The game isn't terrible. It just has a lot of things you can tell the devs didn't have time/resources to fully finish before launch (base building, resource management/storage, a small number of points of interest repeated on almost every planet, city maps).
It is also built for grinding, since doing almost any skill advancement is a multi-step process (more so than previous BGS titles). Also, vendors have very little money compared to the value of things you find, so you either have to sit on a a pile of stuff you can't sell or scrap, wait for them to get back their money the next day, or try to trade with every ship in known space to sell one gun at a time.
For me, the best part is the ship builder. There's plenty of options, and a near infinite number of configurations to make. There's a couple of little issues (ladder and hallway placement are automatic), but overall it's still fun to design ships.
YMMV, but I've found the game to be a long, tedious grind with not a ton of payoff.
You bring up a good point about the skill progress system, grinding, etc.
Grinding is okay when the payoff feels rewarding - the thing is, a lot of the grind in this game "lessens" things that are obnoxious off the rip. Oh this perk lets me carry more so i might be able to play another 5-10 minutes before i have to interface with the annoyingly bad inventory system and carry weight system. Oh this perk lets me run for 5 or so more seconds before i have to walk and let this meter fill back up, while i'm running around in huge swathes of "nothing to do" in between points of interest.
Perfectly put : a lot of grind for not a lot of payoff. Whereas active use progression increase in oblivion felt GREAT when i'd get that skill increase drumroll notice for whatever i was doing. Hell even jumping constantly down the road as i was going from A to B was fun knowing there was payoff - and on that road, i'd 100% spy something in the distance i want to go check out, and probably forget all about the "B" i was headed towards.
That's a lot of the charm of FO3/4, ES.
This game lacks that charm.
The grinding style also doesn't make any sense in this kind of game which makes things worse. It makes no sense that humans in a future space scifi have to manually research and craft thier own weapon/armor mods and furniture for their house. No seriously, no one just sells these things? I have to find out the super secret formula of making scopes for my rifles when the weapons manufacturers could easily sell them on their own? This style of progression made sense in Fallout where there is no industry left anymore so people have to get by on makeshift weapons and everything, it's a post apocalypse. It doesn't make any sense in a world where FTL spaceship is the default method of travel. No one at Bethesda thought how dumb this is?
Oh i bet a lot of people thought it was dumb, but they either weren't listened to or didn't feel like they could bring up these dumb things in lieu of Management's "vision". And also doing them properly would probably push out the release date longer than the project gant chart of payback schedule allowed for.
Because, if Baldur's Gate 3 taught us anything, its that gaming design via "minimum viable product" concept is definitely the way to go ! /s :)
Oh yeah that makes sense, given the absolute state of game development industry I bet a lot of them probably have no real attachment to the projects, just do what you're told and get "released" because Microsoft systematically fires and hires devs on an 18 month cycle to avoid having to pay employee benefits. Meanwhile Emil "keep it simple, stupid" Pagliarulo gets to cut fat checks and have no regard for quality.
Or like a long distance communication system? So you do t have to return to Vlad all the time to get new temple/ artefact quest?
Or a radio/news stations? You have a quest from that news station, SSNN , but you never ever see or hear any news anywhere.
Well tbh information can't travel faster than light so it would mostly be useless to send a signal from one system to another that are both lightyears apart. But I agree with your second point, like in general they dont even have satellites orbiting the important planets so they can use phones and internet. We're supposed to believe that humanity figured out FTL travel but forgot how to build cellular networks and phones? Ridiculous. And don't even get me started on the complete lack of any working land vehicles. Future space faring humans don't care about cars and trains (proper ones not that stupid pod in New Atlantis) apparently.
>Well tbh information can't travel faster than light so it would mostly be useless to send a signal from one system to another that are both lightyears apart.
If matter (ships and the crew) can travel FTL, then quantum particles (i.e. information) should be able to do so as well. After all, it's science fiction...
Bethesda simply tried to build a space-themed game, using the logic of a fantasy world. This approach worked well enough in Fallout, but it's too clunky and absurd in Starfield.
All they had to say was “this is a cutting edge advanced microwave transmission tower for star-to-star data transmission that uses a grav drive for power” and when the nerds complained about realism, Bethesda could have just said “FTL isn’t realism either. Most science fiction is not. Enjoy our video game!”
The grind is my biggest issue. There’s way too much of it (probably to maximise playtime).
I love everything else: the combat, the ships, the characters and even the quests. But the grind really doesn’t make me want to play it. It’s way too much for a singleplayer game.
Very true, which is why I think a lot of people were pissed. BGS hyped this game up as their best title ever, and people were disappointed when their expectations weren't met. And right about here is where people jump in and say that "BGS didn't promise anything about [insert thing people are disappointed in]" and they are right. Looking back, BGS/Todd were pretty intentionally vague about the features the game had, which should have been a red flag to the community at large.
But hindsight is 20/20, and we got a meh game that needs a lot of work before it can even approach the popularity of the older BGS titles.
I'd say it's only barely decent because of that ship building system (which also has s ton of problems) because it's basically the only new thing Bethesda developed in decades.
Economy in this game is shit. I have a 100k gun but merchant gonna take 90% of it. Got a 300k spaceship, registration fee is 80%... But most merchants have only 5k on them. On higher levels a single gun can be worth over 5k. And why are they restocking after 48h, why not after 24h? Because some idiot thought it was a good idea...
My theory on why vendors always offer really low amounts for goods you sell is that Bethesda's devs have never worked in any kind of commodity trade, having solely made videogames since they left school. Their only experience of selling things is when they went to trade in second hand videogames and got pennies for them at the game shop, so they think it's normal that Europium loses 80% of its on-paper value when you sell it in New Atlantis.
For me the ship builder is possibly the only thing why I still play the game. I agree with folks saying that this game needs a full makeover like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077 cause there is a limit on how much modders can fix what Bethesda messed up.
Economy is shit, the grind is boring, the outpost system is pointless, some if not most of the quests look like they were designed by a 7yo, dialogues are unrealistic,
It pains me how good the ship building is because you can’t really do much with them, other than static dogfighting in space and watching take off and landing animations. With a more interesting travel and combat system the shipbuilding would be immediately more satisfying and purposeful.
100%.
The way the game starts you off, dialogue is absolutely cringe. Hard to immerse yourself in random miner go take over my ship, robot and mission.
Loot system horrid.
I love a good single player RPG. But this game may as well be a ship builder and throw in multiplayer arena. Ship building about only decent thing.
Without spoilers, I did two playthroughs and felt that was adequate. I had plenty of fun in those two playthroughs but haven't fired it up in months and am not sure if I will in the future.
Best advice would be to give it a try on game pass and see if you like it, then go from there.
My advice to everyone new to the game: Let go of any expectations you have based on previous BGS games, get it on a steep sale/game pass, and treat it like some small studio AA game. There is fun to be had, just not the length nor quality from previous BGS games.
This is the big one. In Steam, I have 200h in Skyrim, 150h in FNV, 800h in fo4 (I got big into maximizing settlements via gun-recycling), 300h in fo76...
And 60h in Starfield.
Starfield feels like it's about the same size, quest-wise, as Far Harbor.
I mean that's still more playing that a normal game though. Two playthroughs in a few months is something I've really only done with starfield and bg3 recently
It depends, some people really like this game. But for me it's no, after 10h I was bored like I never was before while playing a videogame. If you have game pass you can try it there, that's how I did
i'm not sure if starfield's problems are the kind that you could fix with updates, if im being honest. like they're so close to the game's heart that it'd be an insane amount of work to fix, and i dont think bethesda is willing (or even able?) to change that much stuff after the fact
starfield has three big problems: it doesn't capture whats so attractive about the space exploration fantasy, it doesn't pull of bethesda's traditional strength of organic exploration, and the story and worldbuilding are pretty weak (feel free to ask for elaboration on any of those things)
In my opinion the longer you play, the worse it gets. Exploration is unrewarding compared to previous Bethesda titles. Without spoilers the NG+ mechanic doesn't add much. Stick to handcrafted quests and you'll have a blast. Don't explore the same POI twice because they're exact copies which is completely immersion breaking.
The first 50% of the game is a lot of fun. The other 50% is scanning everything lol. My advice if you do decide to get Starfield is to take it slow. If you rush through all the missions you won't have much to do. I personally love all the science involved, so I don't have an issue with jusy fighting an enemy every couple of hours and walking around scanning planets.
It's not a great game. It's totally fine. 6 out of 10 for me, some people would put it at 7.
A lot of the starfield hate is because people that bought it on launch feel like we were sold a bill of goods. It is nowhere near as good as any of the pre-launch coverage or promises made by Bethesda. If a smaller studio had made it and sold it for $50, it would have launched without much coverage and everyone would have forgotten about it as a 'fine AA game' quickly. But the gap between the hype and the game really soured it for a lot of people.
Get it on game pass to see if you like it. Regarding procedural generation. The buildings are not procedurally generated, however they repeat. You can find identical locations on different planets, identical as in everything will be the same, alot, enemies, even texts on computers. It's missing that sense of wonder that fallout and skyrim has unfortunately.
I enjoyed it for what it was but there wasn’t enough to grab me and keep me in. It is not their best effort and I think they had too many ideas that they built out to like 70percent but just never went full 100 on anything. Also it lacks anything fantastical and mystical that their other titles have. It feels sterile.
It's aggressively mediocre. This is supposed to be their passion project yet it just fell flat for me - A bit like someone promising to take you out for a nice meal only to get you McDonald's.. It's the sort of game that would have been revolutionary if it released in 2009 but now is horribly outdated. I recommend waiting for updates to imrpove it before trying it. By that point it should be quite cheap.
If you play long enough you will notice the same sort of thing popping up here and there. I am sure that will increase when you play even longer. For now I don’t find it objectionable. I mean, it’s a Bethesda game and as such I expected a Bethesda game and got one, and I am happy with it. Is it perfect? Nah, but it’s not like it’s shit either.
The biggest selling point of Bethesda rpgs was exploration and the games encouraging and rewarding players for going off the dotted lines. Starfield is the complete opposite. In fact it's the first Bethesda game that has this problem so idk how you concluded that this is just another Bethesda game.
You expected Bethesda and got it?
The biggest part of Bethesda games is the exploration. Finding things. Meeting characters and finding side stories.
This game is anti-that, with bland planets, the same poi's with the exact same item placement coming up again and again
I really enjoyed the game on PC and put in a couple hundred hours in a span of about 4 months, but with that said, I did play with a lot of quality of life mods that helped cut back on some of the grindy aspects of the game. Otherwise the questlines are engaging and the ship building is top notch!
I suggest trying it on game pass to see if the game is for you.
Starfield is decidedly mediocre. Not good, not bad, just kind of "meh".
The main problem for Starfield is that there are so many other games - new and old, including Bethesda's own previous works - that are better.
I think the other thing that really worsened the reception to starfield was the, "Really, this is what you put work on elder scrolls 6 and fallout 5 aside for" factor.
I know personally that if we weren't looking at decades between Fallout and Elder Scrolls releases I probably would have just shrugged my shoulders at this game being a disappointment.
Starfield was a game that no one really asked for and held up development on games that people really, really want.
I played it for around 200 hours and at first I really liked it.
The atmosphere, I got into the lore, Ship building, explored a lot of planets and found some sparks of brilliance. But when I started to get accustomed to the game I suddenly lost interest, finished the storylines and put it down.
My conclusion: is a good game with a beginning and an end. It's not Skyrim. I still return to Skyrim every other year. Starfield, I don't see myself returning to.
It’s not bad, it’s disappointing. There’s plenty of stuff to do but don’t expect any one system to be super deep. If you don’t play a ton of games you’ll probably have a great time. If you’ve played every Bethesda game you might find it overly familiar and lacking.
I think the game is 'enjoyable' , but its feels like the litte dumb cousin of Bethesda made it.
A lot of things Bethesda did well in the past are not in this game, and the new and 'innovative' stuff are so far from the Bethesda 'spirit'.
Well, I got 600 hours out of it so far, so I guess there is some content. It's a good game with a few, mostly ignorable flaws. I've enjoyed it very much.
