is this here...). Another loading screen. With any luck, your objective is outdoors and not inside of a cave or a building, which will mean yet another loading screen. If all you had to do was to speak with an NPC, as many quests boil down to in this game, you're done and then you get to repeat this painful process again.

The map is the not the only area where the menus become a massive headache here. Starfield is also one of the most miserable inventory management experiences I've had in quite a while. The game has a base management system that I was so eager to interact with, but gathering the required resources and hauling them from one location to another is a completely tedious exercise. You don't have that much inventory space, which is not the end of the world on its own, just look at Fallout 4. But your ship ALSO has limited inventory space, as do the containers that you can build on bases, meaning that you have to spend a ton of time on the anti-fun task of managing what goes where, instead of the fun bits such as discovering materials and making stuff with them. I completely gave up on base construction because of this, and I had to train myself to NOT pick up resources, in order to save room for cooler things, like guns.

There is also a ship system, where you can build and modify spaceships, giving you more inventory, range or firepower. The system is poorly explained, and I had issues with it whenever I tried to interact with it, so instead I just purchased new ships which fulfilled my needs. You can fly the ships in these tiny segments in a planet's orbit, but there isn't really much to do. You can fight hostile vessels and even board them if you want to role play as a space pirate, but space combat has so little variety that I ended up dreading it any time it came up.

What makes me sad is that I squint just right, I can see the Bethesda magic here. Starfield takes great care with its atmosphere, which tries hard to not be as dreary and cynical as the Fallout games. Instead, Starfield tries to create an aura of optimism and wonder at the unknown. You play as a miner who discovers a strange artifact that gives you visions. This artifact leads you to get in contact with Constellation, an organization that is fully committed to space exploration and discovering the mysteries of the universe. The game's main story revolves around searching the galaxy for these strange artifacts, in order to work out their origin and significance.

The lighter tone means that the stakes rarely feel as urgent as they do in past Bethesda games. But this also kind of compliments the relaxing, free-flowing exploration that Starfield actually thrives in. The most fun I had in this game was discovering the many locations that the main story might not require you to go to. While you'll definitely quickly see the same repeating kinds of procedural outposts and caves, it was still quite a bit of fun for a while. It helps that there is an excellent soundtrack from Fallout series composer Inon Zur.

Eventually, though, even the things that do work aren't enough to sustain Starfield. While I enjoyed the presence of certain companions, such as the space cowboy Sam Coe, most characters in the game's story feel paper thin. Aliens are kept to a bare minimum, which works for the game's aesthetic, but means that the enemy variety in the game is severely lacking. And dialogue choices feel especially shallow after experiencing the unprecedented depth of Baldur's Gate 3. By the end, I was pushing hard with everything in me to finish the game's story, and considered leaving it unfinished many times.

Visually, Starfield is a strange of mix of both detailed and dated. I really liked the "NASApunk" aesthetic that they have come up with here, which imagines a near future space-faring society with practical technology, where the only real fantastical inventions are the Grav Drives that enable faster-than-light travel. As such, the environmental design is the strongest thing here, as it usually is in Bethesda games. Character models, on the other hand, feel like high-fidelity versions of the same models we had in the Fallout games. They look great at times, but they're very expressionless and the animations sometimes feel like they're generationally behind.

The game performs well enough of my PC, especially after official DLSS support was added. It also runs great on my Steam Deck OLED, with a very playable frame rate, though in my old classic Deck, it spent much more time below 30fps, so I definitely wouldn't suggest getting the game if the old Deck is the only system available for you.

Spoilers for the game's ending: I really loved how the New Game+ mode is built into the story of the game. When so much of the game is low-tech and realistic, it feels even more special when they introduce a multiverse into the fold. It's a shame that the last thing I want to do right now is to replay the game, but it's a really cool design choice nonetheless.

