I’ve spent 8 hours in the game so far.
At first, the lack of a local map was annoying, until I noticed the kiosks and signs and I realized this was deliberate. Bethesda wants you to explore and is basically saying, “Fuck you, figure it out on your own”. Which, knowing that, is awesome. Brings me back to navigating Balmora in Morrowind for the first time. So this no longer bothers me. It’s so fun to explore. Once you get down the cities, it’s a piece of cake.
The fast travel system is still a LITTLE annoying but not as much as before. I’m getting used to it. Same with the loading screens. What makes up for all of that is the amount of content that exists on major planets and systems, and choosing deliberately when to fast travel, and when to use your ship and go through the cuteness. I find that helps balance the immersion and annoyance factor. Overall, I still give this game an 8/10. It’s absolutely fantastic. Better than Fallout 4 but not quite as good as Skyrim.
What is so cool though is that if any of you remember, when Fallout 4 came out it was pretty much a collective agreement that the game was disappointing. Not bad, but not good. Now it’s looked upon more positively but still ranked much lower than Skyrim and Oblivion.
This fucking game though? I’ve never seen a fan base so split. Not since TLOU Part 2. You got the other half who says it’s freaking fantastic and was everything they wanted, and then the other half who says it’s fucking awful and a disappointment. I think AWFUL is a bit harsh but I can understand the disappointment. But…can we take a minute here? And take a step back?
We have a game that has made such an impact for players. That does a great job at showing what different people expect. That’s a GOOD thing. It means Bethesda got a lot right. The fact that it can split people’s opinions and put eachother at their throats. I mean, is that not insane?
You got people that fucking love the Souls games and who think they’re the greatest games of all time, and then others who just can’t stand them and find them ridiculously counter intuitive messes. (Myself, please don’t kill me). But that’s good. We SHOULD debate.
So I think we should all respect each other’s opinions ultimately, and recognize that even if you personally don’t like it, what a major influence this is creating. Even bug wise, I’ve encountered maybe 10 bugs in my 8 hour playthrough, and they’ve all been very, VERY minor for a Bethesda game. I’ve been thoroughly impressed.
I agree that people need to be more respectful to each other, and I agree that this game probably needs some time to settle before people start screaming good or bad.
But that title? Makes no sense. Do you think Larian was like “Oh no, nobody’s arguing about whether Baldur’s Gate 3 is good or bad. This is terrible news!” Nah. Being a good game is good.
is in of itself a GOOD thing
For whom is this a good thing?
That is what I think he’s trying to say. The game is polarizing because BSG didn’t try to please everyone. Just like Souls, which is the best game ever to some and not interesting to others, Starfield is exactly right for a certain kind of player. By committing to a specific path, BSG made some people extremity happy at the cost of other people’s disappointment.
Exactly, I’d much rather have more games like this compared to bland bullshit that’s just trying to appeal to as many people as possible at the cost of anything actually interesting
You don’t mean Bethesda, right?
This is it.
I was disappointed at the fast travel mechanics in the game as it seems gratuitous, but over time and from intentional balancing, I got used to it.
When you let that go it ends up being REALLY good. Other than that mechanic, I expected Skyrim/Fallout in space and that’s exactly what they delivered. And as an advid Skyrim player who put hundreds of hours into it, I am happy.
It’s definitely not a good thing that a lot of people think it’s not that great lol. What is this post?
I’m also 8-12 hours in, and this is one of those slow burn games like Fallout 4.
It’s got the Bethsoft Action RPG DNA in it with just enough NASApunk that the background story, MAYBE will be compelling enough.
If you haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend trying the ship builder. You can literally rebuild your ship from nothing just like in KSP.
I’ve turned my POS “Frontier” into a frigate killing cruiser that can house 6 crew by spending 50K credits and 45 minutes in the customizer tool.
I haven’t even touched settlement building yet.
No man’s sky, this is not.
Fallout 5 in space, it is.
I really want to do the ship building, really. I just feel like it might be a waste of time. I mean there isn’t really much content out in space which sucks. The BASE building which I’ve messed with though…it’s really good.