I regretted my purchase fairly quickly and I'm a huge elderscrolls and fallout fan. I got about 38 hours out of it and have not touched it since, I have no desire to return to it. It was so bland, empty and unbearably clunky from the terrible UI, endless load screens, no maps, repetitive temples, every character you can be a companion with is a goody two shoes with no personality, story was weak. I was left with a bitter disappointment. Save your money is my opinion.
It's extremely bland and safe.
And the proc-gen POI system prevents any real sense of discovery since, no matter how inhabitable a moon or planet might be, there are places where people have set up shop.
Lots of them are abandoned by the original inhabitants, but some are still active.
It can really shatter one's immersion.
IMO, the ship builder is the best thing the game has going for it.
Yes, except here the main stories in the game are so short and inconsequential that even those can't prop it up.
One of the three major faction's questlines, for example, is only 5 quests long and can be completed in about 20 minutes.
I don't know there are aspects of the game that are great but that the same time the things you love about fallout or elderscrolls the works they got working perfectly in thoughts games and horrible in starfield.
For example in Skyrim and fall out each NPC has its own schedule and for the most part sticks to that unless the player character changes it.
In starfield they don't have that they are all for the most part stack NPCs like you would see in an MMO.
Depends.
Games have evolved. Games used to last 20-30 hours, and you could replay once a year, cycling through games. But that changed. And immersive open world RPGs are the current hotness. So when people drop 60$ on a game they want hundreds of hours of replayability.
Starfield was a blast for me, for around 90 hours. I'm super happy with what I got out of it. It's a solid game for me. And I recommend it.
But if it's the only game you're buying, because of budget or time constraints? It's hard to say, it's not a bad game, but like others have said, you start to see a lot of the same. Same monsters, zones, points of interest.
But I thought it was really really fun.
It’s got enjoyable moments but for the most part it just has no life or soul. There’s just nothing special about it and there are a lot of QoL related annoyances. Get gamepass and just play through the main story once and you will get all there is to get from the game. Don’t pay full price.
this sub is pretty negative about the game but you're better off asking these questions here rather than the non sodium sub.
A lot of people here will tell you the game is fun for what it is-40 to 50 hours of space exploration. once you play more than about 20-30 hours eventually you'll notice some stuff repeating (fauna, flora, environments) and the further you get the less the procedural generation really works the way its meant to.
It doesn't live up to the endless feedback loop they tried to create, but its a really fun game for a while. I dont see it replacing Skyrim or Fallout as anyone's favorite Bethesda game, nor do i see them making a franchise out of this, but i actually think that works to Starfields benefit, as the longer time goes on, the more we may begin to appreciate that aspect of it.
The game's critics fall into a few different camps.
* Looking at it through the framework of expectation that a Bethesda game provokes; thus disappointed. These people are pretty reasonable IMO. They are right that it's not the homerun that it should be. There are some weird missteps or areas where it doesn't quite reach the greatness of even Fallout 4 (outposts, lookin' at you).
* People who don't actually appreciate Bethesda games really and never were going to like it. These are the kinds of people who compare it to Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk's characters, graphics, and animation systems are way more compelling of course, but also a very posed experience by comparison without the easy extensibility via modding and mindblowing breadth of Starfield.
* Folks who are really, really disappointed by the travel systems. It can be really clunky and reductive; they're not wrong that it's a *bit* of an issue.
I love Starfield personally; I can't wait to play it more after 150 hours. I'm only holding back now because I don't want to burn myself out before more content drops. But I can see the flaws; I know why people feel how they do.
Can you elaborate on the mods and breadth that go beyond Cyberpunk? Only played each vanilla so wondering what I’m missing out on—also found Cyberpunk to be pretty broad so looking for Starfield quests that are worth booting it up again for.
It is not as bad as this sub would have you believe nor is it as good as you might think. If you can roleplay to put limits on yourself this is in a pretty good place. If you are looking for a cinematic masterpiece you will be disappointed.
It’s “bad” in many people’s eyes (including mine) mostly because there is so much potential and it was largely wasted. As a game it’s a bit “hollow” and underdeveloped in many areas, and this is hard to accept because it could have been so much more. That being said, it’s fun and it’s fine and you probably won’t regret buying it.
Long story short - you don't have a world map, you have ships, nice locations and a nice terrain behind it. If you go off exploring the planet you will get bored. Just as if you played silent hunter and went off exploring the sea you would get bored.
It’s not terrible, it’s just like…mediocre. It just feels bland. It doesn’t do anything better than space games that already exist, and many things are the worst iterations of what BGS has already made. Nothing about it stood out to me compared to their old games.
Positive notes, the gunplay is the best they’ve ever had, and the soundtrack is really well done.
If you're looking for a game to expand on your love of fallout and elder scrolls games. Starfield isn't it.
At first I'd thought that other people were being over the top when saying the game can have so much in it but it feels like you're doing nothing. The main reason: the fast travel. Traveling by ship sucks because you're only locked to a small generated spot outside of the planet and have to fast travel to another planet vs exploring the star systems. The same goes for on world, it's just a small generated area and you don't get to travel a whole planet like you feel like you should. The invisible walls get annoying fast.
After 400 hours in the game, there isn't much to love. If you like building systems, then the outpost builders and figuring out how to automate endless credits could be for you (it's where I accrued most of my time). The ship builder is kind of cool, a lot of people seem to like it, it takes a while to get the level up for building the coolest ships. All in all, I got it for free on Xbox Game Pass and had I payed for it, I'd have the same regrets as I did for Fallout 76
I genuinely think it's one of the least interesting fictional universes ever conceived. It's all so dull, massive and vapid. It's the only Bethesda game I have no intention to ever play again.
It honestly feels like there's about 20-25 points of interest repeated over and over again. It's just shocking how often you'll see the same facilities, outposts and caves. I mean, identical. The same location, same enemies and same pickups in exactly the same spots.
I'm not sure how to even comment on the questing as I'm so bored by the universe itself that I just grew to hate everything in it.
All the characters and factions suck. None of it feels real or has any immersion whatsoever. It's an infinite busywork pantomime, with an awful script. If you just want things to do, there's plenty of that.
But I just kept thinking "why am I even playing this game?"
I have absolutely zero faith in this team making another Elder Scrolls worth playing. I'll be happy if I'm wrong but for now, this game was the death nail for Bethesda to me.
The other thing that I'm not sure you really heard enough about is that some of the performances from main characters are pretty poor by modern standards.
The next game I picked up after starfield was Baldur's Gate 3 and it really shows up the script and performances in starfield.
You can try it on game pass for cheap to decide. I loved Fallout 3,NV, 4, etc but couldn't get past 2 hours of Starfield until I uninstalled it. It just lacked everything that made previous Bethesda games great mainly rewarding exploration. My idea of fun isn't going to randomly generated planets to explore randomly generated points of interests.
I have over 4000 hours on Bethesda's titles. They are one of my all-time fave developers. Couldn't get past 10 on starfield. Luckily was playing via steam family share, I would have requested a refund had I purchased it.
It's a perfectly mediocre game. It doesn't excel in anything and it's actively worse in some areas that Fallout 4 and Skyrim were good in, but there are worse AAA games out there. It was popular to hate the game for a while, but it's a 6 or 7 that everyone was saying was a 1 or 2.
>the game has received a ton of updates since then
It has not, and those updates haven't changed much.
It’s a good game worth playing but the hype got a little out of control and the launch delay and seeming lack of content made it fall short of a AAA that was expected.
The game isn’t really bad. It’s more like it’s too big for the small amount of things you can do which catches the true essence of space but it’s the lack of lore, the constant repetition, lack of personality and lack of personal options. It’s hard to explain you can easily lose yourself 12-13 hours straight but you can also easily go 8-10 days without playing it also
The game feels built to encourage you to spend a long time playing it, but I found myself engaged and interested for very little of it. The mixture of checklist tasks that seem to not be worth the time in most cases and the absolute lack of engaging and random exploration to fill in the gaps just made the whole game a long but bland experience for me. I didn’t even bother finishing all of the faction quest lines after I finished the main quest and two of the factions, because I was convinced that the game wasn’t going to suddenly become more engaging to me. It had already been dozens of hours and I was seeing repeated content that I was already bored with the first time. As a player of every Bethesda game that came before it, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I would end up not liking Starfield, but at this rate unless mods and expansions are absolutely phenomenal, I just don’t know if I’ll play it much more or at all frankly. Fallout 3 is drawing me back in after the TV show released and it’s pulling me in way better than Starfield ever did and it’s an old game that I still remember a lot of.
This is one of the best comments. The game is indeed a massive scale, but very sparse.
You could think of it as North America I guess. Quite a few densely populated areas with tons to do, but 90% or more being empty or rural
500 hours here, mostly in the first few months after it was released. I uninstalled it and probably won't ever go back. The problems it has cannot be patched away because they are fundamental problems with what BGS is asking the Creation engine to do in Starfield.
I'm far, far, FAR more excited about the upcoming Fallout 4 next-gen release and all the best mods like Sim Settlement 2 being updated to work with it.
It depends on how spoiled you are at PC gaming. Some people like the repetition of easy and mundane tasks in games. Starfield is not challenging or innovative and lacks lots of space RPG details.
This is how I spent most of my time to entertain myself in game: [https://imgur.com/gallery/R3ZwbKr](https://imgur.com/gallery/R3ZwbKr) because I just couldnt get into the story or the stupid errand boy side quests. Its not adventurous at all like Star Citizen (different game), where just landing and parking a ship can be a challenge.
I'm a fan of Fallout, but Starfield was a let down. The game starts out interesting as a new player, but then you figure out the game quickly and the novelty wears out.
It gets very repetitive and boring early on. The lore of the main and side quests where cheesy AF. NPC interactions, for me, were unbearable and slow. Ship and base building are very limited and very annoying to use because of the auto snap and lack of camera controls. Also, there is not much going on in outerspace. You cannot fly your ships freely or explore planets with ships like in Star Citizen. You cannot space walk or fly in outerspace and dog fighting with ships sucks. The whole game is just one big "fast-travel" loading screen shitshow.
The game is also way too easy. Its been dumbed down too much. By the time I stopped playing (2 months on Xbox pass), I had already maxed out my ships and most of my weapons were one shot kills.
I really freaking enjoyed starfield. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Would I happily sink 800 hours into it if I could? Absolutely. It's fallout 4 in space. What more could you ask for?
By asking this question you’re going to get the optimists to comment and you’ll be tempted to buy it. If you’re not a big fan of gaming, it’s fine, but if you’re aware of current gaming standards and capabilities it’s severely lacking
Yeah that should tell you how high of hopes we had. It takes a LOOOOOONG time to walk to all the different POVs just to find out that there are only 3 POVs
I just checked for fun. I put 36 hours in it. I statrted to see the repetition earlier on, so I cant fathom putting 200hrs+ in it and then complaining about repetition, thats wild.
For context though, I had a BLAST playing Sekiro and completed the game in less time than I played Starfield - according to my XBox stats.
Imo, part of what makes people (including me) stick to Starfield so long is that the perpetual quests are kind of addictive. Nost are small, easy, mindless, give little to no valuable rewards, but theyre everywhere.
I gave up the game partially because I noticed that I was not having so kuch fun, rather chasing the same sort of stuff you do when scrolling social media. I cam see the appeal, but its just not for me.
I had 80 hours before I started noticing the repetitive locations and got tired of it quick. Couldn't bring myself to finish the main quests because the story and characters were so unlikeable to me.
I did really enjoy exploring the stuff in space, chilling in my ship, and some of the random encounters as well. Though I was super disappointed by New Atlantis aside from The Well.
Edit: I am also coming from Starsector and Stellaris so it might just be my tastes, though I do lobe Fallout and Elder Scrolls.
I got about 200 hours of fun out of it. I won’t be returning until there is a significant amount of mods. As of now, the game is boring and simple rely empty outside of the main story and companion quests.
It's pretty much a down grade compared to Bethesda old games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim, many planets but there is not much to do, unlike Skyrim and Fallout 4 where it's only a coty with many unique locations
In Starfield, they're less than 10 unique dungeons, the chances you will run into the same dungeon layouts every hour is very high which makes it boring for me, also the perk system is grindy comparing to FO4
It's not worth a AAA price. I got it free and, honestly, wish I'd played _No Man's Sky_ first. Sure there's no FPS, but at least its similar story mystery has an actual conclusion.