Starfield is the first time where I really struggled to find enjoyment in a Bethesda game. There were many stretches where I did find that enjoyment, and I feel like it could even be worth revisiting Starfield after modders get a chance to improve the many issues with the game's loop and interface. As it stands, though, Starfield feels a little pointless. I would rather be playing just about any other Bethesda RPG. And if I wanted a space fantasy kick, so many other games, such as No Man's Sky, just do it better.

So many of the issues in this game feel like they come from the old gameplay that Bethesda is clinging so hard to, whether it be intentional or because of a dated engine. The same old Bethesda experience gets superimposed into a larger-than-life game about space travel, and it prevents it from truly getting off the ground. I may only be a humble video game enjoyer, but my take is that if they want to avoid more diminishing returns, Bethesda needs to take a page from their experience back in Morrowind and take a risk. Leave the old baggage behind, and enter a truly new universe.

I really am loving Starfield.

Positive

Planet exploration was able to affect me. Some of the "empty" planets are the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Looking at a ringed planet from a close moon is amazing.

Ship building is really awesome. One of the best parts of the game.

Did I mention the incredible outpost system? It's very dense but the time you put in it can feel VERY rewarding. (Build your own interstellar trade empire!)

The companions are very different from each other and provide nice commentary on the galaxy around them.

The world building is great. Lots of lore to explain the galaxy and how we got here.

Mixed

Can be a slow start. Once you get past the first few quests and you have more freedom to be "you" the main story line does start to feel better but it's not the most amazing mainline quest.

The side quest carry the game.

Negative I don't mind about loading screens when moving from planet to space, or space to planet or any fast travel. However I was on Neon opened a door to a shop and hit a loading screen. It feels like there are a lot of places there is like 1-2 loading screen that just stops you dead and makes you ask "Why"

What I liked:

+ Voice acting. Dustyyyyy

+ Starships in general. Building them, walking around in your ship, and seeing different ship interiors throughout the game.

+ The multiverse parts of the storyline and quests. Loved the quest where you phase between universes. Made me think of Dishonored 2.

+ Unlocking the next upgrade for a skill by using it. Makes you realize what you might not need to upgrade at the moment.

+ Lockpicking minigame. Interesting and more punishing than other Bethesda titles which I thought was good.

+ The gravity system, it's really fun to fight in low gravity areas.

What I didn't like:

- Too few quests, a lot of times I asked myself "Is that it? There's no more to this place/faction/companion?" Also, too many repeatable quests which makes it feel uninspired from the moment you see a mission board.

- The Hunter being a random old guy from New Atlantis is very, very cheap. The character made me feel nothing, you also only meet the guy 3 times.

- Constellation is only about the artifacts, I wish there was more to this group which is the most interesting in the game.

- Very few random encounters on planets. In a Bethesda game, this is quite jarring since it's one of their stronger suits.

- Companions have roughly the same morals and opinions.

- Lots of clicks and waiting to fast travel to places which gets tiresome.

- Many planets to explore but no incentive to do so.

- Ship combat. Not a lot of variation in strategy here. Just a stat check.

- The Power Temple mini-game is really bland.

- Powers come too late in the game which leaves most powers unused since you've done most quests already.

- Some characters are clearly voiced by the same person which ruined my suspension of disbelief at times.

Bethesda has done it again. No, I don’t mean something impressive and groundbreaking, I mean they’ve done the one thing that they’ve always consistently done one more time. They made a competent game that’s the same as all the other games they’ve made.

Starfield is about as underwhelming as a game of its scope can be. That isn’t to say that it’s bad, I did already say that it’s competent. Hell, I’ll even say that it’s sometimes good! However, there is a lot that I simply cannot forgive for a title of this magnitude and a team the size that Bethesda can furnish for it.

There are remnants of old Bethesda titles, such as the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, like merchants having limited funds which turns inventory and weight management into a dreary, boring slog. I suppose it would be too convenient to just be able to offload all your loot, heaven forbid the player has one less thing to think about. Honestly, the game would be much better if merchants could simply handle business like all other video games. This is doubly true for Starfield since the economy is so bloated by the cost and value of spaceships. Whomever decided that merchants only carry about 5 – 10k when a common laser rifle can be worth 2 – 3k needs to reevaluate how they designed this game’s economy.