One half thinks it’s amazing, the second half is disappointed, and the last half is angry because they’re using a PS5.
If you go in expecting a space sim like No Man’s Sky, you’re going to be a little let down. Your ship is essentially the fast travel cart between towns in Skyrim until you get into space combat, which is satisfying if a little frustrating. But there’s so much to do in the major towns that I find myself with a full list of missions to explore, and still I find myself getting sidetracked by scanning everything on each planet I land on because the procedural generation is very good. Too early to rank it but I’m having a ball.
are the missions interesting or “like run and grab/kill something and come back for some lore you’re never going to remember”?
i find the latter is common in most games
I’m level 10 and can only think of one fetch quest (which did have a few different ways to complete). A few with choices that haven’t felt especially meaningful besides the amount of credits I received, but they might come up again in the future. And one that took me by surprise and landed me in a completely different system and completely off course.
Not all of them actually. A lot of them are really good, especially the Crimson Fleet side quests. You can actually join them which is really cool. I always wanted to join bandits in Skyrim and this is basically it.
I have been trying to avoid everything until I get my hands on the game but I decided to bite and read this. Great write up and I’m super glad I read this one. Thank you.
Before this even came out I was questioning what makes their games good. Like, not as a hate thing but like… How the fuck do I lose 12 hours playing a single session mindlessly picking up garbage? Cuz that’s all I do in these. 🤣
It pretty much is what I expected, other than it actually working pretty well right out of the box. I followed it pretty close; the only new element not familiar to a longtime fan looked to be the ship specific stuff, and that’s still better than I expected. I expected it to be janky as fuck. It’s just rather dull, but it’s functional. One complaint: During one of your first missions, you’re tasked with crippling a ship instead of destroying it and the NPC giving you instructions makes it sound like you can specifically target things like the engines, but as far as I could tell you can’t and you just shoot them until their health depletes like normal; they just don’t explode. 🤷🏻♂️
I did that mission but I had the required skill to enter target mode. Maybe they made the tutorial for it before deciding to strip it out for a skill requirement. It worked fine for me since I had the skill but I can see how it could feel off.
Ah! I still haven’t even really looked at everything available there. I’ve been working toward suppressors and I just finally got there at level 11.
Still… Tutorial should have mentioned this required a skill and not assumed I had it.
…You don’t just pick up garbage. The whole thing is about exploring POI. That’s what Bethesda excells at. Plus the well implemented RPG elements and story elements. That’s why people play these games including myself.
It sounds like Bethesda games just aren’t for you. Which is okay. I hate the Souls games but it would be aggregious to say they’re bad.
My exploration of POIs is going to them and picking up the litter. After making sure nothing is left alive, anyway.
I don’t think you quite understood what I mean, since I did not say or even imply that it’s bad.
What’s POI? Because I definitely spend a lot of time (mostly accidentally) picking up garbage. So much so Sarah tells me to stop lol
POI = Point Of Interest
I say dungeons still, and the gameplay loop is
- Enter dungeon
- Pick up everything
- Leave dungeon
- Sell/deposit everything
Yeah, I mean it’s kinda that, you’re not wrong. I love the game for it, though, because I want it to advance the story.
To me a game is an interactive story. I suspect it’s something different for you. I don’t think either of us is wrong.
I totally agree that a game can be an interactive story. But if I can’t even have an appreciable affect through my choices, the gameplay is what’s going to decide if it’s something that I continue to enjoy or just play through once and then never touch again.
Something like Baldur’s Gate is way better for the story and player agency. You can do the same dialogue 5 different ways with 5 different outcomes. With Starfield and other more recent BGS games, the dialogue outcomes are exactly the same no matter what dialogue choices you made. Morrowind had more player agency toward affecting quests and the story at large than Skyrim did. Fallout 4 came down to “accept quest” “decline quest politely” “decline quest rudely” as the only things that affected anything. All the other options are fluff and do jack shit mechanically.
Since my story interactions mean nothing, the story part of the game becomes way less interesting than the shooting and building. Now, Disco Elysium on the other hand… That is one helluva good interactive story.
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