Starfield on Steam
store.steampowered.com
Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.

I must say it is not the best RPG out there, but I feel like it would have earned more. I personally have a lot of fun playing.

While it was not a Cyberpunk-grade overhype, I think it must still have been overhyped. Because if you see it as Skyrim with better graphics, it is pretty much what you’d expect.

Some of the common criticism seems to be intrinsic to the sci-fi genre. In Skyrim, you walk 100 meters and then you find some cave or camp or something that a game designer has placed there manually with some story or meaning behind it. And as a player, you notice that, because most locations in Skyrim feel somehow unique. Even though for example the dungeons have rooms that repeat a lot. Having a designer place them manually with some thought gives them something unique.

In interstellar sci-fi, a dense world like this is simply impossible. Planets are extremely large so filling them manually with content is simply not possible. And using procedural generation makes things feel meaningless. Players notice that fast. So instead, Starfield opted for having a few manually constructed locations that are placed randomly on planets, unfortunately with a lot of repetition. But that is a sound compromise, given the constraints of today’s game development technology. The dense worlds that we are used to from other genres simply don’t scale up to planetary scale, and as players, we have to get used to that.

  • clearedtoland@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    classic Bethesda experience

    I messaged my friend a couple hours into the game and said “…I dunno dude. This feels like Fallout 4 but in space.” I’ve never finished an FO game, despite trying many times, because they just feel boring and overwhelming at the same time (for me anyway). I was late to the Skyrim party, first played it on Switch and loved it - loosely because the story drove me forward and kept me engaged.

    Witcher 3 and CP2077 had me hooked the entire time. Even though they’re entirely different games, I also miss the little nuances in NMS - like actually flying into a planets atmosphere and landing, being able to zoom around the planet in my ship, engaging “warp.” All without a whole lot fewer loading screens or opening menus. To be fair, I got tired of NMS super quickly because resource mining and grinding aren’t my thing.

    All that to say that I’m enjoying it though I’m not sure how long it’ll stick with me. It’ll hold me over until Phantom Liberty comes out.

    • Sacha@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      1 year ago

      I played a few hours but after a quest frustrated me I haven’t picked it up since.

      I did go through an abandoned science facility but it was just like going through a facility in fallout for me.

      I tried playing fo4 many times but could never really get far into it. The west time i tried a completely different playthrough where you are just cranked up on drugs and go in running with melee weapons, but that build takes a while to get going. I also tried actually building a settlement with that build and I couldn’t even make a square room and gave up lol. (There was always a gap no matter how I placed the walls…)

      I see you can build crazy ships and maybe that might be fun.

      But I don’t know, the game doesn’t quite do it for me.

      • Roggie@mastodon.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        @Sacha So far the ship building is my favorite part about the game, but the credits and skills you need to unlock to really get into it take awhile (unless you hyperfocus on getting them). Oh and I can definitely see how they redid the gunplay and I’m absolutely loving it.

      • clearedtoland@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yup. Same here…the building stuff was never for me either. I’d love to be the person who thoughtfully builds pretty settlements but normally I’m just plopping things down so I can move along.

        Different strokes for different folks, as they say. I’m def not knocking on those who enjoy it and get the most out of it.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Thats kinda why they made it optional to build in the game, especially after a certain point in the game where you have two options and can choose not to build which i wont mention details due to it being a spoiler.