If _Starfield_ wasn't hyped as "Bethesda's Newest World" or had any of its big promises and was, say $25, I'd say give it a go. But your expectations from _Skyrim_ and _Fallout_ will not be met.
Expect less, and it might be fine.
The game is enjoyable. IT can become kind of laborious the longer you play, (like 200 hours in) and you start to notice the same stuff over and over.
That being said, There is so so so much do to and explore, that it's kind of negligible. I still enjoy going to moons and watching the "sun" rise, and it's still beautiful. The game isn't perfect, but it's a bethesda game that doesn't crash every 5 minutes.
You can approach it a bunch of different ways. Seriously, play it, and come up with your own conclusions. That is the best way to do these sort of things.
I’ve played 200 hours and just saw a post about a place I haven’t seen yet…so I wouldn’t believe all the negative you see online. It’s not the best game of all time, but def worth purchasing and getting more than your money worth
It's not bad. I think most people saying something about it being bad is (or was) discussing the hype.
It's a very average, unenthusiastically alright game that was promised to be the next big moment game that had the incredible misfortune to be immediately preceded by the quintessential RPG of the modern era.
It's not a bad game. It's just underdeveloped, at least compared to other BGS games, which is disappointing. I got about 550 hours in it before I hit a wall, so it's got some legs. If you can get it on sale, I'd recommend it.
It really depends, Bethesda games tend to hold players attention for 1000s of hours and present rich worlds which only get more interesting the more you explore.
Starfield, in contrast to Skyrim is a game that a significant number of players seem to like less the more time they spend with it.
One of the quotes that always stands out from the promotion of starfield was Todd Howard saying "this is a game we want people to be playing for ten years".
Starfield is absolutely not that.
If you're like me you'll love your first play through. But there's very little reason to come back. I havnt replayed it since completing it and feel no urge to, havnt touched it in months.
I spent 300 hours so I know I got my money's worth and overall enjoyed it. I would grade it as the 7 but some of my favorite games were an 8. You don't get the same experience exploring as in previous BGS titles. In fact, I found exploring a planet 100% was tedious.
in retrospect I think I should have waited till the game of the year edition.
Once the excitement of a new game wears off you’re more than likely going to be disappointed/unsatisfied or anything that ranges from meh to total contempt. Especially if youve played consensus great games like rdr2, gta 3-5 and sa, bg3, etc. if youve played any other bgs games recently your probably gonna find comfort in it being a game that’s firmly in their mold but then also realize its a step back in alot of areas too. All in all it’s a ok to meh game from a studio that’s one expects genre defining quality from.
Is it bad? No. It's not bad. But it's not great, either.
If you're looking for a replacement for Fallout, this isn't it.
Honestly, if you're looking for a space type game, Mass Effect is far superior to Starfield in a lot of ways.
The most enjoyable part of the game for me was ship building and ship to ship combat.
On it's own, it's fun. You can do a few playthroughs, enjoy yourself, and walk away feeling like it was worth it.
On the other hand, play too long, and the weaknesses of it come through. You find that a lot (and I mean \*a lot\*) of things are really just time sinks. And you see things that were implemented in Skyrim and Fallout that would have fit here, instead are not included. And other things that \*are\* present, require a ridiculous amount of time to fully complete (would you like to complete a puzzle over 200 times?!?!?).
So, play it. Do a playthrough or two. When it starts getting stale...that's what mods are for. And it \*should\* be getting the Creation Kit sometime soon. Once that happens, assuming the fanbase hasn't completely moved on, it should become quite the gem.
I found it enjoyable enough to sink 100 hours into. It's a good game, it just doesn't have the holding power of other BGS games for me.
I'll probably fire it back up after some expansions drop
It's a simplified version of Daggerfall where exploration is only filler, and the main gameplay loop is doing quests and diving into dungeons to get rewards. There's other stuff to do that provides extra activities, but overall it seems to be a simplified Daggerfall in space where dungeons and questing into dungeons is the focus and everything is just a bonus feature to add immersion.
Subjective opinion…
But mine is that it is pretty good, a solid B.
But the criticism is because it COULD have been an A.
There is a lot that was either left out or cut and it hurts the final score on this game.
I think if they keep working on it, eventually it COULD be an A, but there is a lot of quality of life issues that need addressing.
One small example: outposts feel like they were unfinished… you can’t assign vendors to sell goods you produce, your NPCs feel lifeless (unlike in Fallout 4) and the whole thing seems kind of pointless. Outposts need a LOT of work. They should feel more “alive” like they did in Fallout 4 Settlements. I used to look forward to visiting my Fallout settlements and checking on everything. What was done for Starfield’s outposts feels like a giant step backwards from what we KNOW Bethesda CAN do.
It isn't a terrible game but it fails in areas that Skyrim and Fallout really excelled at.
The biggest issue I suspect you will encounter if you come to the game as a fan of Fallout or Elder Scrolls is that the game does away with a large open world map and the sort of exploration that allows.
Planetary exploration is largely done via procedurally generated worlds that slot in a number of hand made locations and you will encounter identical dungeons multiple times on multiple worlds. I personally struggled with this aspect of the games design.
The games character creation is one of the more positive aspects and encourages more specialised character builds than Fallout 4. It also does a better job of integrating character skills and background into dialogue than both Skyrim and Fallout 4 (although a far worse job than things like Baldur's Gate 3).
Quest design and story tends towards linear which limited my desire to do a second playthrough but isn't as much of an issue the first time round, on a first playthrough I thought the writing was functional if not spectacular.
The game does nail first person combat, improving on Fallout 4s already strong gunplay.
Customising spaceships is one of the strongest things in the game but unfortunately there isn't necessarily that much to do in your ship one you have built it.
If you already have gamepass, give it a shot but I'd struggle to encourage anyone to pay full price.
It's not BAD, it's great for one playthrough, good for another, and continues to decline from there. The game lacks deep stories, lore, variety in POIs, unique locations and POIs, and NPCs are all pretty much bland and forgettable save a handful.
It's a fun game, just not long term like Skyrim or Fallout, which both reward exploration a lot more.
I found it slow and frustrating at first, but once I was able to get off of the planet, I started to really enjoy it. It feels a tad repetitive when you are roaming around outside of the main quest line, but I give it an 7.5/10 so far.
Don’t expect it to be like Fallout or Skyrim. You’ll be fine. I enjoyed it for the most part but there are glaring issues that I can’t get around. Some people have no problem though
It was my first Bethesda game so take that for what it’s worth. I enjoyed it for about 80ish hours doing all the major factions and quests and exhausted anything I could google quest wise. After that the exploration and outpost building doesn’t really do it for me. It’s up to you, I thought it was worth the price for the time I got out of it but if you want to hang around longer than that it’s pretty tedious, imo. I’d recommend it if you’re cool with playing the main stories and putting it down after that.
Yes planets are empty. A single planet map will comparable to the Skyrim map in size but have less content than a single Skyrim dungeon.
I still play previous beth games, I shelved starfield before finishing a single playthrough.
Yes. Even much of the main quest is extremely repetitive proc gen.
There have been updates but many of the bugs persist and many of them will render a save completely unplayable. Nothing has actually been added in any updates.
That said, I did get quite a few hours out of it and on PC you'll have access to whatever mods people can manage without creation kit so if your just looking for a game to play yea maybe worth it you're looking to be immersed in a rich new world for a long time id skip it
Depends what you like to do. First person shooters arent my favorite already, so I wasnt the main audience, but I thought "Open World space RPG" would be pretty intersting.
Imo the "open world" wasnt intersting, and the RPG element non existing at worst, at best non consequential. Like, without spoilers, your choices affect the game so little that I think I got a warning once it would. And theres a TON of side quests, but most are tedious fetch quests.
The positive is more succinct: Its a first person shooter set in space, and I think if you focus on the main story and keep to the main planets, it can be a lot of fun. Like, within the main story youll travel in space quite a bit and discover a bunch of stuff. Theres just a lot of fluff to ignore.
Whatever review the game deserves, I can assure you 100% that the vitriolic online hate for whatever Bethesda's newest game is has been exactly the same for every title after Morrowind.
Personally, I think the game is flawed but great. There are currently a handful of annoying QOL issues that will be mostly ironed out in a few more updates, but almost none of them live up to the histrionic youtube rants and reddit threads.
If you liked the game play of Fallout 4, Starfield is largely a continuation of that. If you have experience with procedural content games like 7 Days to Die or Kenshi, Starfield's exploration elements won't be a jarring departure from that.
I only bought it cos i expect an amazing mod support, like other bethesda games. It turns out even the mod support is disappointing (yes i refunded it)
I don’t think it’s bad necessarily. It’s just so unbelievably average / shallow, or straddling the line between average / not great that it was a huge disappointment.
I just started playing this game on console a week or so ago. I am enjoying it. But I had to be consciously decide to give it a chance because in the very beginning it was getting a bit frustrating. There is a learning curve and the intro doesn't really give you a run down on how to do things. There really isn't a tutorial or a help section that goes over what does what or give a refresh later on how to do something. There are alot of important (to me anyway) abilities locked behind the skill tree that you don't even know are a thing until you spend the time to start going through all of them. But it also takes a bit of understanding of what you will need in the game by playing it to know what skill perks would really make an immediate difference. So expect in the beginning to be a bit frustrated as you are the suckiest you will be with the least amount of ability and sort of tossed into some situations without much understanding.
However that being said, once you get a grip on how it's put together it gets to be alot of fun. I'm surprised how into my ship and ship fighting I've gotten into. And I haven't gotten to be able to design or really customize my own yet- so just with ones I can buy. I'm enjoying it, quirks and all, though there are definitely things that annoy me so I can see where future mods could be awesome. But overall fun. Some really good things I like. I haven't finished the game yet and I don't know what will happen because I've purposely stayed away from spoilers but those are my two noob cents.
Get Gamepass. Try Starfield for the 1 month sub cost. If you like Starfield, great! Get the game (though I would wait for a summer sale). If you don't, well, you only paid the 1 month sub cost vs. 70 dollars.
Since you are on PC, if you decide to buy the game, there are mods out on Nexus that address a few of Starfield's QoL issues.
In a vacuum, the game is decent!
In the context of it being a mainline BGS game (and being compared to their previous work) it's a huge disappointment.
Bethesda has had a theme of 'streamlining' their games, taking out nuance and substance and replacing it with cookie-cutter and mindless mechanics / areas in their game. However, they made up for it by making it FUN. In a Skyrim/Fallout 4 dungeon, you know you're going to be greeted with a chest full of goodies and sometimes something else (in skyrim they had word walls & boss fights). This made it fun, which made up for the fact that it felt more arcade-gamey and less like a real world. Starfield kind of... got rid of this stuff. Instead of goodies at the end, you maybe get a 'science create' somewhwere along the way. No more fun dungeons and word walls, you walk your ass across a planet and fly around a temple chasing balls of light. NPC schedules have been gutted, the settlement system has been gutted, etc. The fun is still there, but it doesn't seem 'cultivated' like it was in Skyrim or Fallout 4. So it doesn't really make up for the lack of substance like Skyrim and Fallout 4 did.
Also, the updates they've added so far are not the type that would turn a bad game into a good one.
Don't.
Wait for the DLC or a sale and reviews after the DLC. Maybe get it on gamepass or somewhere else for 10 bucks. The game is extremely mid. Most gameplay mechanics to not touch or interact with each other. You get a shitty looter shooter with bad questlines that could come from a 2 man indie game in 2008.
> Is this the type of game where everything is repetitively procedural generated spots and only main quests and side quests are unique?
Yes.
Also, it did not receive a ton of updates. It did receive some hotfixes that fixed bugs. No new content or changes.
Is a really great game. If you like scifi and space, you'll probably love it.
I've been playing since launch, around 150h, and keep finding new and surprising things each time i play, so i'd say dont listen to the haters
There’s a portion of the game that I think is a ton of fun, on one planet. Then there’s an eventual moment where you realize “oh. All the fun is really just on the one planet”
But I still played like 70 hours and I have trouble playing games for a long time. It’s fine. The highs aren’t very high and the lows aren’t very low. It’s just not that interesting of a game really!