As a result of this economical imbalance the inventory management is particularly annoying. Many will be the time when you need to choose which valuable weapon or knick-knack to abandon because you’re bogged down with left over loot from your last adventure that you couldn’t offload because you bankrupted the last merchant and didn’t feel like jumping to an entirely new place to see a different merchant. But that’s okay, you have a spaceship that can hold loads of stuff, right!?

Wrong, spaceships seem to be feeble. If you’re a prodigious enough looter, which is to say you casually play the game, you will fill your inventory and your spaceship. You can buy more storage, sure, but you’ll fill that too.

The main pull of the game is, of course, spaceships and exploration. So, how does that shake out? Fine. It’s alright. Space combat is rudimentary, there is a tried-and-true strategy that wins every battle and once you figure out that enemy ships can only shoot in-front of themselves you discover how to win every time quickly. Exploration is fine, the planets are all kind of samey once you’ve seen enough of them and hopping around moons in low gravity is fun for a while until you’ve been to enough moons not to care while you scan minerals and whatnot. It’s all empty, the seed generation doesn’t do enough interesting stuff to justify the number of worlds and moons it just loads a flat plane and pokes some hills onto it before letting you walk around aimlessly.

Speaking of aimless, I need to take a moment to discuss menu-ing and loading screens. My god, if there was one cardinal sin I could lay upon Starfield it is this. All interstellar travel is conducted through the galaxy map, which just lets you select a star and warp to it. This results in a loading screen. Hopefully you’re not going to a major city because you will then be forced to wait in orbit to be scanned before you can select landing on the planet. This results in a loading screen. Flying around for quests and exploration leads to load after load after load and it’s all done through menus, it is the least immersive experience possible. No Man’s Sky came out in 2018 with a more seamless experience than this and it was made by about 10 Brits rubbing sticks together in a basement. This is embarrassing. Additionally, the menu system for selecting warp drives is bad at pathing and very frequently selects unknown routes that it refuses to let you use, even for return trips! It, sometimes, won’t simply use the same route it took to get there but in reverse! It forces you to route yourself! It’s brutal, I have no idea how they settled on this and decided it was okay.

The quests in the game are nothing to write home about. They’re fine, some of them are even good and interesting, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen in Skyrim or Fallout before. Or at least, most of them aren’t. I don’t want to be unfair and expect ALL the quests to be mind-melting experiences but a bit more effort could have been made to really polish them up a bit more.

The plot was fine, the characters were fine, but I didn’t find them to be all that memorable. The identity of The Hunter I felt was a bit phoned in, the character they chose kind of felt out of the blue honestly. Should have been someone more related to the party, that would be my preference, it would make the choice at the end a bit weightier at least. A more cynical version of a member of the team instead of some grandpa from town you’ve only just met…

I also wasn’t a big fan of the level up system. When I started the game, I thought it was a great idea that spending points on skills required the extensive use of that skill first. But then Bethesda only managed to churn out “run out of breath 100 times”, “heal yourself”, “shoot enough guys”, etc, which results in a rather flat, bland experience instead. It gets a little grating too, for example, when you need to run out of breath enough times but each level means you have more breath to lose. This results in you running to a destination, noticing you’re almost out of breath but you’ll totally make it, so you run around like a dope a few times by the door or person you’re looking for to make sure you lose that O2. It’s dumb.

Yet another powering up gripe is the temples. What a waste of time. You fly to a planet, you use your scanner to find a temple, you walk in, you float around a bit. The floating bit is my real issue, searching them out is fine, at least there’s traversal and maybe enemies or alien creatures on the way. But once you get in there and float around with sparkles for a minute or two it’s just… dumb. I can’t think of anything constructive or nice to say about it, it’s dumb.

