Starfield (PC / Xbox)

[Finsbury Girl]

I haven't managed anytime on this for a wee bit. After watching Angry Joe's review (it's hilarious BTW) he does hit the nail on the head regarding a lot of the games flaws but I'm not quite on the same page regarding score but I'm early days relatively speaking.

I agree with the above exploration and sense of excitement and the joys of finding stuff off the beaten track just isn't in the same league as the previous Elder Scrolls and somewhat to a lesser extent, the Fallout games.

[Neon Ignition]

Finished it last night and the game might contain several undiscovered high quality side quests but the idea of doing the leg work required to uncover them is so off putting. Saying this comes 12 years after Skyrim, I do struggle to really think of anything that it does better, it mostly feels like a dilution of most aspects bar perhaps that I was fine with its gunplay compared to Fallout's.

That said though I did enjoy it all the way to it's somewhat lacklustre finale. I'd definitely be up for the sequel when it arrives probably some time in the late 2030's

If I had to land a score on it I'd say it's a very enjoyable 8/10 game

[nonny]

I'm nearing completion... have a handful of missions left for the Crimson Fleet and then the same for the main missions.

I actually love the game overall but agree it's sheer scale and the disconnect of space travel hurts it somewhat but equally that sense of scale is quite impressive.

The issue is the loading and wait times break the immersion and there is then a huge reliance on the curiosity of the player to search the far reaches to get the most out of it.

I think an 8 is probably fair but it makes me think wn anniversary edition with lots of tweaks would be an amazing thing. Or of course it being modded to high heaven.

[Neon Ignition]

I feel like they thought the planet travel would differentiate it from Fallout/Elder Scrolls but the scale got away from them. Really... well, I know how I'd have done it but it would have meant something much closer to those games.

[nonny]

It's a tough choice though... how do you make space travel interesting and dare I say authentic at the same time? You can't really.

I do feel there's an over use of loading screens that could be cut or implemented better. The whole docking thing could have been a mini game that becomes automatic through a perk etc... I'm sure the community will tweak things so it flows better.

[Neon Ignition]

I feel like the big mistake was having space travel at all. I can understand the intentions and interest in doing it but for Bethesda they've struggled with the scale of their games as it is, other titles with expansive space exploration have all had massive development hurdles and often those are games were it's a more central feature.

Had Starfield used the future setting as the hook that probably would have been enough. This is purely - purely my own outlook on it but I think had Starfield been set within one star system during a kind of early space expansion period it would have been easier to focus on the TES style gameplay with a transition to regions in 1-2 additional planets offering a combined space still many times larger than its stablemates. Expansions could easily be rolled out adding new areas and sequels expand the mythology following mankinds progressive expansion throughout the system akin to how TES moves to new regions with each sequel. Little would have been lost except the ship flying sequences and a massive ton of loading screens with a stronger focus on the core because even the usual gameplay loop in Starfield feels like Skyrim-lite, few of the main areas feel like exploration is rewarded. It's surprising how vanilla the ideas are in the game. I imagine the original pitch was liek fusing Skyrim with Star Citizen but what we've actually got is more like a firts person Mass Effect 3

[Lebowski]

I feel like the big mistake was having space travel at all. I can understand the intentions and interest in doing it but for Bethesda they've struggled with the scale of their games as it is, other titles with expansive space exploration have all had massive development hurdles and often those are games were it's a more central feature.