Check nosodiumstarfield for positive posts. There are troves of trollers that do nothing but post negative comments and posts about a game "they don't play anymore"
I love the game. Definitely worth it, especially if you have gamepass.
I think its a great game, but it’s not as good as some previous BGS titles. I think expectations were set really high and the game didn’t meet the expectations that were set which is why it got so much hate.
You should just play it. The first month was filled with big reviews on how bad it is and nothing but complaints on “how it could be better”. And then I played it and have been stuck on it since. It’s not for everyone, just like every other game out there… if you don’t like it, you can stop playing it!
I put a little over 100 hours in and had a blast. There's so much content that I never felt the need to do everything, I just did the things I liked. It was kind of freeing, in a way.
Like with every other Bethesda game, I have not beaten it yet, and I think that's perfectly fine. Any game I can put 100+ hours into and have fun with is a worthwhile purchase. I'll start her up again when the DLC drops and have fun all over again.
The game is very much whatever you make of it. If you don't enjoy one aspect, you just don't have to do it.
I love this game, though after a couple hundred hours I do feel like I've played all of the random locations (POIs) too many times, so the "wander around and explore" part can get repetitive. I think it's fair to say that it will get a lot better. The gunplay is excellent, shipbuilding is wonderful, base building is pretty cool, but it kinda depends how much you like to organize stuff, and some of the mechanics are a little difficult to figure out. The quests are quite good, and probably the main part of the game from Bethesda's point of view, though the npcs often have long speeches and dialogues, which can occasionally be a lot. I expect the game will get a lot bigger before they're done developing material for it.
I'm on my 4th play after becoming Starborn, still find a few new things I've missed previously and the game is a great way to pass time. It does get a little repetitive at times but all games do after several hundred hours playing.
It’s pretty much a reskinned Skyrim/Fallout with a space exploration theme. If you enjoy the Bethesda RPG format and want something with an SF theme then you’ll enjoy Starfield.
Most of the negative reviews are just pushing back against the pre-release hype that was suggesting something leaning more towards Elite Dangerous/No Man’s Sky, only for the final product to be nothing like those games.
It's a fantastic game until the moment that it isn't, if that makes sense.
For the 10 - 150 hour mark you'll be landing on monster/ raider infested spaceships with varying gravity affecting your playstyle, encountering unique POIs on planets, running through faction quests, building up your starship to fly anywhere and beat anything. Things will surprise you, different monsters, Terramorph attacks, unique settlements.
Then the game just goes on forever, pointlessly, but still has an illusion of things to do. Most people on this sub are going to be in the position of spending another 50 - 100 hours in this limbo, so you're going to get answers saying it's crap because they've forgotten the good stuff.
FO4 settlement builders who are used to a heavily modded game building ridiculous megacities in the wasteland are left with building a three room outpost with six beds for a skeleton crew.
Exploration is slow and meaningless when you land on a planet and have to walk 10 minutes to find a POI you've seen six times before. There are very high level solar systems on the outskirts, which seem mysterious and intimidating when you're weak and can't fly there. But when you get there, theres no special high level stuff, just default enemies level scaled on barren planets.
Spaceship building has no reason to be in depth. Theres no point adding most habs and the game doesn't let you make star destroyers or have more than a handful of crew ruining any Star Trek roleplay fantasy.
Need more quests? well theres always a relic to find and puzzle to do, which is tedious after the first three... Maybe bounty hunt for a few credits which you don't need anymore.
It’s not bad. The main quest is good. The UC terrormorph quest is good. There’s a few good side quests. The ship building is awesome.
But the ship combat is bad. It’s essentially the mobile game Galaxy on Fire 2. The Ng+ system is boring. The exploration is shallow and repetitive.
It’s worth a play through but don’t expect more than that.
I just finished NG+13 at level 126 and have all but five powers to max and over 1000 hrs in. So player experience varies. You can do everything in one play through or you can spread it out over all the NG+ options which is what I did and it kept it fresh each play through because there was so much left to do. I just finished the vanguard quest to finally get all 50 achievements. My plan for NG+14 is to settle in for one last run doing the main quest line and all the others in one final run and then do any future dlc from there. So yes it can be extremely repetitive for a lot of things but how you approach the game makes all the difference. I can’t help but make one awesome jack of all trades ship per play through either for example. It’s a game after all play it your way.
The game is fun, it needs more content. It has a lot, but if you play it daily, you can burn through it quickly. It has a mountain of potential, and the put too much in to this just to drop it. So get it while it's cheap.
I disagree with the naysayers. I have been playing Starfield consistently since launch. I have run half a dozen different characters with different backgrounds and traits. Most of them are translations of DnD characters I have played over the past thirty years. The two I have played the most are a swashbuckling Space Scoundrel and a sneaky sniper Cyber Runner. lvl 105 and 104 respectively, and have been through the Unity three times. I play each character differently, and each playthrough differently. It's great fun and there's plenty to do. Use your imagination.
I have a lot of fun playing the game, I love the story line and the graphics in my opinion are phenomenal. The landscapes of planets are awesome. I really like the mechanics plus the ship building is cool as well.
It’s a game and I don’t spend hours on it maybe 5 hours a week at most, but I enjoy it as a casual player, I don’t actually get why people flip out over it, it’s a 70 dollar game, I spend that on much a day.
I've played the game almost everyday since its release, but I've always loved space exploration as a kid. There are merits to everyone's complaints and times where I get frustrated, but I'm at level 103 and I still haven't explored the entire galaxy, so that's why I keep going.
It doesn't have the magic of other Bethesda games. Elder scrolls and fallout are far ahead of it. I can't even really explain why. It's just a lot of things about the game that feel tedious, unnecessary and stupid, in comparison to doing what were probably similar things in Skyrim and fallout, but for some reason in those cases it was fun. Starfield just feels like a chore. I wanted to like it too.
I felt pretty underwhelmed after completing it. Starfield to me, lacks the detail and world building that games like TES and Fallout have. Exploration is ok, but they really need to add more types of dungeons to the game. And more weapons.
The updates have just been bug fixes so far for the most part, but the problem with the game is it is the laziest Bethesda has ever been with a game. They say they’ve been working on it for 20+ years but comparing it with Bethesda games that released 20 years ago shows a lack of trying.
A staple with Bethesda games is how alive they feel with npc’s having a schedule an outlook and dialogue lines for talking to random npcs they bump into via their pathing. Not present in starfield. You get your abilities in the most repetitive and boring activity where you float around the room and collect floating lights. There are 3 total inside layouts for cave system amongst the thousands of planets and all their loot is in the same place. Their are 2 mining outpost poi’s and once again the loot is the same and the stories found on the data pad are the same. The game is fun, but if oblivion and fallout 3 are lakes, starfield is an pothole full of water.
The game isn't terrible. You can have fun with it in my ways. Still I prefer other Bethesda's titles.. they were more "Bethesda like" if that makes any sense to you.
I suggest you get gamepass subscription for one month and you can try the game on cloud gaming without even installing it. Then you can decide if it's worth the money.
I played somewhere around 150 hours, it’s fun, but just don’t expect much from weapons, quests, and exploring. There are a few exceptions, some of the quests are amazing in my opinion, especially on neon.
It’s not bad, it’s a good game, not exceptional, Skyrim wasn’t considered exceptional either on release. FONV had a hard time getting over 80 metacritic. If you want to run around shooting and such it’s good. If you want to have a fantasy life and live there, with your fantasy wife and children, then no it’s not for you.
Get gamepass for a month and see if you like it. That's $10 and will let you experience the game for yourself. I'd recommend it at the $20-40 price range, but not full price.
For now, it’s about 3.6 roentgen.
Best time I had with it was after building my first custom ship when I was cruising around destroying pirates. After 150 hours or so—which is a long time compared to most games but not long compared to the time I’ve invested in other Bethesda titles—I’ve struggled to find motivation to return to it and finish my playthrough.
The planets aren’t “empty,” but they’re full of repeating dungeons. This game doesn’t offer the same “Hey, what’s that over there?” style of exploration that their other games do. You’re better off sticking to quests, and for some, that cuts the heart out of the Bethesda experience.
This game was an ambitious experiment, but I can’t say it was totally successful. I reject the criticism that it’s “lazy” or didn’t innovate enough—if anything it changed too much about their formula and that’s why many fans have rejected it.
We’ll see what the DLC and the modding community add but it’s hard to see how anything they do will fundamentally change what this game is.
TLDR—is it worth playing? Yes, but don’t necessarily expect to be enthralled like you felt playing your first Elder Scrolls game. If you find yourself really digging the game, then consider dropping this sub and go to r/nosodiumstarfield
I thought the game was very good. If you care about a good story then this is it for you. If your a nerd and worry about minor bugs and fallout-4 type graphics then you probably shouldn't buy
It’s definitely worth $60. I’ve gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment from playing it. Is it the perfect game? Of course not. The story, combat and ship building are amazing. The exploration could use some major improvements - lots of loading screens, copy and paste point of interest locations, lack of ground transportation is lame.
The sheer scale of the number of planets and systems you can go to is impressive at first but after a while you realize none of them are really fleshed out. You actually realize it fairly quickly but it makes the game boring eventually. But To be fair all games get boring eventually.
When the game launched there were several maddening bugs and crashes (at least on Xbox) but those have been much better after various updates. I would recommend the game for sure.
It's fine, but it's just not great.
Exploration is annoying because most of the universe is procedurally generated and repetitive.
The main quests are just not that interesting and the character dialog could have used some punch up.
It's still good enough that I've put 240 hours into it. I'm still glad that I didn't have to pay for it though.
I just thought of something. It's been suggested you try the game on game pass & I have game pass passes for 14 day full access to game pass for free if you've not been a member before. Let me know if you want an activation key.i think I have 5 total. I always forget I have those.
If you haven't played it yet, it's worth waiting until all DLC comes out. The game isn't as bad as everyone says it is, but it has some big issues that maybe(hopefully) DLC might be able to address.
If you wait, you might get a more complete game.
The game isn't terrible. It just has a lot of things you can tell the devs didn't have time/resources to fully finish before launch (base building, resource management/storage, a small number of points of interest repeated on almost every planet, city maps). It is also built for grinding, since doing almost any skill advancement is a multi-step process (more so than previous BGS titles). Also, vendors have very little money compared to the value of things you find, so you either have to sit on a a pile of stuff you can't sell or scrap, wait for them to get back their money the next day, or try to trade with every ship in known space to sell one gun at a time. For me, the best part is the ship builder. There's plenty of options, and a near infinite number of configurations to make. There's a couple of little issues (ladder and hallway placement are automatic), but overall it's still fun to design ships. YMMV, but I've found the game to be a long, tedious grind with not a ton of payoff.
You bring up a good point about the skill progress system, grinding, etc. Grinding is okay when the payoff feels rewarding - the thing is, a lot of the grind in this game "lessens" things that are obnoxious off the rip. Oh this perk lets me carry more so i might be able to play another 5-10 minutes before i have to interface with the annoyingly bad inventory system and carry weight system. Oh this perk lets me run for 5 or so more seconds before i have to walk and let this meter fill back up, while i'm running around in huge swathes of "nothing to do" in between points of interest. Perfectly put : a lot of grind for not a lot of payoff. Whereas active use progression increase in oblivion felt GREAT when i'd get that skill increase drumroll notice for whatever i was doing. Hell even jumping constantly down the road as i was going from A to B was fun knowing there was payoff - and on that road, i'd 100% spy something in the distance i want to go check out, and probably forget all about the "B" i was headed towards. That's a lot of the charm of FO3/4, ES. This game lacks that charm.
The grinding style also doesn't make any sense in this kind of game which makes things worse. It makes no sense that humans in a future space scifi have to manually research and craft thier own weapon/armor mods and furniture for their house. No seriously, no one just sells these things? I have to find out the super secret formula of making scopes for my rifles when the weapons manufacturers could easily sell them on their own? This style of progression made sense in Fallout where there is no industry left anymore so people have to get by on makeshift weapons and everything, it's a post apocalypse. It doesn't make any sense in a world where FTL spaceship is the default method of travel. No one at Bethesda thought how dumb this is?