One final complaint, I did find one instance the level design of a quest was horribly bad. There is a bit where you find an artifact in an old space facility, I’m not going to get deep into spoilers so if you know you know but if you don’t you’ll be fine to read on. Your way down is empty, on the way back up you’re being pursued. There’s one issue, if you haven’t invested in lock picking or you ran out of digipicks there is a door that requires a key. This key is located lower down in the opposite direction of where you would naturally play. You pick up an artifact and are told to escape, you need to flee upwards. The key is beneath you and around a corner. That’s bad. It breaks the pacing when you’re forced to double back and if you happen to defeat your pursuers you can end up like me, wandering around empty halls with no remaining threat looking for some kind of way to progress.

Okay, so, I’ve just done a boat load of belly aching. What did I like? Well, I like the setting, the major cities are cool and visually distinct. Gunplay is fun, and the different guns are fun to use, I’m a big fan of my stealthy Beowulf that got me through some real tough jams as well as my explosive shotgun. Exploration can be drab but it’s a good time waster, I’ve come to think of Starfield as a “podcast game” that I play while doing something else. This is when I listen to most of my new music, it keeps my hands busy scanning and exploring while I pay more attention to an album or whatever. It’s not exactly high praise, but it works. I’ll likely continue playing it that way.

I’m also a fan of the way things can happen organically, you can run into characters, events, and incidents totally at random and become sidetracked. The quests may not be super original and mind blowing but they are still fun to play, and it’s always appreciated to be sidetracked by a second quest spontaneously interrupting you on your way to a different goal. Warping to a planet to find an abandoned lab only to stumble upon a merchant being beset by pirates or an emergency call from a ship with no functioning comms or a very kind grandma that you should totally visit is great. I don’t know if Bethesda still calls it that “radiant” system or whatever but it’s still working very well.

All that said, even with my laundry list of complaints, none of the issues are overbearing enough to repel me from Starfield. There is a strange magnetism it exerts upon me, even as I roll my eyes at baffling decisions and spend minute upon minute in loading screens. I know it’s not great, I know I could be playing something else, hell Armored Core is right there! And yet I keep booting into Starfield…

So, here’s my analogy. Starfield is like a budget candy from your supermarket. It’s not the name brand, it’s not something you whole heartedly recommend. “Oh, they’re out of sour cherries? Well, the store brand one is okay if you’re willing to settle…” Maybe it’s not what we walked into the sweets aisle for, there might even be better candy all around it, but those candies are peaches and watermelons and grapes! The problem is if you’re hankering for cherries, you might just have to be willing to go off brand.

When I got to end credits I felt less than when I began. Little by little the game has worn me down with bugs and design issues big and small that are not fun. This is a videogame, work by choice should be fun.

I think Morrowind was the last good Bethesda game. Still true. At least Fallout 3 was dense enough to be interesting. This is just a bunch of menu jank and open space. I think space games are going to be boring inherently. No Man's Sky pushes into fun with just so much stuff to do and ways to traverse.

This does not play meaningfully different from an Xbox 360 game. The chats still remind me of Oblivion. The way you progress is forced fast travel but, you have to do multiple fast travels if it is too far away. And getting to the menu you want probably requires going through other menus first so it feels like travelling is done by menu management, which is not very fun. Also, it feels like they nicked the worst bits of Mass Effect (which I also played on the 360).

I did not get credit for most of it because 7 hours in I got a game-breaking bug that all my auto and quick saves were past the point of no return for cocking it up and I had to install the PC version and use the command menu to get past it to continue the story.

