Starfield - One Month later

[HiddenX]

Kotaku looks back at one month of Starfield:

Starfield, One Month Later

Once a distant star on the horizon, Starfield arrived on Xbox and PC on September 6, with a five-day early access period for those who shelled out for the deluxe edition. It's now been in the hands of gamers worldwide for a little over a month, with folks pouring over its vast world and searching every nook and cranny for loot, side quests, and more.

As expected, a game as massive as Starfield has a ton of stuff going on (there's 1,000 planets, remember) so a month later, folks are still discovering all sorts of unique quirks, charms, and more than its fair share of weak points to point out, celebrate, and critique.

Whether or not Starfield will be as memorable as Skyrim or Fallout remains to be seen, but within its first month, here are some of the highlights.

Starfield earns praise, with some caveats
Following its announcement in 2018, the hype for Starfield was real. Promising a scale way beyond what Bethesda delivered with Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield would mark the first original franchise for the studio since the '90s and take the Bethesda RPG format to a place it's never really been before: space.

Since the highly anticipated game launched, the reactions have been largely positive, but there are some fair criticisms of its structure and the meat of more than a few of its premiere questlines. In Kotaku's review of Starfield, I praised its scale, scope, and capacity for gorgeous vistas, but criticized a pervasive shallowness in the game's settings, narratives, and woefully repetitive environments.

In general, Starfield really hasn't convinced us that it's a vision for the future of games, and in fact, it seems to be little more than an iterative improvement on what Bethesda has delivered before, for decades now at this point. But whether you see that as a reliable go-to experience of the kind we know from Skyrim and Fallout or a failure to improve upon a tired formula is what makes Starfield 2023's gaming Rorschach test.

The game currently sits at a Metacritic score of 84, sharing similar ground with well-received titles like August's Armored Core VI, but falls quite shy of bigger blockbusters like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

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Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.

 

[Redglyph]

Glad to hear they're considering official DLSS support. Hopefully they'll optimize the rendering while they're at it. I'm not sure I'll be playing it this year, however.

 

[JFarrell71]

One month and another thinkpiece later, and people still don't understand how to play Starfield. The 1,000 planets (more like 1,600 in reality) has almost nothing to do with there being a ton of stuff going on, and it's thinking that way that gets people frustrated with repetitive content and empty worlds.

 

[ChaosTheory]

This was my 3rd-most anticipated game this year, where in a 'normal' year, it would have been my first. However, I've read enough reviews to believe it's best to skip this one for awhile-- not that I don't want to play it, but I want to play it at its best. This is a genre and setting I love, so I'd hate to be underwhelmed during my playthrough. I rarely play games twice, so that playthrough needs to count.

It seems with DLC, other content they'll inevitably have to add based on reviews, bug fixes and maybe a mod or two, this could be a great game-- much like Cyberpunk finally is. I've already paid for the highest-end package that includes all of that (presumably...), so no reason not to wait for it.

More and more I'm looking at games like that now-- wait until they're truly finished and ready. Even if that means a year or two after launch. Now if I could only learn not to preorder, and I'd have the double-bonus of a complete game and at a discount.

 

[SSIGuy]

More and more I'm looking at games like that now-- wait until they're truly finished and ready. Even if that means a year or two after launch.

Same for me... I know I'll really enjoy this game but I try to hold off on such games for more patches, maybe even some DLC (as I don't tend to replay games)... though the pull for this one is strong and sometimes my willpower does not match my plans!

 

[JFarrell71]

I don't and will never hold off for patches. Sometimes it backfires a bit, especially where DLC is concerned. Not all DLC is meaty enough to draw me back to a game I've already thoroughly played, so I end up missing out. But I'm not built to wait.

 

[bizorker]

Pretty heads down playing BG3 but have been following the post launch news. Seems like a general consensus has emerged that the game came out below expectations. For me Bethesda's products have felt a little tired going back years now - just falling behind the curve of other top tier publishers. My guess is that if I played this right now I'd fall into the "failure to improve upon a tired formula" camp. So will likely punt this one to 2024. I suppose that puts Rogue Trader at the top of my most anticipated list.

 

[Couchpotato]

It's your typical formulistic Bethseda RPG. Eveyone by now should know what your getting. Bottom-line it sold well enough despite the falling Steam player count.

 

[SveNitoR]

One month and another thinkpiece later, and people still don't understand how to play Starfield. The 1,000 planets (more like 1,600 in reality) has almost nothing to do with there being a ton of stuff going on, and it's thinking that way that gets people frustrated with repetitive content and empty worlds.

Well, to be fair, I think that if people need help to understand how to play the game to have fun, the game isn't guiding the player enough.

 

[HiddenX]

I played Starfield like a normal RPG ignoring all the sandbox stuff (building outposts, visiting all planets, crafting, playing again) and it was fun for 83 hours.
I have one major questline left - with this industry giant - and I'll certainly play it some day.