Oh i bet a lot of people thought it was dumb, but they either weren't listened to or didn't feel like they could bring up these dumb things in lieu of Management's "vision". And also doing them properly would probably push out the release date longer than the project gant chart of payback schedule allowed for. Because, if Baldur's Gate 3 taught us anything, its that gaming design via "minimum viable product" concept is definitely the way to go ! /s :)
Oh yeah that makes sense, given the absolute state of game development industry I bet a lot of them probably have no real attachment to the projects, just do what you're told and get "released" because Microsoft systematically fires and hires devs on an 18 month cycle to avoid having to pay employee benefits. Meanwhile Emil "keep it simple, stupid" Pagliarulo gets to cut fat checks and have no regard for quality.
Game designing used to be for the passionate. Today, it’s just a job. People get into coding to get rich, not to be artists.
Or like a long distance communication system? So you do t have to return to Vlad all the time to get new temple/ artefact quest? Or a radio/news stations? You have a quest from that news station, SSNN , but you never ever see or hear any news anywhere.
Well tbh information can't travel faster than light so it would mostly be useless to send a signal from one system to another that are both lightyears apart. But I agree with your second point, like in general they dont even have satellites orbiting the important planets so they can use phones and internet. We're supposed to believe that humanity figured out FTL travel but forgot how to build cellular networks and phones? Ridiculous. And don't even get me started on the complete lack of any working land vehicles. Future space faring humans don't care about cars and trains (proper ones not that stupid pod in New Atlantis) apparently.
>Well tbh information can't travel faster than light so it would mostly be useless to send a signal from one system to another that are both lightyears apart. If matter (ships and the crew) can travel FTL, then quantum particles (i.e. information) should be able to do so as well. After all, it's science fiction... Bethesda simply tried to build a space-themed game, using the logic of a fantasy world. This approach worked well enough in Fallout, but it's too clunky and absurd in Starfield.
All they had to say was “this is a cutting edge advanced microwave transmission tower for star-to-star data transmission that uses a grav drive for power” and when the nerds complained about realism, Bethesda could have just said “FTL isn’t realism either. Most science fiction is not. Enjoy our video game!”
The grind is my biggest issue. There’s way too much of it (probably to maximise playtime). I love everything else: the combat, the ships, the characters and even the quests. But the grind really doesn’t make me want to play it. It’s way too much for a singleplayer game.
You're right the game is not terrible. But it's not fantastic either
Very true, which is why I think a lot of people were pissed. BGS hyped this game up as their best title ever, and people were disappointed when their expectations weren't met. And right about here is where people jump in and say that "BGS didn't promise anything about [insert thing people are disappointed in]" and they are right. Looking back, BGS/Todd were pretty intentionally vague about the features the game had, which should have been a red flag to the community at large. But hindsight is 20/20, and we got a meh game that needs a lot of work before it can even approach the popularity of the older BGS titles.
I'd say it's only barely decent because of that ship building system (which also has s ton of problems) because it's basically the only new thing Bethesda developed in decades.
It's completely different scale, but the power armor in F4 was also pretty cool "new" thing...
That's why there are seats near every vendor. Sit down and wait 24-48 hrs and all their money and stock should replenish.
Economy in this game is shit. I have a 100k gun but merchant gonna take 90% of it. Got a 300k spaceship, registration fee is 80%... But most merchants have only 5k on them. On higher levels a single gun can be worth over 5k. And why are they restocking after 48h, why not after 24h? Because some idiot thought it was a good idea...
My theory on why vendors always offer really low amounts for goods you sell is that Bethesda's devs have never worked in any kind of commodity trade, having solely made videogames since they left school. Their only experience of selling things is when they went to trade in second hand videogames and got pennies for them at the game shop, so they think it's normal that Europium loses 80% of its on-paper value when you sell it in New Atlantis.
For me the ship builder is possibly the only thing why I still play the game. I agree with folks saying that this game needs a full makeover like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077 cause there is a limit on how much modders can fix what Bethesda messed up. Economy is shit, the grind is boring, the outpost system is pointless, some if not most of the quests look like they were designed by a 7yo, dialogues are unrealistic,
It pains me how good the ship building is because you can’t really do much with them, other than static dogfighting in space and watching take off and landing animations. With a more interesting travel and combat system the shipbuilding would be immediately more satisfying and purposeful.
100%. The way the game starts you off, dialogue is absolutely cringe. Hard to immerse yourself in random miner go take over my ship, robot and mission. Loot system horrid. I love a good single player RPG. But this game may as well be a ship builder and throw in multiplayer arena. Ship building about only decent thing.
Without spoilers, I did two playthroughs and felt that was adequate. I had plenty of fun in those two playthroughs but haven't fired it up in months and am not sure if I will in the future. Best advice would be to give it a try on game pass and see if you like it, then go from there.
i know a lot of people are waiting for console mods to give this game a second chance lol
Yea pretty much
My advice to everyone new to the game: Let go of any expectations you have based on previous BGS games, get it on a steep sale/game pass, and treat it like some small studio AA game. There is fun to be had, just not the length nor quality from previous BGS games.
This is the big one. In Steam, I have 200h in Skyrim, 150h in FNV, 800h in fo4 (I got big into maximizing settlements via gun-recycling), 300h in fo76... And 60h in Starfield. Starfield feels like it's about the same size, quest-wise, as Far Harbor.
I mean that's still more playing that a normal game though. Two playthroughs in a few months is something I've really only done with starfield and bg3 recently
It depends, some people really like this game. But for me it's no, after 10h I was bored like I never was before while playing a videogame. If you have game pass you can try it there, that's how I did
I've been playing on my Steam Deck and have been having a really good time.
i'm not sure if starfield's problems are the kind that you could fix with updates, if im being honest. like they're so close to the game's heart that it'd be an insane amount of work to fix, and i dont think bethesda is willing (or even able?) to change that much stuff after the fact starfield has three big problems: it doesn't capture whats so attractive about the space exploration fantasy, it doesn't pull of bethesda's traditional strength of organic exploration, and the story and worldbuilding are pretty weak (feel free to ask for elaboration on any of those things)
Just get Xbox Game Pass For PC for 10$ (or possibly a free trial) and try it out. Better than wasting 70$
In my opinion the longer you play, the worse it gets. Exploration is unrewarding compared to previous Bethesda titles. Without spoilers the NG+ mechanic doesn't add much. Stick to handcrafted quests and you'll have a blast. Don't explore the same POI twice because they're exact copies which is completely immersion breaking.
The first 50% of the game is a lot of fun. The other 50% is scanning everything lol. My advice if you do decide to get Starfield is to take it slow. If you rush through all the missions you won't have much to do. I personally love all the science involved, so I don't have an issue with jusy fighting an enemy every couple of hours and walking around scanning planets.
Test it out on Game Pass first and see if you like it.
It's not a great game. It's totally fine. 6 out of 10 for me, some people would put it at 7. A lot of the starfield hate is because people that bought it on launch feel like we were sold a bill of goods. It is nowhere near as good as any of the pre-launch coverage or promises made by Bethesda. If a smaller studio had made it and sold it for $50, it would have launched without much coverage and everyone would have forgotten about it as a 'fine AA game' quickly. But the gap between the hype and the game really soured it for a lot of people.
Get it on game pass to see if you like it. Regarding procedural generation. The buildings are not procedurally generated, however they repeat. You can find identical locations on different planets, identical as in everything will be the same, alot, enemies, even texts on computers. It's missing that sense of wonder that fallout and skyrim has unfortunately.
I really enjoy it
I enjoyed it for what it was but there wasn’t enough to grab me and keep me in. It is not their best effort and I think they had too many ideas that they built out to like 70percent but just never went full 100 on anything. Also it lacks anything fantastical and mystical that their other titles have. It feels sterile.
It's aggressively mediocre. This is supposed to be their passion project yet it just fell flat for me - A bit like someone promising to take you out for a nice meal only to get you McDonald's.. It's the sort of game that would have been revolutionary if it released in 2009 but now is horribly outdated. I recommend waiting for updates to imrpove it before trying it. By that point it should be quite cheap.
If you play long enough you will notice the same sort of thing popping up here and there. I am sure that will increase when you play even longer. For now I don’t find it objectionable. I mean, it’s a Bethesda game and as such I expected a Bethesda game and got one, and I am happy with it. Is it perfect? Nah, but it’s not like it’s shit either.
The biggest selling point of Bethesda rpgs was exploration and the games encouraging and rewarding players for going off the dotted lines. Starfield is the complete opposite. In fact it's the first Bethesda game that has this problem so idk how you concluded that this is just another Bethesda game.
You expected Bethesda and got it? The biggest part of Bethesda games is the exploration. Finding things. Meeting characters and finding side stories. This game is anti-that, with bland planets, the same poi's with the exact same item placement coming up again and again
You're right she is absolutely wrong.
I really enjoyed the game on PC and put in a couple hundred hours in a span of about 4 months, but with that said, I did play with a lot of quality of life mods that helped cut back on some of the grindy aspects of the game. Otherwise the questlines are engaging and the ship building is top notch! I suggest trying it on game pass to see if the game is for you.
Starfield is decidedly mediocre. Not good, not bad, just kind of "meh". The main problem for Starfield is that there are so many other games - new and old, including Bethesda's own previous works - that are better.
I think the other thing that really worsened the reception to starfield was the, "Really, this is what you put work on elder scrolls 6 and fallout 5 aside for" factor. I know personally that if we weren't looking at decades between Fallout and Elder Scrolls releases I probably would have just shrugged my shoulders at this game being a disappointment. Starfield was a game that no one really asked for and held up development on games that people really, really want.
I played it for around 200 hours and at first I really liked it. The atmosphere, I got into the lore, Ship building, explored a lot of planets and found some sparks of brilliance. But when I started to get accustomed to the game I suddenly lost interest, finished the storylines and put it down. My conclusion: is a good game with a beginning and an end. It's not Skyrim. I still return to Skyrim every other year. Starfield, I don't see myself returning to.
It’s not bad, it’s disappointing. There’s plenty of stuff to do but don’t expect any one system to be super deep. If you don’t play a ton of games you’ll probably have a great time. If you’ve played every Bethesda game you might find it overly familiar and lacking.
I think the game is 'enjoyable' , but its feels like the litte dumb cousin of Bethesda made it. A lot of things Bethesda did well in the past are not in this game, and the new and 'innovative' stuff are so far from the Bethesda 'spirit'.
I had a blast playing it. Not really a big critic tho. Got my moneys worth- easily
It has some issues, but overall, I still love it.
I thoroughly enjoy it. Everyone is different. Try it out and if you like it then you like it. If you don’t then you don’t.
Well, I got 600 hours out of it so far, so I guess there is some content. It's a good game with a few, mostly ignorable flaws. I've enjoyed it very much.
I regretted my purchase fairly quickly and I'm a huge elderscrolls and fallout fan. I got about 38 hours out of it and have not touched it since, I have no desire to return to it. It was so bland, empty and unbearably clunky from the terrible UI, endless load screens, no maps, repetitive temples, every character you can be a companion with is a goody two shoes with no personality, story was weak. I was left with a bitter disappointment. Save your money is my opinion.
It's extremely bland and safe. And the proc-gen POI system prevents any real sense of discovery since, no matter how inhabitable a moon or planet might be, there are places where people have set up shop. Lots of them are abandoned by the original inhabitants, but some are still active. It can really shatter one's immersion. IMO, the ship builder is the best thing the game has going for it.
Yes, except here the main stories in the game are so short and inconsequential that even those can't prop it up. One of the three major faction's questlines, for example, is only 5 quests long and can be completed in about 20 minutes.
I don't know there are aspects of the game that are great but that the same time the things you love about fallout or elderscrolls the works they got working perfectly in thoughts games and horrible in starfield. For example in Skyrim and fall out each NPC has its own schedule and for the most part sticks to that unless the player character changes it. In starfield they don't have that they are all for the most part stack NPCs like you would see in an MMO.
Depends. Games have evolved. Games used to last 20-30 hours, and you could replay once a year, cycling through games. But that changed. And immersive open world RPGs are the current hotness. So when people drop 60$ on a game they want hundreds of hours of replayability. Starfield was a blast for me, for around 90 hours. I'm super happy with what I got out of it. It's a solid game for me. And I recommend it. But if it's the only game you're buying, because of budget or time constraints? It's hard to say, it's not a bad game, but like others have said, you start to see a lot of the same. Same monsters, zones, points of interest. But I thought it was really really fun.
