Like with most games of excessive scope and scale there are probably a number of things you could nitpick or criticize about Starfield, but none of those really matter, and it is a waste of time to ponder on them.
Would Starfield be better had there been 100, 50, or 10 planets instead of 1000+? No.
Would seamless loading screens masked by intra-atmospheric space travel make Starfield an instant 10 out of 10? I seriously doubt it.
The want for space aliens a la Mass Effect is uninspired and refusing to engage with the game on the same level as wishing for a burger at a Chinese restaurant, and while ground vehicles inspired by their implementation in something like Halo would be nice, like everything else that Starfield does competently, it would be squandered thanks to Bethesda's enduring ability to design a game that ultimately feels utterly pointless.
Paradoxically, Bethesda Game Studios has mastered the art of creating huge simulation sandbox playgrounds where you can do pretty much everything, but you can't do anything that matters.
Systems-wise, you are granted a fair amount of agency, I guess. Like, on a technical level. But despite the hundreds of characters and a volume of voice acted dialogue larger than the studio's last 2 major efforts combined, Starfield manages to be a roleplaying game in which you are not allowed to roleplay. There are rarely any big decisions to make, and when you do make a decision, rarely does it have big consequences.
Starfield pales in comparison in this department compared to the aforementioned Mass Effect, as well as The Outer Worlds, or even something like Arkane's Prey: There's no build up to looming forks in which you can shape the destiny of your player character or other NPCs, there's a drought of alternate quest win conditions or exclusive quests that lock you in to their paths, you can't deal with major NPCs by blasting the problem away and collecting a key item in their place, and aside from a generic type of fetch quest, there are no time gated decisions that ask the player to take some responsibility for themselves or the world around them.
No, even in this new dangerous frontier of space pioneers, the most common form of real moment to moment player agency is on occasion being able to pass dialogue checks with NPCs to persuade them instead of having to fight them - A system so frivolous and unincorporated with anything else happening in the game that you can cheese the system by constantly reloading a save until they decide they agree with you this time based off of a die roll - or choosing to sneak around an abandoned factory instead of charging in gung ho, guns blazing.
I feel like I'm not asking for a lot here; Or at least, what I am asking for at the bare minimum shouldn't be limited by the scope of the rest of the game. I don't believe that less planets or less polished gun mechanics or scrapping the base building would suddenly imbue this game with the personality and venue for player expression that it sorely needs.
If anything, customizing guns, having functionally endless planets to choose from to build a base on, and especially the ship customization feature are the things that allow for the most player expression in Starfield, with the last of those being my main motivation for progressing through the game, and remains my favorite aspect of it.
Something as basic as being locked out of factions for mingling with others, or some scale of "Good Guy Points/Bad Guy Points" would have gone a long way here. Giving the player multiple dialogue options with different tones and personalities even, would have gone a long way here. I wouldn't even ask that they always have different responses, so long as there's at least a convincing facade of enabling player expression at play.
Starfield is an unreasonably huge game that actually manages to pull off what it says on the tin. The gun fighting feels pretty good in a noticeable step-up from Fallout 4, the "NASApunk" visual language despite sounding antithetical to either NASA or punk is very cool and effective. You can fly ships, build a base, blah blah blah.
Although it could easily have been worse, there's no point in rewarding an accolade for surface level competency. And I really do mean surface level. None of these systems have that much depth or complexity to them, which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there is no real external motivation for engaging with these systems to make up for it.
There's just no reason to give a damn about Starfield.
Would Starfield be better had there been 100, 50, or 10 planets instead of 1000+? No.
Would seamless loading screens masked by intra-atmospheric space travel make Starfield an instant 10 out of 10? I seriously doubt it.
The want for space aliens a la Mass Effect is uninspired and refusing to engage with the game on the same level as wishing for a burger at a Chinese restaurant, and while ground vehicles inspired by their implementation in something like Halo would be nice, like everything else that Starfield does competently, it would be squandered thanks to Bethesda's enduring ability to design a game that ultimately feels utterly pointless.
Paradoxically, Bethesda Game Studios has mastered the art of creating huge simulation sandbox playgrounds where you can do pretty much everything, but you can't do anything that matters.
Systems-wise, you are granted a fair amount of agency, I guess. Like, on a technical level. But despite the hundreds of characters and a volume of voice acted dialogue larger than the studio's last 2 major efforts combined, Starfield manages to be a roleplaying game in which you are not allowed to roleplay. There are rarely any big decisions to make, and when you do make a decision, rarely does it have big consequences.
Starfield pales in comparison in this department compared to the aforementioned Mass Effect, as well as The Outer Worlds, or even something like Arkane's Prey: There's no build up to looming forks in which you can shape the destiny of your player character or other NPCs, there's a drought of alternate quest win conditions or exclusive quests that lock you in to their paths, you can't deal with major NPCs by blasting the problem away and collecting a key item in their place, and aside from a generic type of fetch quest, there are no time gated decisions that ask the player to take some responsibility for themselves or the world around them.
No, even in this new dangerous frontier of space pioneers, the most common form of real moment to moment player agency is on occasion being able to pass dialogue checks with NPCs to persuade them instead of having to fight them - A system so frivolous and unincorporated with anything else happening in the game that you can cheese the system by constantly reloading a save until they decide they agree with you this time based off of a die roll - or choosing to sneak around an abandoned factory instead of charging in gung ho, guns blazing.
I feel like I'm not asking for a lot here; Or at least, what I am asking for at the bare minimum shouldn't be limited by the scope of the rest of the game. I don't believe that less planets or less polished gun mechanics or scrapping the base building would suddenly imbue this game with the personality and venue for player expression that it sorely needs.
If anything, customizing guns, having functionally endless planets to choose from to build a base on, and especially the ship customization feature are the things that allow for the most player expression in Starfield, with the last of those being my main motivation for progressing through the game, and remains my favorite aspect of it.
Something as basic as being locked out of factions for mingling with others, or some scale of "Good Guy Points/Bad Guy Points" would have gone a long way here. Giving the player multiple dialogue options with different tones and personalities even, would have gone a long way here. I wouldn't even ask that they always have different responses, so long as there's at least a convincing facade of enabling player expression at play.
Starfield is an unreasonably huge game that actually manages to pull off what it says on the tin. The gun fighting feels pretty good in a noticeable step-up from Fallout 4, the "NASApunk" visual language despite sounding antithetical to either NASA or punk is very cool and effective. You can fly ships, build a base, blah blah blah.
Although it could easily have been worse, there's no point in rewarding an accolade for surface level competency. And I really do mean surface level. None of these systems have that much depth or complexity to them, which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there is no real external motivation for engaging with these systems to make up for it.
There's just no reason to give a damn about Starfield.
HaroKid
3 months ago