Gameplay: 8/10

Presentation: 7.5/10

Story: 8/10

Overall Score: 7.8/10

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Story= plot, engagement, characters, world-building

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

The best way to describe this game is honestly just another Bethesda game, but bigger, better and set in space. It has just about as many flaws as previous games such as Fallout and Skyrim. It does greatly improve on its FP shooting. Space battling is often rough though I didn't invest more than a few points into most ship skills. The game has the usual quirky NPC bugs and frustrating ones too. Also like their other titles, you can get lost exploring a vast world (worlds) for hours and yet you will still continue to encounter something new. It's really a fun game that should be a blast for anyone who is already a fan of Bethesda's other franchises.

A bit daunting for people who want a short very refined story-driven experience. Definitely a game worth taking your time with. After almost 130 hours I was ready to put the game down for a time as I await the DLC. The reason for this is that as much as I enjoyed the game what it provides in replayability is a bit more lackluster than I was led to believe.

When this game had its big presentation it sounded like it was going to have numberless unique ways to play the game. What that actually came down to was you can have some skills earlier than others and some extra dialog options. I put about 20 hours into a playthrough where I added the Wanted trait to my character and not once did I ever get attacked by any bounty hunters nor was I opened up to any kind of unique questline. It just meant I could say things sometimes in dialogue and one character who saw my criminal record was impressed. Those kinds of differences are so small it's not quite worth a second playthrough at least not proceeding having just played about 100 hours of my first playthrough.

I just finished Starfield and this review is just a few thoughts that I had about the game as I went through it. I loved this game... but I love all Bethesda games so I knew it was going to be to my tastes before even playing. Exploring the stars was done so well and I really enjoyed going to random planets and scanning stuff, while exploring generated dungeons.

I would best describe Starfield as Fallout 4, but better in every way and in space. If you did not like Fallout 4, then I do not see you having a great time here. If you were okay on Fallout 4 or loved Fallout 4 then come on over to Starfield. It is a better game.

The only thing Fallout has on Starfield is its world... I'm sorry but Starfield is not a replacement for Fallout or Elder Scrolls; though its world is still really detailed and interesting. Maybe its just the quests I chose to complete, but there seemed to be very little lore about anything other than how humans first went to the stars, the House Varuun's general history, and the war that happened 20 years before the game. I would have liked to see more lore... but I am comparing this world to Fallout and Elder Scrolls which have had tons of games to build up lore.

THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO IN THIS GAME IS FIND A SHIP THAT HAS A HIGHER JUMP RADIUS THAN THE STARTING SHIP!!!!!! Please do this for your sanity.

The radiant quest systems here are by far the best that has ever been done by Bethesda. You may be sitting there asking yourself why radiant quests even matter, but its the main incentive to go to 90% of the planets in this game and exploring was my favorite part. Planets could be icy, hot, filled with jungle, or barren. There are planets that have low and high gravity. Before anyone asks, no, each planet is not filled with generated cities nor is there really a ton to do other than exploring, scanning, and plowing through dungeons on these planets; but I had a great time doing just that.

The writing in Starfield is amazing. I really felt engaged with quests and the things I was doing really seemed like the things that a space exploring might be getting into. There were a myriad of side quests that I completed (not all of them of course) and I personally felt like Neon was the best place to go for interesting writing and game content. That is not to say that other places sucked, just a recommendation to any new players reading this.

As for faction quests, I completed the main story (Constellation), the UC Vanguard story, and the Crimson Fleet story. I thought these were all cool and had their ups and downs. I think I would say that the Crimson Fleet was my favorite because you need to find a way to solve all your problems peacefully for each of the quests and it really takes interesting twists and turns because of that.

Honestly, I only spent about an hour in the ship builder throughout my time here and I have yet to try outpost management at all. Much like how I saved settlements in Fallout 4 for my revisits, I am saving some of the factions and the outpost stuff for then.

Play this game. Go out there and pick up a copy. You probably have Game Pass if you are on Xbox or PC and do not have any excuse to not give it a try. This review was pretty messy and I did not experience every piece of content, but I wanted to write down what I thought when it was fresh.

Also, I don't think rushing to the end of the main quest is necessary unless you want to do the absolute max content in the game and min/max your ship, gear, and weapons.