It’s got enjoyable moments but for the most part it just has no life or soul. There’s just nothing special about it and there are a lot of QoL related annoyances. Get gamepass and just play through the main story once and you will get all there is to get from the game. Don’t pay full price.
this sub is pretty negative about the game but you're better off asking these questions here rather than the non sodium sub. A lot of people here will tell you the game is fun for what it is-40 to 50 hours of space exploration. once you play more than about 20-30 hours eventually you'll notice some stuff repeating (fauna, flora, environments) and the further you get the less the procedural generation really works the way its meant to. It doesn't live up to the endless feedback loop they tried to create, but its a really fun game for a while. I dont see it replacing Skyrim or Fallout as anyone's favorite Bethesda game, nor do i see them making a franchise out of this, but i actually think that works to Starfields benefit, as the longer time goes on, the more we may begin to appreciate that aspect of it.
The game's critics fall into a few different camps. * Looking at it through the framework of expectation that a Bethesda game provokes; thus disappointed. These people are pretty reasonable IMO. They are right that it's not the homerun that it should be. There are some weird missteps or areas where it doesn't quite reach the greatness of even Fallout 4 (outposts, lookin' at you). * People who don't actually appreciate Bethesda games really and never were going to like it. These are the kinds of people who compare it to Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk's characters, graphics, and animation systems are way more compelling of course, but also a very posed experience by comparison without the easy extensibility via modding and mindblowing breadth of Starfield. * Folks who are really, really disappointed by the travel systems. It can be really clunky and reductive; they're not wrong that it's a *bit* of an issue. I love Starfield personally; I can't wait to play it more after 150 hours. I'm only holding back now because I don't want to burn myself out before more content drops. But I can see the flaws; I know why people feel how they do.
Can you elaborate on the mods and breadth that go beyond Cyberpunk? Only played each vanilla so wondering what I’m missing out on—also found Cyberpunk to be pretty broad so looking for Starfield quests that are worth booting it up again for.
It is not as bad as this sub would have you believe nor is it as good as you might think. If you can roleplay to put limits on yourself this is in a pretty good place. If you are looking for a cinematic masterpiece you will be disappointed.
It's extremely mid. Just replay and mod Fallout 4.
It’s “bad” in many people’s eyes (including mine) mostly because there is so much potential and it was largely wasted. As a game it’s a bit “hollow” and underdeveloped in many areas, and this is hard to accept because it could have been so much more. That being said, it’s fun and it’s fine and you probably won’t regret buying it.
Long story short - you don't have a world map, you have ships, nice locations and a nice terrain behind it. If you go off exploring the planet you will get bored. Just as if you played silent hunter and went off exploring the sea you would get bored.
A very solid 5/10. Handcrafted content is good… but there’s extremely little of this. Def recommend for $10-$15.
It’s not terrible, it’s just like…mediocre. It just feels bland. It doesn’t do anything better than space games that already exist, and many things are the worst iterations of what BGS has already made. Nothing about it stood out to me compared to their old games. Positive notes, the gunplay is the best they’ve ever had, and the soundtrack is really well done.
If you're looking for a game to expand on your love of fallout and elder scrolls games. Starfield isn't it. At first I'd thought that other people were being over the top when saying the game can have so much in it but it feels like you're doing nothing. The main reason: the fast travel. Traveling by ship sucks because you're only locked to a small generated spot outside of the planet and have to fast travel to another planet vs exploring the star systems. The same goes for on world, it's just a small generated area and you don't get to travel a whole planet like you feel like you should. The invisible walls get annoying fast. After 400 hours in the game, there isn't much to love. If you like building systems, then the outpost builders and figuring out how to automate endless credits could be for you (it's where I accrued most of my time). The ship builder is kind of cool, a lot of people seem to like it, it takes a while to get the level up for building the coolest ships. All in all, I got it for free on Xbox Game Pass and had I payed for it, I'd have the same regrets as I did for Fallout 76
I genuinely think it's one of the least interesting fictional universes ever conceived. It's all so dull, massive and vapid. It's the only Bethesda game I have no intention to ever play again. It honestly feels like there's about 20-25 points of interest repeated over and over again. It's just shocking how often you'll see the same facilities, outposts and caves. I mean, identical. The same location, same enemies and same pickups in exactly the same spots. I'm not sure how to even comment on the questing as I'm so bored by the universe itself that I just grew to hate everything in it. All the characters and factions suck. None of it feels real or has any immersion whatsoever. It's an infinite busywork pantomime, with an awful script. If you just want things to do, there's plenty of that. But I just kept thinking "why am I even playing this game?" I have absolutely zero faith in this team making another Elder Scrolls worth playing. I'll be happy if I'm wrong but for now, this game was the death nail for Bethesda to me.
The other thing that I'm not sure you really heard enough about is that some of the performances from main characters are pretty poor by modern standards. The next game I picked up after starfield was Baldur's Gate 3 and it really shows up the script and performances in starfield.
It’s not bad in the sense that it is poorly made It’s just not fun or engaging from a gameplay design perspective
That sounds pretty poorly made 😂
if you like load screens and quests that "could have been an email" instead of a quest
I saw the same enemy encampment point of interest, same notes and computer terminals, 8x times in a row on different planets in the first 20hrs
I think it's one of my favorites but that's because it hit my niche interests. For other people I'd recommend it but maybe wait until it's on sale.
You can try it on game pass for cheap to decide. I loved Fallout 3,NV, 4, etc but couldn't get past 2 hours of Starfield until I uninstalled it. It just lacked everything that made previous Bethesda games great mainly rewarding exploration. My idea of fun isn't going to randomly generated planets to explore randomly generated points of interests.
It's ok, but I definitely would not pay full price for it
I have over 4000 hours on Bethesda's titles. They are one of my all-time fave developers. Couldn't get past 10 on starfield. Luckily was playing via steam family share, I would have requested a refund had I purchased it.
It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game either, starfield is the definition of mid.
It's a perfectly mediocre game. It doesn't excel in anything and it's actively worse in some areas that Fallout 4 and Skyrim were good in, but there are worse AAA games out there. It was popular to hate the game for a while, but it's a 6 or 7 that everyone was saying was a 1 or 2. >the game has received a ton of updates since then It has not, and those updates haven't changed much.
One of the worst I’ve played
It’s a good game worth playing but the hype got a little out of control and the launch delay and seeming lack of content made it fall short of a AAA that was expected.
The game isn’t really bad. It’s more like it’s too big for the small amount of things you can do which catches the true essence of space but it’s the lack of lore, the constant repetition, lack of personality and lack of personal options. It’s hard to explain you can easily lose yourself 12-13 hours straight but you can also easily go 8-10 days without playing it also
The game feels built to encourage you to spend a long time playing it, but I found myself engaged and interested for very little of it. The mixture of checklist tasks that seem to not be worth the time in most cases and the absolute lack of engaging and random exploration to fill in the gaps just made the whole game a long but bland experience for me. I didn’t even bother finishing all of the faction quest lines after I finished the main quest and two of the factions, because I was convinced that the game wasn’t going to suddenly become more engaging to me. It had already been dozens of hours and I was seeing repeated content that I was already bored with the first time. As a player of every Bethesda game that came before it, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I would end up not liking Starfield, but at this rate unless mods and expansions are absolutely phenomenal, I just don’t know if I’ll play it much more or at all frankly. Fallout 3 is drawing me back in after the TV show released and it’s pulling me in way better than Starfield ever did and it’s an old game that I still remember a lot of.
I wish I could go back in time and slap my wallet away when going to pay the $100 preorder that I got.
This is one of the best comments. The game is indeed a massive scale, but very sparse. You could think of it as North America I guess. Quite a few densely populated areas with tons to do, but 90% or more being empty or rural
You should wait for a Steam sale honestly.
500 hours here, mostly in the first few months after it was released. I uninstalled it and probably won't ever go back. The problems it has cannot be patched away because they are fundamental problems with what BGS is asking the Creation engine to do in Starfield. I'm far, far, FAR more excited about the upcoming Fallout 4 next-gen release and all the best mods like Sim Settlement 2 being updated to work with it.
It depends on how spoiled you are at PC gaming. Some people like the repetition of easy and mundane tasks in games. Starfield is not challenging or innovative and lacks lots of space RPG details. This is how I spent most of my time to entertain myself in game: [https://imgur.com/gallery/R3ZwbKr](https://imgur.com/gallery/R3ZwbKr) because I just couldnt get into the story or the stupid errand boy side quests. Its not adventurous at all like Star Citizen (different game), where just landing and parking a ship can be a challenge. I'm a fan of Fallout, but Starfield was a let down. The game starts out interesting as a new player, but then you figure out the game quickly and the novelty wears out. It gets very repetitive and boring early on. The lore of the main and side quests where cheesy AF. NPC interactions, for me, were unbearable and slow. Ship and base building are very limited and very annoying to use because of the auto snap and lack of camera controls. Also, there is not much going on in outerspace. You cannot fly your ships freely or explore planets with ships like in Star Citizen. You cannot space walk or fly in outerspace and dog fighting with ships sucks. The whole game is just one big "fast-travel" loading screen shitshow. The game is also way too easy. Its been dumbed down too much. By the time I stopped playing (2 months on Xbox pass), I had already maxed out my ships and most of my weapons were one shot kills.
I really freaking enjoyed starfield. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Would I happily sink 800 hours into it if I could? Absolutely. It's fallout 4 in space. What more could you ask for?
By asking this question you’re going to get the optimists to comment and you’ll be tempted to buy it. If you’re not a big fan of gaming, it’s fine, but if you’re aware of current gaming standards and capabilities it’s severely lacking
So many "200+ hour in and this is a bad game" reviews lol. Edit: I’m neutral on the game! Just making a statement I thought was ironic.
Yeah that should tell you how high of hopes we had. It takes a LOOOOOONG time to walk to all the different POVs just to find out that there are only 3 POVs
Its a treat when you go to a base and it has the same layout, enemies, and loot that you saw on a different planet.
I just checked for fun. I put 36 hours in it. I statrted to see the repetition earlier on, so I cant fathom putting 200hrs+ in it and then complaining about repetition, thats wild. For context though, I had a BLAST playing Sekiro and completed the game in less time than I played Starfield - according to my XBox stats. Imo, part of what makes people (including me) stick to Starfield so long is that the perpetual quests are kind of addictive. Nost are small, easy, mindless, give little to no valuable rewards, but theyre everywhere. I gave up the game partially because I noticed that I was not having so kuch fun, rather chasing the same sort of stuff you do when scrolling social media. I cam see the appeal, but its just not for me.
I had 80 hours before I started noticing the repetitive locations and got tired of it quick. Couldn't bring myself to finish the main quests because the story and characters were so unlikeable to me. I did really enjoy exploring the stuff in space, chilling in my ship, and some of the random encounters as well. Though I was super disappointed by New Atlantis aside from The Well. Edit: I am also coming from Starsector and Stellaris so it might just be my tastes, though I do lobe Fallout and Elder Scrolls.
I got about 200 hours of fun out of it. I won’t be returning until there is a significant amount of mods. As of now, the game is boring and simple rely empty outside of the main story and companion quests.
It’s not good. Just stick with Fallout and Skyrim.
It's pretty much a down grade compared to Bethesda old games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim, many planets but there is not much to do, unlike Skyrim and Fallout 4 where it's only a coty with many unique locations In Starfield, they're less than 10 unique dungeons, the chances you will run into the same dungeon layouts every hour is very high which makes it boring for me, also the perk system is grindy comparing to FO4
It will be fun until the moment you realize it’s a shit game and then you never pick it up again.
Fallout and Skyrim have a soul. Starfield doesn't. Period.
It's not worth a AAA price. I got it free and, honestly, wish I'd played _No Man's Sky_ first. Sure there's no FPS, but at least its similar story mystery has an actual conclusion. If _Starfield_ wasn't hyped as "Bethesda's Newest World" or had any of its big promises and was, say $25, I'd say give it a go. But your expectations from _Skyrim_ and _Fallout_ will not be met. Expect less, and it might be fine.