Had Starfield used the future setting as the hook that probably would have been enough. This is purely - purely my own outlook on it but I think had Starfield been set within one star system during a kind of early space expansion period it would have been easier to focus on the TES style gameplay with a transition to regions in 1-2 additional planets offering a combined space still many times larger than its stablemates. Expansions could easily be rolled out adding new areas and sequels expand the mythology following mankinds progressive expansion throughout the system akin to how TES moves to new regions with each sequel. Little would have been lost except the ship flying sequences and a massive ton of loading screens with a stronger focus on the core because even the usual gameplay loop in Starfield feels like Skyrim-lite, few of the main areas feel like exploration is rewarded. It's surprising how vanilla the ideas are in the game. I imagine the original pitch was liek fusing Skyrim with Star Citizen but what we've actually got is more like a firts person Mass Effect 3

I think Dev's get caught up in thinking that being able to go anywhere and do anything in a game is some amazingly interesting thing, exploring a million planets devoid of anything interesting to do or find is never going to be fun, they needed to find a way to make the universe feel alive outside of the set missions and they have failed to do that.

I'd kind of hoped they would have created some variables that generated things of interest on random planets that you explore like a way of making it feel like the universe is vast and that exploring it was worthwhile, Not procedural generation but set scenarios like they used to have that points you towards them, So you hear about a planet that is home to a vampire mole race and you can raid their underground mole city for new Armour and weapons, but doing so turns you into a vampire with a quest to cure you. Or a quest where you find out about a giga factory on a dead planet that is only being stopped from being picked clean by malfunctioning Warehouse robots. Once started your ship gets damaged and requires you to scavenge an ancient downed and half destroyed Bezos space yacht for parts to fix your ship.

[eastyy]

So been playing this on game pass

Definetly getting a Fallout/ Typical Bethesda vibe with a way a lot of things are like But a few initial bullet points things that stuck out

Lots of loading...even on a ssd its a pain

Persuasion is weird ...looks like just random

Graphics go from bad with way characters look and animation to some of the sceneries look pretty good

Weapon feel is a bit meh but the weapons themselves all just seem boring

Tbh i feel that the game The Outer Worlds done by the creators of Fallout New vegas does what Starfield is trying but in a much more condensed polished experience with better characters and while lacking space battles.

[nonny]

The weapons and feel improves as you level up... have a pretty nice long range shotty right now that uses flechette rounds and adds bleed to enemies over time and it's just a beast (lvl 53 currently).

Agree with the loading though and they could have improved / removed quite a few of them or opted for other transitions. The docking just seems like it could have been a mini-game instead of a boring short load...

Graphics are definitely a mixed bag and I think it depends on the lighting. Indoor it is always pretty decent but once outdoors it really depends on time of day and other factors.

My only other criticism is the characters are all a bit bland. It's a bit more sterile than it needs to be and needs a bit more rogues and comedy thrown in there. There are high points but generally its all a bit too serious.

[eastyy]

Actually two other things noticed

UI system just seems awkward on PC...I just cannot get use to the tab bar quitting out of menus rather than escape

Also the way the maps are done which are not done like fallout or skyrim and its a pain

[dataDave]

[Tobal]

[endo]

Wondering if anyone else has had the same strange bug I've been having. The current playtime on my latest save game is 3 days, 12 hours-odd, when I've not played anywhere remotely near that much. I've done a couple of parts of the main quest and that's about it. I've probably racked up 20 hours of gameplay at most. I though something weird was going on when it was showing my playtime as over 20 hours within the first couple of days and I just put it down to maybe conking out while playing late at night, which does occasionally happen. Since then though, I've only been playing it here and there and I've definitely not been leaving it on while asleep, etc. I can only guess it's somehow logging time while I'm playing other games and it's suspended or something. Anyone else had this?

[Finsbury Girl]

I haven't managed to play this in ages but did very very briefly manage to test out the new beta patch with dlss. I'm getting way more fps now but looks very samey to my old eyes lol (don't get me wrong it looks good to me!)

[nonny]

Finished this earlier this week.

Have to say the last few missions and how it transitions into new game+ is really well done and I enjoyed how it wrapped up the story. That said I think the main complaints still hold it back from being the best Bethesda has done... which is still Skyrim for me.

It's still a solid game and the NG+ already has me itching to go back in and try things differently... but there's just too many other titles around right now for this. I'll come back to it next year when the console mods stuff gets added in.

8/10 for me overall.