So, Starfield was a disappointment (in my opinion). The story isn’t interesting. The lore and world-building do not make sense. The game mechanics do not mesh together. (And it doesn’t run well on the Steam Deck.)
But the promise of Starfield? The big space game? The big space RPG where you can play as Captain Reynolds type character? That’s something I can get behind. I want to traverse space, visit different planets, get lost, meet interesting characters, solve their problems, and shoot some stuff. Two games come to my mind when I think of this:
- No Man’s Sky
- Mass Effect
I’ve only played a few hours of No Man’s Sky, but I think it does space traversal well. To put it bluntly, flying from planet to planet without interruption is better than fast travel. But the gameplay loop did not
Mass Effect nails the space adventure side of things. You visit multiple interesting places, you meet different people with curious problems, and you solve these problems (mainly by shooting). But it’s a typical Bioware game: The places you visit are small and confined, and there are (comparatively) few of them. The space traversal is done by clicking a few buttons in a menu.
My question is: Are there any “big space games”? Are there any games that deliver on the promise of Starfield? What are your favourite sci-fi RPGs?
Faster Than Light’s my jam! For me, it was dethroned from the throne of roguelite games by Slay the Spire.
Starbound was the first and last game I pre-ordered. I wish they would have stuck to the original vision with the survival mechanics. Thinking about it, Starbound is basically a proto-Starfield. The both promised an experience based on a different game (Terraria in space vs. Skyrim in space) that was undercut by the overuse of procedural generation. (Someone please create an 8 hour video essay about this.)
Go check out the multiverse mod for FTL. It added a ton of variety and content and put FTL straight back into the top spot for me.
Yep, there are definitely many comparisons between Starbound and Starfield, it is why I was excited about SF in the first place - it looked like a big budget SB made by an experienced veteran team! The joke’s on me I guess lol