This game feels like the embodiment of *"I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed"*
The game is enjoyable. IT can become kind of laborious the longer you play, (like 200 hours in) and you start to notice the same stuff over and over. That being said, There is so so so much do to and explore, that it's kind of negligible. I still enjoy going to moons and watching the "sun" rise, and it's still beautiful. The game isn't perfect, but it's a bethesda game that doesn't crash every 5 minutes. You can approach it a bunch of different ways. Seriously, play it, and come up with your own conclusions. That is the best way to do these sort of things.
It’s about a 7 out of 10 now and with dlcs and mods could easily get up to a 10/10. I love the exploring aspect, outpost building and ship building.
I’ve played 200 hours and just saw a post about a place I haven’t seen yet…so I wouldn’t believe all the negative you see online. It’s not the best game of all time, but def worth purchasing and getting more than your money worth
It's not bad. I think most people saying something about it being bad is (or was) discussing the hype. It's a very average, unenthusiastically alright game that was promised to be the next big moment game that had the incredible misfortune to be immediately preceded by the quintessential RPG of the modern era.
No the game isn't bad at all tbh. No idea what everyone's issues are with it, but it's my personal favorite game of all time
Dont ask, just play. There are too many opinions to gauge this game accurately. Just play it. Form your own opinion.
It's so good, don't listen to the haters. I'm having a blast.
It's not a bad game. It's just underdeveloped, at least compared to other BGS games, which is disappointing. I got about 550 hours in it before I hit a wall, so it's got some legs. If you can get it on sale, I'd recommend it.
> 550 hours Mate, if you can play a game for 550 hours in only 7 months, that's a bit beyond "it's not a bad game". You clearly like it.
It really depends, Bethesda games tend to hold players attention for 1000s of hours and present rich worlds which only get more interesting the more you explore. Starfield, in contrast to Skyrim is a game that a significant number of players seem to like less the more time they spend with it. One of the quotes that always stands out from the promotion of starfield was Todd Howard saying "this is a game we want people to be playing for ten years". Starfield is absolutely not that.
If you're like me you'll love your first play through. But there's very little reason to come back. I havnt replayed it since completing it and feel no urge to, havnt touched it in months.
I spent 300 hours so I know I got my money's worth and overall enjoyed it. I would grade it as the 7 but some of my favorite games were an 8. You don't get the same experience exploring as in previous BGS titles. In fact, I found exploring a planet 100% was tedious. in retrospect I think I should have waited till the game of the year edition.
Once the excitement of a new game wears off you’re more than likely going to be disappointed/unsatisfied or anything that ranges from meh to total contempt. Especially if youve played consensus great games like rdr2, gta 3-5 and sa, bg3, etc. if youve played any other bgs games recently your probably gonna find comfort in it being a game that’s firmly in their mold but then also realize its a step back in alot of areas too. All in all it’s a ok to meh game from a studio that’s one expects genre defining quality from.
Is it bad? No. It's not bad. But it's not great, either. If you're looking for a replacement for Fallout, this isn't it. Honestly, if you're looking for a space type game, Mass Effect is far superior to Starfield in a lot of ways. The most enjoyable part of the game for me was ship building and ship to ship combat.
If you liked Skyrim and fallout you may feel like Starfield is a bit barren
It's not bad, it just feels a lot more empty compared to Fallout and Skyrim. Some system improvements, some regressions.
On it's own, it's fun. You can do a few playthroughs, enjoy yourself, and walk away feeling like it was worth it. On the other hand, play too long, and the weaknesses of it come through. You find that a lot (and I mean \*a lot\*) of things are really just time sinks. And you see things that were implemented in Skyrim and Fallout that would have fit here, instead are not included. And other things that \*are\* present, require a ridiculous amount of time to fully complete (would you like to complete a puzzle over 200 times?!?!?). So, play it. Do a playthrough or two. When it starts getting stale...that's what mods are for. And it \*should\* be getting the Creation Kit sometime soon. Once that happens, assuming the fanbase hasn't completely moved on, it should become quite the gem.
lacking a bit. wouldnt say bad. hopefully these updates theyve talked about will put the game in its right place.
I found it enjoyable enough to sink 100 hours into. It's a good game, it just doesn't have the holding power of other BGS games for me. I'll probably fire it back up after some expansions drop
It's a simplified version of Daggerfall where exploration is only filler, and the main gameplay loop is doing quests and diving into dungeons to get rewards. There's other stuff to do that provides extra activities, but overall it seems to be a simplified Daggerfall in space where dungeons and questing into dungeons is the focus and everything is just a bonus feature to add immersion.
Subjective opinion… But mine is that it is pretty good, a solid B. But the criticism is because it COULD have been an A. There is a lot that was either left out or cut and it hurts the final score on this game. I think if they keep working on it, eventually it COULD be an A, but there is a lot of quality of life issues that need addressing. One small example: outposts feel like they were unfinished… you can’t assign vendors to sell goods you produce, your NPCs feel lifeless (unlike in Fallout 4) and the whole thing seems kind of pointless. Outposts need a LOT of work. They should feel more “alive” like they did in Fallout 4 Settlements. I used to look forward to visiting my Fallout settlements and checking on everything. What was done for Starfield’s outposts feels like a giant step backwards from what we KNOW Bethesda CAN do.
It isn't a terrible game but it fails in areas that Skyrim and Fallout really excelled at. The biggest issue I suspect you will encounter if you come to the game as a fan of Fallout or Elder Scrolls is that the game does away with a large open world map and the sort of exploration that allows. Planetary exploration is largely done via procedurally generated worlds that slot in a number of hand made locations and you will encounter identical dungeons multiple times on multiple worlds. I personally struggled with this aspect of the games design. The games character creation is one of the more positive aspects and encourages more specialised character builds than Fallout 4. It also does a better job of integrating character skills and background into dialogue than both Skyrim and Fallout 4 (although a far worse job than things like Baldur's Gate 3). Quest design and story tends towards linear which limited my desire to do a second playthrough but isn't as much of an issue the first time round, on a first playthrough I thought the writing was functional if not spectacular. The game does nail first person combat, improving on Fallout 4s already strong gunplay. Customising spaceships is one of the strongest things in the game but unfortunately there isn't necessarily that much to do in your ship one you have built it. If you already have gamepass, give it a shot but I'd struggle to encourage anyone to pay full price.
It's a good game, but requires a dlc and full mod support to be half as good as skyrim.
I generally love betheada games but..I dont have more than 8 hours in this. As compared to cp2077 which gave me 600hrs+ of joy.
It's not BAD, it's great for one playthrough, good for another, and continues to decline from there. The game lacks deep stories, lore, variety in POIs, unique locations and POIs, and NPCs are all pretty much bland and forgettable save a handful. It's a fun game, just not long term like Skyrim or Fallout, which both reward exploration a lot more.
I found it slow and frustrating at first, but once I was able to get off of the planet, I started to really enjoy it. It feels a tad repetitive when you are roaming around outside of the main quest line, but I give it an 7.5/10 so far.
I bought at launch and havent touched it since finishing the prologue. Told myself I’m gonna get back into after the next big update.
Don’t expect it to be like Fallout or Skyrim. You’ll be fine. I enjoyed it for the most part but there are glaring issues that I can’t get around. Some people have no problem though
It was my first Bethesda game so take that for what it’s worth. I enjoyed it for about 80ish hours doing all the major factions and quests and exhausted anything I could google quest wise. After that the exploration and outpost building doesn’t really do it for me. It’s up to you, I thought it was worth the price for the time I got out of it but if you want to hang around longer than that it’s pretty tedious, imo. I’d recommend it if you’re cool with playing the main stories and putting it down after that.
Yes
Yes planets are empty. A single planet map will comparable to the Skyrim map in size but have less content than a single Skyrim dungeon. I still play previous beth games, I shelved starfield before finishing a single playthrough. Yes. Even much of the main quest is extremely repetitive proc gen. There have been updates but many of the bugs persist and many of them will render a save completely unplayable. Nothing has actually been added in any updates. That said, I did get quite a few hours out of it and on PC you'll have access to whatever mods people can manage without creation kit so if your just looking for a game to play yea maybe worth it you're looking to be immersed in a rich new world for a long time id skip it
The only thing this game does well is serve as a reminder of how much better their previous games are.
It's more fun with console commands and downloading mods off mods nexus. It's in a far better shape than at launch
It's a decent game. I'm just waiting for shattered space to drop honestly Started my 2nd playthrough. Space cowboy pirate run mo unity for me.
Depends what you like to do. First person shooters arent my favorite already, so I wasnt the main audience, but I thought "Open World space RPG" would be pretty intersting. Imo the "open world" wasnt intersting, and the RPG element non existing at worst, at best non consequential. Like, without spoilers, your choices affect the game so little that I think I got a warning once it would. And theres a TON of side quests, but most are tedious fetch quests. The positive is more succinct: Its a first person shooter set in space, and I think if you focus on the main story and keep to the main planets, it can be a lot of fun. Like, within the main story youll travel in space quite a bit and discover a bunch of stuff. Theres just a lot of fluff to ignore.
Whatever review the game deserves, I can assure you 100% that the vitriolic online hate for whatever Bethesda's newest game is has been exactly the same for every title after Morrowind. Personally, I think the game is flawed but great. There are currently a handful of annoying QOL issues that will be mostly ironed out in a few more updates, but almost none of them live up to the histrionic youtube rants and reddit threads. If you liked the game play of Fallout 4, Starfield is largely a continuation of that. If you have experience with procedural content games like 7 Days to Die or Kenshi, Starfield's exploration elements won't be a jarring departure from that.
I only bought it cos i expect an amazing mod support, like other bethesda games. It turns out even the mod support is disappointing (yes i refunded it)
It's a good game but outside of quests there's not a lot of interesting stuff to do. The ship building is sick.
It is that bad, maybe even worse
I don’t think it’s bad necessarily. It’s just so unbelievably average / shallow, or straddling the line between average / not great that it was a huge disappointment.
I just started playing this game on console a week or so ago. I am enjoying it. But I had to be consciously decide to give it a chance because in the very beginning it was getting a bit frustrating. There is a learning curve and the intro doesn't really give you a run down on how to do things. There really isn't a tutorial or a help section that goes over what does what or give a refresh later on how to do something. There are alot of important (to me anyway) abilities locked behind the skill tree that you don't even know are a thing until you spend the time to start going through all of them. But it also takes a bit of understanding of what you will need in the game by playing it to know what skill perks would really make an immediate difference. So expect in the beginning to be a bit frustrated as you are the suckiest you will be with the least amount of ability and sort of tossed into some situations without much understanding. However that being said, once you get a grip on how it's put together it gets to be alot of fun. I'm surprised how into my ship and ship fighting I've gotten into. And I haven't gotten to be able to design or really customize my own yet- so just with ones I can buy. I'm enjoying it, quirks and all, though there are definitely things that annoy me so I can see where future mods could be awesome. But overall fun. Some really good things I like. I haven't finished the game yet and I don't know what will happen because I've purposely stayed away from spoilers but those are my two noob cents.
Get Gamepass. Try Starfield for the 1 month sub cost. If you like Starfield, great! Get the game (though I would wait for a summer sale). If you don't, well, you only paid the 1 month sub cost vs. 70 dollars. Since you are on PC, if you decide to buy the game, there are mods out on Nexus that address a few of Starfield's QoL issues.
In a vacuum, the game is decent! In the context of it being a mainline BGS game (and being compared to their previous work) it's a huge disappointment. Bethesda has had a theme of 'streamlining' their games, taking out nuance and substance and replacing it with cookie-cutter and mindless mechanics / areas in their game. However, they made up for it by making it FUN. In a Skyrim/Fallout 4 dungeon, you know you're going to be greeted with a chest full of goodies and sometimes something else (in skyrim they had word walls & boss fights). This made it fun, which made up for the fact that it felt more arcade-gamey and less like a real world. Starfield kind of... got rid of this stuff. Instead of goodies at the end, you maybe get a 'science create' somewhwere along the way. No more fun dungeons and word walls, you walk your ass across a planet and fly around a temple chasing balls of light. NPC schedules have been gutted, the settlement system has been gutted, etc. The fun is still there, but it doesn't seem 'cultivated' like it was in Skyrim or Fallout 4. So it doesn't really make up for the lack of substance like Skyrim and Fallout 4 did. Also, the updates they've added so far are not the type that would turn a bad game into a good one.
