Starfield is Bethesda’s most ambitious game yet. Did you think Fallout 76 was too barren? Too devoid of life? Well…. Starfield is still that. How about other space games though, No Man’s Sky? Remember how they made it so you could fly not only around planets and land anywhere but directly up into space, and down onto another planet - no loading screen! Well…. Starfield doesn’t do that either.
Starfield’s main focus(es) both exploration and space travel are both incredibly pointless. For the majority of the game space travel is just menus, selecting where you want to go and then a loading screen. You’re really only using the ship when you have the very few enemy encounters to fight and/or to be an in-between stage of landing on a planet, because you need to be in orbit to then go to a menu to select the landing point on the planet if you’ve not been there before.
Now onto the planets - do you like walking and/or running with an incredibly limited stamina bar across vaste open empty spaces that boil down to ‘it either has trees or just rocks’ with a couple of randomly generated structures that are a very very long distance away from you and contain pretty much nothing? No? Well that’s all there is.
There are a few main cities, which do have their own unique aesthetic and design but with no minimap and no actual map to show you around (that isn’t just a planetary height map represented by blue dots on a darker blue background), it’s pretty easy to either get lost or not know what shops exist and where they are.
The game would’ve heavily benefited from being one or two systems with densely populated planets (a couple empty, sure, for resources, I’ll allow it) and the ability to actually use your ship for more than a ‘staging’ method for fast travel.
Now, weirdly enough, I did find some enjoyment amongst the soulless game design. Despite the main story being pretty bad and having an… interesting ending. I’m unsure what it was though, maybe it’s because of how it played exactly like Fallout that I couldn’t put it down. Maybe it’s because I can see the potential there that just never really got hit. Who knows.
All I know is, I’m so glad I played via gamepass and didn’t feel heavy regret at £60 spent on something that just doesn’t live up to what it tries to do in any aspect.
Starfield’s main focus(es) both exploration and space travel are both incredibly pointless. For the majority of the game space travel is just menus, selecting where you want to go and then a loading screen. You’re really only using the ship when you have the very few enemy encounters to fight and/or to be an in-between stage of landing on a planet, because you need to be in orbit to then go to a menu to select the landing point on the planet if you’ve not been there before.
Now onto the planets - do you like walking and/or running with an incredibly limited stamina bar across vaste open empty spaces that boil down to ‘it either has trees or just rocks’ with a couple of randomly generated structures that are a very very long distance away from you and contain pretty much nothing? No? Well that’s all there is.
There are a few main cities, which do have their own unique aesthetic and design but with no minimap and no actual map to show you around (that isn’t just a planetary height map represented by blue dots on a darker blue background), it’s pretty easy to either get lost or not know what shops exist and where they are.
The game would’ve heavily benefited from being one or two systems with densely populated planets (a couple empty, sure, for resources, I’ll allow it) and the ability to actually use your ship for more than a ‘staging’ method for fast travel.
Now, weirdly enough, I did find some enjoyment amongst the soulless game design. Despite the main story being pretty bad and having an… interesting ending. I’m unsure what it was though, maybe it’s because of how it played exactly like Fallout that I couldn’t put it down. Maybe it’s because I can see the potential there that just never really got hit. Who knows.
All I know is, I’m so glad I played via gamepass and didn’t feel heavy regret at £60 spent on something that just doesn’t live up to what it tries to do in any aspect.
TheNameBrand
7 months ago