IMO it is a good, but not a great RPG and I'll not play it as much as Skyrim, Morrowind or Daggerfall.

 

[HiddenX]

PC Gamer has the same experience:
Todd Howard says Starfield was 'made to be played for a long time,' but a month after launch I'm already drifting away

 

[bjon045]

I played Starfield like a normal RPG ignoring all the sandbox stuff (building outposts, visiting all planets, crafting, playing again) and it was fun for 83 hours.

Just out of interest, are you a big space/sci-fi fan or just ambivalent to the setting? Just trying to judge if I am going to get more out of it or not.

I played Fallout 4 for 86 hours and I didn't enjoy it overall except for Far Harbour. I did however think the world building/location design was top notch.

 

[HiddenX]

I like space/sci-fi settings just like fantasy settings and I really enjoy EVERSPACE 2 right now. Not so much an RPG, but a really good space sim.

 

[bjon045]

I like space/sci-fi settings just like fantasy settings and I really enjoy EVERSPACE 2 right now. Not so much an RPG, but a really good space sim.

I saw your curator review on Steam and I was thinking about getting Everspace 2 but I saw it had some pretty chunky updates planned in the next 12 months so I decided to wait and see.

If I get 83 quality hours out of Starfield I'll be happy. I have lowered my expectations according to some of the feedback on the Watch though

 

[HiddenX]

Having not too high expectations for a game is a good recipee not to get dissapointed or even get positively surprised.
So I always try not to get too hyped for a new game.

 

[Kos]

I just finished the game this morning, with 100 hours and all the main and major quests done.
It's an improved Bethesda game, the quests are better than in their previous games, fights can be a lot of fun, the companions are forgettable and in overall it's a game I have really enjoyed.
I will return to it with pleasure when lot of mods and DLCs are available.

The optional parts like crafting, spaceship building etc .. are meh.
My relative disappointment is mainly with exploration, I have visited 73 systems, scanned 304 planets and landed on 150 of them and I never felt the need to stay or do more than what I came to do.

Mileage may differ but I don't regret my time in there.

 

[arthureloi]

This was my 3rd-most anticipated game this year, where in a 'normal' year, it would have been my first. However, I've read enough reviews to believe it's best to skip this one for awhile-- not that I don't want to play it, but I want to play it at its best. This is a genre and setting I love, so I'd hate to be underwhelmed during my playthrough. I rarely play games twice, so that playthrough needs to count.

It seems with DLC, other content they'll inevitably have to add based on reviews, bug fixes and maybe a mod or two, this could be a great game-- much like Cyberpunk finally is. I've already paid for the highest-end package that includes all of that (presumably...), so no reason not to wait for it.

More and more I'm looking at games like that now-- wait until they're truly finished and ready. Even if that means a year or two after launch. Now if I could only learn not to preorder, and I'd have the double-bonus of a complete game and at a discount.

This is the exact same way I operate, except the preorder part. I just wait for the full experience with patches and DLCs, with a hefty discount to boot.

Nowadays, playing at launch seems really silly as games launch at a 50% state of completeness at most, especially Bethesda games, which manage to always be worse than their last iteration.

 

[Kos]

This is the exact same way I operate, except the preorder part. I just wait for the full experience with patches and DLCs, with a hefty discount to boot.

Nowadays, playing at launch seems really silly as games launch at a 50% state of completeness at most, especially Bethesda games, which manage to always be worse than their last iteration.

As a representative of the Silly people, I request your unfathomable Brightness to hear me out!

I played 100 hours and met few tiny bugs, actually glitches like a companion I dismissed still present on ship for a jump. I never had any crash, or quest I could not complete, corrupted save or any weird issue.

As for the DLCs or the mods, it will be a different game once installed, you are just procrastinating. It's your right but that doesn't make you clever.

 

[arthureloi]

As a representative of the Silly people, I request your unfathomable Brightness to hear me out!

I played 100 hours and met few tiny bugs, actually glitches like a companion I dismissed still present on ship for a jump. I never had any crash, or quest I could not complete, corrupted save or any weird issue.

As for the DLCs or the mods, it will be a different game once installed, you are just procrastinating. It's your right but that doesn't make you clever.

Procrastinating? A game? Now that's rich, I have never heard that term used in this context. Nah, Bethesda games keep getting worse and more half baked at each new launch. I will either skip this one or pick it up at a heavily discounted price, with a bunch of DLCs and survival mode, 2 years from now. So many better games in my backlog, there's no rush to play it, if at all.

Good for you that you found it fun, though.

 

[JDR13]

I keep seeing people claim they finished all the major quests and explored X amount of systems in 100 hours, and I don't see how. I'm at 110 hours, and I'm nowhere near finished with all the major questlines and have spent zero time on outposts so far.