I dumped a lot of hours into Starfield while trying most, if not all, it had to offer. This included the completion of faction questlines as well as a number of side quests, outpost and ship building, acquiring every power and even furnishing an apartment. At the end of it all, I can now comfortably say that this divisive game didn’t blow me away.

In isolation it did some things well—the dogfights were fun and some of the storytelling was compelling, and I guess it was technically possible to fly through space, but as a whole package it was somewhat of a husk. Focusing on realism and scope did it no favours when most of it was dead; there’s obvious issues with translating realism into a videogame that's supposed to be fun. As it was, I felt no desire to explore the nothingness that was most planets; the excitement of what lay ahead was missing, more often than not I felt very little. Due to the scope—very much quantity over quality—it relied on fast travel far too much, but that’s just another complaint on a long list of them.

To sum up, there were highs and lows, even some greatness amongst cumbersome systems.