It’s probably hard to believe, but i did enjoy Starfield in the 35 hours i’ve played, with mods and all. I would give this a solid 7/10 if i would and being that it’s better Fallout 4 then Fallout 4, and has more memborible moments for me, it’s saying a lot.
I mean i still remember the time when me as a space pirate, found a rogue AI killing people, and i decided to kill the people, and then the rogue AI i guess is “free”, leaving me all alone there. Really the sort of moment they hit a bit home for me for my Character i RP as. And how awesome Neon City looks and going tho… And that epic glitch where i perma destroyed New Atalantis in my save file somehow.
But as good memories i have with the game… i haven’t been playing atfer the 35 hours i’ve spent on it. Not because i find it bad mind you, but i think trying to mod the game is like trying to mod GTA 5 now, just a bit of a pain to update everything. And knowing Bethesda, they likely wouldn’t fix anything. (Just like Rockstar with Single-player now thinking about it)
But, as much i don’t think the problems this game has are that bad, i think it should warrent a discussion around it because i don’t think it’s good either. So grab yourself a cup of coffee and make sure your O2 isn’t killing you, it’s time to talk Starfield in 2024.
1. Loading Screens
Now i personally don’t have much of a problem with this. M2 SDD and all.
It’s a slower paced exploration game, and that’s what Bethesda is known for with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and i’m not going to expect anything else from them other then that. Okay, maybe either a Superhero open world or a GTA clone.
Because admittedly, They are wicked behind the times on that, and they are also choosing a secondary genre that… really isn’t a great fit for this. Not because it’s a little annoying to go tho a door and be given a load screen to be loaded in the interior. But they also put loading screens in the dumbest places like getting in and out of your ship. It’s litteraly just lighting the models, that is already hidden the moment you got on the docking bay. You have the climbing animations. There’s litteraly no need for this.
And there’s flying between planets and such. On one hand, it’s kind of disappointing, but on the other, it would take a good chunk of time up to 5 minutes flying to the planet and landing. So this just seems like a lose-lose situation, and that’s all due because of the scale Bethesda set out here. See, the planets aren’t far away because it’s realistic, that’s the excuse. It’s done to soft prevent you from flying into the planets which is it’s purfose. The Planets lacks collision and you can’t even fry yourself by flying into the sun.
I’m not saying you don’t have to fast travel, because i understand that’s actually impossible. You can minimize the amount of fast traveling, sure. That’s possible. But i think Bethesda should at least try to attempt a flying in and out of planets… And this will be relevant later on this thread.
2. Worlds
Bethesda is no stranger to procedural generation. We’ve seen this used to fill out areas and such in earlier Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games. And Space games typically use this to pad out the space as well. It doesn’t make for interesting content half of the time since typically it’s just placing things in a different order with different things, but there ya go.
But while this is fine in small doses or to fill minor planets, there’s more minor planets then major planets in Starfield. In that being, you ask what anybody’s favorite planet would be in Starfield, it would most likely be the handcrafted ones like the one with New Alantis or Neon City. The minor planets look really samey looking and with it’s dungeons being repeated ad-nasum to a point where i found the same exact dungeon layout in another world, something has gone wrong here.
Don’t get me wrong, i like exploring a ton of planets i come across, and sometimes their interesting, sometimes their not, and etc. But this is all done to hide the fact that Starfield doesn’t have a lot to do on a full planet. I know everybody loves to rag on empty planets with nothing to do, but the problem doesn’t lie in that alone, the problem lies with what you do on a full planet. You explore around and mine stuff or take stuff, and kill creatures. That’s pretty much it aside an occasional radiant or odd side quest. Spore oddly enough allows you to interact with the planet more then this.
This isn’t to mention the boundaries the game set to sell you the illusion of the planet. Again, this ties back to the scale i was talking about. And this might be the core part of Starfield that is … well, bad honestly. You see, when you land, you’re one that one tile only , and if you mod/cheat the game where you can go out of bounds and try to go to another tile on the map, as it loads in, it crashes. I think we all know the new alantis example.
Whether or not that can be fixed, here’s my take on this. Why not just have less planets but with more handcrafted ones, and maybe just have skyrim sized areas on the planets we only have access too? Sure, it wouldn’t be “Realistic”, but it would be more fun.
3. Story
If you know anything about Bethesda, you know their main stories are nothing to write home about…
“Oh, demons from hell are invading the place, i got to close the gates of oblivion, since i’m the chosen one.”
