In the end it doesn’t matter how mediocre or flawed the game is/was on release. Precisly because it’s a Bethesda game it’ll spawn 10s of thousands of mods over the next decade(s). Starfield will still be sold and played in coming years. It’ll will eventually get it’s own Special Editions and VR-Editions and…

Spot on. 

My issue isn’t that it isn’t a game changer but that it hasn’t improved on any of the flaws since fallout 3. The shooting is “passable” by Bethesda standards which means it is still shit. The third person is still janky and unusable indoors. The glitches and bugs are same.

Thing is, BG3 is more the past that the industry forgot? It’s basically a 2023 take on Dragon Age Origins, a game that was heralded for its story, companions, acting, branching paths and unafraid subject matter. It didn’t feel the need to dumb down gameplay to find the lowest common denominator because they were sure…

So I got through the two capital planets...and still haven’t found the world building, environmental storytelling, or writing. When does it start?

At the moment most of it seems to have been made by an LLM “AI”.

It’s weird how good the game could be.... and yet how sterile and boring it feels to play.

I really really want to enjoy it, but it just makes me play an actual RPG with a story, whether its BG3, or Mass Effect...or even Fallout. 

This is a bonkers take. After character creation, almost every single upgrade in Starfield is “+10% pistol damage” “+10kg carry weight” “-5% O2 consumption” “+10% persuasion chance”. Comparatively, the skill tree in AC: Valhalla was a fucking design masterclass.

Seriously, what the hell is up with this?

The amount of justification and apologetic attitude towards a game built by a large studio with decades of experience and now Microsoft cash is just weird.

Next thing they’ll start making comic books.

70 million budget, 150 million box office.

So it’s going to be for small children or shovelware or both?

you can join one of the religions by picking it as a trait. closes you off to joining the others, curious to see how it impacts gameplay. 

Apparently there’s a Nightmare Fuel NPCs faction, too

Unrelated to the article, but anyone notice that Bethesda games still initiate conversations by zooming in, placing the npc dead center in the screen and having them stare straight into the camera?   Its really unnatural.

Can you continue to play after completing the final main quest?

Same.

I feel like people said the same things about Oblivion and Skyrim: “Oh man, the story is epic and you’re gonna replay again and again”, which i did not because Bethesda doesn’t make great stories, they make fun sandboxes.

This game looks made in the 2000s.

It’s not just because it’s Starfield, it’s the Kotaku ethos now. The aim is to find the negative angle on every story, because negativity gets more traffic. With the constant complaint pieces and the endless slideshows, it’s clear what the priority is on the site now.