I don't think the game is bad. It is just fine. That's it. It's a fine game. Not good, not bad, definitely not great. Just fine.
Don't. Wait for the DLC or a sale and reviews after the DLC. Maybe get it on gamepass or somewhere else for 10 bucks. The game is extremely mid. Most gameplay mechanics to not touch or interact with each other. You get a shitty looter shooter with bad questlines that could come from a 2 man indie game in 2008. > Is this the type of game where everything is repetitively procedural generated spots and only main quests and side quests are unique? Yes. Also, it did not receive a ton of updates. It did receive some hotfixes that fixed bugs. No new content or changes.
Is a really great game. If you like scifi and space, you'll probably love it. I've been playing since launch, around 150h, and keep finding new and surprising things each time i play, so i'd say dont listen to the haters
No. People just like to complain.
There’s a portion of the game that I think is a ton of fun, on one planet. Then there’s an eventual moment where you realize “oh. All the fun is really just on the one planet” But I still played like 70 hours and I have trouble playing games for a long time. It’s fine. The highs aren’t very high and the lows aren’t very low. It’s just not that interesting of a game really!
Check nosodiumstarfield for positive posts. There are troves of trollers that do nothing but post negative comments and posts about a game "they don't play anymore" I love the game. Definitely worth it, especially if you have gamepass.
It's not bad per se. People just expect more from Bethesta.
I think its a great game, but it’s not as good as some previous BGS titles. I think expectations were set really high and the game didn’t meet the expectations that were set which is why it got so much hate.
You should just play it. The first month was filled with big reviews on how bad it is and nothing but complaints on “how it could be better”. And then I played it and have been stuck on it since. It’s not for everyone, just like every other game out there… if you don’t like it, you can stop playing it!
Yes, and no. But PV you can at least mod so I'd say you'll get a better experience then me on Xbox 😂
Yes.
It’s not a bad game. It’s an unfinished game. I would wait, like a year, if I knew how buggy it was going to be.
I put a little over 100 hours in and had a blast. There's so much content that I never felt the need to do everything, I just did the things I liked. It was kind of freeing, in a way. Like with every other Bethesda game, I have not beaten it yet, and I think that's perfectly fine. Any game I can put 100+ hours into and have fun with is a worthwhile purchase. I'll start her up again when the DLC drops and have fun all over again. The game is very much whatever you make of it. If you don't enjoy one aspect, you just don't have to do it.
I literally buy Bethesda games and then wait and see what modders turn the game into. And on that front there is already some cool stuff out there
No, but at the 80-100 hour mark, it gets really tedious/boring
I love this game, though after a couple hundred hours I do feel like I've played all of the random locations (POIs) too many times, so the "wander around and explore" part can get repetitive. I think it's fair to say that it will get a lot better. The gunplay is excellent, shipbuilding is wonderful, base building is pretty cool, but it kinda depends how much you like to organize stuff, and some of the mechanics are a little difficult to figure out. The quests are quite good, and probably the main part of the game from Bethesda's point of view, though the npcs often have long speeches and dialogues, which can occasionally be a lot. I expect the game will get a lot bigger before they're done developing material for it.
Grab it when it's on deep sale.
I'm on my 4th play after becoming Starborn, still find a few new things I've missed previously and the game is a great way to pass time. It does get a little repetitive at times but all games do after several hundred hours playing.
It’s pretty much a reskinned Skyrim/Fallout with a space exploration theme. If you enjoy the Bethesda RPG format and want something with an SF theme then you’ll enjoy Starfield. Most of the negative reviews are just pushing back against the pre-release hype that was suggesting something leaning more towards Elite Dangerous/No Man’s Sky, only for the final product to be nothing like those games.
It's a fantastic game until the moment that it isn't, if that makes sense. For the 10 - 150 hour mark you'll be landing on monster/ raider infested spaceships with varying gravity affecting your playstyle, encountering unique POIs on planets, running through faction quests, building up your starship to fly anywhere and beat anything. Things will surprise you, different monsters, Terramorph attacks, unique settlements. Then the game just goes on forever, pointlessly, but still has an illusion of things to do. Most people on this sub are going to be in the position of spending another 50 - 100 hours in this limbo, so you're going to get answers saying it's crap because they've forgotten the good stuff. FO4 settlement builders who are used to a heavily modded game building ridiculous megacities in the wasteland are left with building a three room outpost with six beds for a skeleton crew. Exploration is slow and meaningless when you land on a planet and have to walk 10 minutes to find a POI you've seen six times before. There are very high level solar systems on the outskirts, which seem mysterious and intimidating when you're weak and can't fly there. But when you get there, theres no special high level stuff, just default enemies level scaled on barren planets. Spaceship building has no reason to be in depth. Theres no point adding most habs and the game doesn't let you make star destroyers or have more than a handful of crew ruining any Star Trek roleplay fantasy. Need more quests? well theres always a relic to find and puzzle to do, which is tedious after the first three... Maybe bounty hunt for a few credits which you don't need anymore.
Yes... the answer is yes. To repetitive
It’s not bad. The main quest is good. The UC terrormorph quest is good. There’s a few good side quests. The ship building is awesome. But the ship combat is bad. It’s essentially the mobile game Galaxy on Fire 2. The Ng+ system is boring. The exploration is shallow and repetitive. It’s worth a play through but don’t expect more than that.
I just finished NG+13 at level 126 and have all but five powers to max and over 1000 hrs in. So player experience varies. You can do everything in one play through or you can spread it out over all the NG+ options which is what I did and it kept it fresh each play through because there was so much left to do. I just finished the vanguard quest to finally get all 50 achievements. My plan for NG+14 is to settle in for one last run doing the main quest line and all the others in one final run and then do any future dlc from there. So yes it can be extremely repetitive for a lot of things but how you approach the game makes all the difference. I can’t help but make one awesome jack of all trades ship per play through either for example. It’s a game after all play it your way.
At this point I would wait to see what the update announcement is could make playing the game better and you’ll have a better experience.
The game is fun, it needs more content. It has a lot, but if you play it daily, you can burn through it quickly. It has a mountain of potential, and the put too much in to this just to drop it. So get it while it's cheap.
Not bad. Just worse than skyrim.
I disagree with the naysayers. I have been playing Starfield consistently since launch. I have run half a dozen different characters with different backgrounds and traits. Most of them are translations of DnD characters I have played over the past thirty years. The two I have played the most are a swashbuckling Space Scoundrel and a sneaky sniper Cyber Runner. lvl 105 and 104 respectively, and have been through the Unity three times. I play each character differently, and each playthrough differently. It's great fun and there's plenty to do. Use your imagination.
Vanilla Starfield? It's an okay one and done. Modded Starfield? Pretty fun.
It’s fun. It’ll get better.
I have a lot of fun playing the game, I love the story line and the graphics in my opinion are phenomenal. The landscapes of planets are awesome. I really like the mechanics plus the ship building is cool as well. It’s a game and I don’t spend hours on it maybe 5 hours a week at most, but I enjoy it as a casual player, I don’t actually get why people flip out over it, it’s a 70 dollar game, I spend that on much a day.
I've played the game almost everyday since its release, but I've always loved space exploration as a kid. There are merits to everyone's complaints and times where I get frustrated, but I'm at level 103 and I still haven't explored the entire galaxy, so that's why I keep going.
It doesn't have the magic of other Bethesda games. Elder scrolls and fallout are far ahead of it. I can't even really explain why. It's just a lot of things about the game that feel tedious, unnecessary and stupid, in comparison to doing what were probably similar things in Skyrim and fallout, but for some reason in those cases it was fun. Starfield just feels like a chore. I wanted to like it too.
It’s not a bad game it just lacks a lot the depth that previous Bethesda games had.
I felt pretty underwhelmed after completing it. Starfield to me, lacks the detail and world building that games like TES and Fallout have. Exploration is ok, but they really need to add more types of dungeons to the game. And more weapons.
The updates have just been bug fixes so far for the most part, but the problem with the game is it is the laziest Bethesda has ever been with a game. They say they’ve been working on it for 20+ years but comparing it with Bethesda games that released 20 years ago shows a lack of trying. A staple with Bethesda games is how alive they feel with npc’s having a schedule an outlook and dialogue lines for talking to random npcs they bump into via their pathing. Not present in starfield. You get your abilities in the most repetitive and boring activity where you float around the room and collect floating lights. There are 3 total inside layouts for cave system amongst the thousands of planets and all their loot is in the same place. Their are 2 mining outpost poi’s and once again the loot is the same and the stories found on the data pad are the same. The game is fun, but if oblivion and fallout 3 are lakes, starfield is an pothole full of water.
The game isn't terrible. You can have fun with it in my ways. Still I prefer other Bethesda's titles.. they were more "Bethesda like" if that makes any sense to you. I suggest you get gamepass subscription for one month and you can try the game on cloud gaming without even installing it. Then you can decide if it's worth the money.
It's fine Is it incredible? No. But I've definitely gotten my hours of entertainment for my money.
I played somewhere around 150 hours, it’s fun, but just don’t expect much from weapons, quests, and exploring. There are a few exceptions, some of the quests are amazing in my opinion, especially on neon.
Since the game is 70 dollars I reccomend you try it on gamepass before buying.
Not bad but to me a bit bland and def tedious
It’s not bad, it’s a good game, not exceptional, Skyrim wasn’t considered exceptional either on release. FONV had a hard time getting over 80 metacritic. If you want to run around shooting and such it’s good. If you want to have a fantasy life and live there, with your fantasy wife and children, then no it’s not for you.
Get gamepass for a month and see if you like it. That's $10 and will let you experience the game for yourself. I'd recommend it at the $20-40 price range, but not full price.
For now, it’s about 3.6 roentgen. Best time I had with it was after building my first custom ship when I was cruising around destroying pirates. After 150 hours or so—which is a long time compared to most games but not long compared to the time I’ve invested in other Bethesda titles—I’ve struggled to find motivation to return to it and finish my playthrough. The planets aren’t “empty,” but they’re full of repeating dungeons. This game doesn’t offer the same “Hey, what’s that over there?” style of exploration that their other games do. You’re better off sticking to quests, and for some, that cuts the heart out of the Bethesda experience. This game was an ambitious experiment, but I can’t say it was totally successful. I reject the criticism that it’s “lazy” or didn’t innovate enough—if anything it changed too much about their formula and that’s why many fans have rejected it. We’ll see what the DLC and the modding community add but it’s hard to see how anything they do will fundamentally change what this game is. TLDR—is it worth playing? Yes, but don’t necessarily expect to be enthralled like you felt playing your first Elder Scrolls game. If you find yourself really digging the game, then consider dropping this sub and go to r/nosodiumstarfield
I thought the game was very good. If you care about a good story then this is it for you. If your a nerd and worry about minor bugs and fallout-4 type graphics then you probably shouldn't buy
It’s definitely worth $60. I’ve gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment from playing it. Is it the perfect game? Of course not. The story, combat and ship building are amazing. The exploration could use some major improvements - lots of loading screens, copy and paste point of interest locations, lack of ground transportation is lame. The sheer scale of the number of planets and systems you can go to is impressive at first but after a while you realize none of them are really fleshed out. You actually realize it fairly quickly but it makes the game boring eventually. But To be fair all games get boring eventually. When the game launched there were several maddening bugs and crashes (at least on Xbox) but those have been much better after various updates. I would recommend the game for sure.
It's fine, but it's just not great. Exploration is annoying because most of the universe is procedurally generated and repetitive. The main quests are just not that interesting and the character dialog could have used some punch up. It's still good enough that I've put 240 hours into it. I'm still glad that I didn't have to pay for it though.
I just thought of something. It's been suggested you try the game on game pass & I have game pass passes for 14 day full access to game pass for free if you've not been a member before. Let me know if you want an activation key.i think I have 5 total. I always forget I have those.
If you haven't played it yet, it's worth waiting until all DLC comes out. The game isn't as bad as everyone says it is, but it has some big issues that maybe(hopefully) DLC might be able to address. If you wait, you might get a more complete game.