“Oh, my father is missing, guess i got to go into the wasteland and find him, since i’m the chosen one.”
“Oh, there’s a killer dragon flying about, better kill him since i’m the chosen one.”
“Oh, my son whom i don’t want got kidnapped, better go out and find him since i’m the chosen one.”
“Oh i stumble upon some sort of artifact, and better find them all, since i’m the chosen one.”
You noticing a theme here? You typically don’t play as an ordinary somebody, you’re just “The Chosen One” doing the good thing. Or Bad thing, the bad thing is typically underplayed. And while that’s the status quo for Starfield, the other is that side missions are always better and more memeroilbe. Infact, i didn’t even mess with the main quests and just went off doing side missions because… In a bethesda game, why not?
But while i did complained about the game being too big to cover up it’s mistakes here, there’s too few side quests i’ve noticed and as a result, it just feels disjointed at times when you connect them all together. Like one moment, i was helping out the gangs of Night City, and the next i’m help out some CEO of some company. And Next i’m helpping some guy in a liqur store selling magic food. Like, i want more of that gang life.
The appeal of Space games, or so i assume, is to have the opportunity to play a game… within the game. In that being, there should be a whole host of questlines and such that should feel like a game in itself, say like if i just want to join a street gang in neon city and do gang stuff for the next 10 hours or so. That 'ill be awesome. But no, it’s over in 2 or so hours, and now i’m doing CEO stuff. Which is a bit more substantial but not as much i expect. I just want self contained stories here.
And something limiting is the quests, Bethesda has a habit of throwing in dialouge that doesn’t change much or let dialouge be the only thing that changes. They did attempt to make gameplay decide much, but they didn’t go nearly as far enough in my opinion. And sometimes they come up with really werid ways on how to progress.
Take this one for instance. In order to join the pirates, you can’t just walk up to them and say “Hey i wanna be a pirate” or go find somebody a pirate who is hurt and help them. No, you need to commit a crime (Which is hilariously easy to do btw, you just pick up a box and everybody will scream bloody murder) and allow yourself to get busted, and the commander of UC will make you an undercover agent so then you can technically join the pirates. I say technically, because… after i’ve betrayed the commander and shot my way out, i honestly no idea if the game thinks i’ve joined them for realizes this time, or will alter my future with them. Why this process needed exactly? Did we learned nothing from the Nuka-cola DLC on Fallout 4? 
I honestly don’t get why this is so hard for Bethesda to allow players to play as the bad guy, if the process isn’t impossible or needlessly difficult, it’s hilariously convoluted.
As for Main story, i don’t care. I simply do not care about the collisolation, and atfer being forced to bring Vasso along with me while i’m trying to explore the galaxy on my one, once he’s free, i’ve never looked back on that lodge ever again. Artifacts can stay hidden. I don’t care.
4. Gameplay.
This is gonna be a controversial take, but, i find the gameplay of Starfield to be better then Fallout 4.
- Shooting feels a lot more solid
- There’s jetpacks and a climbing system simular to Doom eternal that makes exploration a smoother experience
- The ship customization is the best part of the game (sans the needless restrictions here and there)
- being encumbered doesn’t mean you have to move slow. they bought back the F07’s system of being encumbered, in that being, you can walk but only if you have stamina. 5. The challenges for next level of perks, while annoying sometimes, is a neat little change up.
- The building from Fallout 4 makes a return, and while i never felt the need to make one atfer my first one, it’s a nice little if not underwhelming surprise.
- Lockpicking is… an interesting change to say the least.
- This isn’t gameplay related, but i dunno when i will ever talk about this… The facial animations compared to previous games, looks pretty solid. Uncanny, but solid.
However… 
Starfield bafflingfully took steps back.
- Stealth is a perk. Why? Every Bethesda game has Stealth mode from the word go, yet Starfield doesn’t?
- I’ve noticed that Vats has been repurposed into the targeting system for ship combat you use to slow down time and aim certain parts. I hated Vats being used as a crutch for shooting in Fallout and i honestly hate it even more here with Ship Combat in Starfield, because, no ship is ever the same shape and trying to hit the engines or shield is just as good as hitting pretty much anything without using this system.
- Which btw, I love how you can board ships by disabling their engines and shields, kill everybody, loot their stuff and even steal their ship. But in order to sell the ship, you need to register it. Which is almost as worth the ship itself.
- Weapon mods can only be created/destoryed, they can never be taken off like in Fallout 4. So if you find a legendary gun and want to take the mods from the same gun and put them on there, well tough luck, grind some more fool.
- CAN WE PLEASE STOP WITH THE CARRY WEIGHT LIMIT THING???
- There’s Headshot damage, but it’s so minimal, you will hardly notice the difference. I even had to mod in increased headshot damage because if Bethesda is going for a realistic sort of thing, like they ALWAYS DO… headshot = boom.
- While on the topic, headshotting somebody’s helmet does nothing. Sure, they will say “I’m blind”, but they continue to fire at me staright with no problems.
- Melee is still neglected since Fallout 4, as usual. Sure, there’s a katana, but what’s the point if guns still rein supreme and there’s no unique or really anything to the melee system?
- Running out of O2 (Which is just stamina), will hurt you but not kill you (i’ve tried, it never does kill me)
- Conversation minigame. There’s literally no skill involved in picking the answer, it’s just a huge guessing game that is RNG purely and i hate it. Just have dialogue checks with dialogue perks and be done with it.
- Bounty system is way more annoying then it needs to be. Remember when i’ve said picking up a Box causes everybody to panic? Yeah, i was stunned by this, like i literally picked up an object that i can’t even steal, and all the sudden, people are running away like i’m the bad guy. Also, the planets with UC and etc on them, scan anything i have on me even before i land. Why can’t this just be done on land so i at least have a chance to smuggle stolen stuff in at least?..
Also, can i, somebody who isn’t not well into the Space exploration genre ask… why do we need to scan planets and things? Especially since it’s been already been explored by other people before i got there? Why can’t this be automatic? Why do i need to whip my scanner out before i need to eat that plant to see what it’s called? And why only one way to mine resources? I mean can’t i use my Ship to blast rocks and suck them up with the abduction beam? Or grab a pickaxe and get chopping?
5. Mods, Engine, future, closing thoughts.
Now i no doubt nearly all the issues i have with this game will be fixed once the creation kit is out. And we already have an Xedit tool for this, and already making mods for the game and such.
But i think overtime, i’m kind of agreeing that we shouldn’t need to mod the game to fix Bethesda’s mistakes here. I’m not saying “No mods ever”, i’m saying that Bethesda needs to do a better job here.
And something i want to say right now that absolutely hose me off is “Oh it’s the engine”. No it’s not. Modders can certainly do a dang site better job then Bethesda here in making the game compatible and more robust for years to come. Just look at all the mods that went into Skyrim, from Engine fixes to even combining both interior and exterior on the same map. That’s like saying renderware is unable to do Ray Tracing or be a 64 bit engine, when we see modders doing just that. This isn’t an Engine issue. And i’ve said the same things with WoW’s engine. It’s just the devs don’t want to put in the work.
Bethesda’s engine is capable of having vehicles, is capable of having seamless open world, is capable of having things not freak out, but they don’t want to spend the time and energy in making sure things work.
I really hate this comparison that is being made with Starfield here with Cyberpunk 2077 since their two different games (the latter more or less being if Far Cry is set in the future) with two different genres… but there is a twisted truth to be pulled out from this that while Starfield isn’t bad… it’s certainly not up to the standards in a lot of areas that Bethesda continuously has done before and have repeated mistakes.
In my opinion, we shouldn’t have to be in a position where we are waiting for Starfield to become great, it should start off great and get better over time. Just like Cyberpunk 2077. (Which btw, some of us don’t forget the opinions of 2020. Let’s not re-write history here just because the game is good now.)
And look. There will always be people who wanted games to not play like the games the devs famously makes. In the similar vain to people who want easy mode in Fromsoft games, so does people want Bethesda to not make Bethesda games. They wouldn’t be the people who would play their games anyways.
“Bari, didn’t you say something about—”
There’s a difference between saying “I would like see their interpretation of something i may be interested in” vs “I don’t like this thing you’re doing that is fundentmal to your game, or what you want to see in your game, change it for me”
But unlike the former, the latter is rooted in some truth that what makes Bethesda games famous or infamous is the colossal amount of mistakes and problems their games have at a fundamental level. Not just the Bugs and Glitches. In kind of the same way how Ubisoft games turn some people off at a fundamental level, despite being popular.
Alright, rant over.
I wanted to talk about this sometime, but never had the chance too because… well, look at it…
If you love the game, that’s great.
If you hate the game, that’s fine too.
Me personally, i don’t love the game, but i don’t hate the game either. And someday, i will look up to the stars and revisit there once more, and maybe… just maybe… to see what has changed… 