I listened to the Besties on it. Which is Justin and Griffin McElroy, Chris Plante, and Russ Frushtick talking video games.
They said it was mostly bad. The key part of Bethesda games people like are the explorable world littered with fun stuff to see. But outside a few tailored areas it’s mostly procedurally generated and therefore boring.
Bethesda isn’t known for engaging RP elements, deep combat, or good main stories. And Starfield doesn’t seem to buck that trend. But they’ve also lost the thing that makes them popular.
But they said making spaceships was fun.
I’m 10 hours in and having a blast with it. The space travel aspect is way undercooked but other than that it’s like a fallout game in space, and their writing got better from previous games.
Even the procedurally generated areas are pretty cool with random buildings and caves to explore, plus there are surprise semi-secret quests that are also fun to play.
I can see the argument that it’s a Bethesda game with more loading screens though. They really should’ve put more emphasis on the in-space gameplay to help replace the on-foot exploration from previous games. The ship is more like a mobile house/storage bin than anything else.
I love the McElroy brothers, but their takes on a lot of stuff is just dog shit. There are so many times that they say shit that makes he me roll my eyes.
I’ve been having a blast with starfield. To me it sounds like they had preconceptions about how the game would be and are disappointed that it’s not what they expected. Idk what they’re talking about, it absolutely feels like a Bethesda game, barring that it wasn’t a mess on launch.
And, lol, one of the biggest complaints of Bethesda games was how barren they felt. Like, the popular description of a Bethesda game is “wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.”
That’s not what that means. Wide as an ocean means there’s a ton and variety of content. No one calls Bethesda games barren. They are packed with content. Deep as a puddle means while there’s s lot, it’s all very simple. Uninteresting quest chains, simple systems, rote stories, etc.
Wide as an ocean means there’s a ton and variety of content.
No, it doesn’t. It means that the game seems huge, because of the size of the playable map.
The lack of content is what makes it as shallow as a puddle.
No one calls Bethesda games barren
Google literally ANY Bethesda game and add “barren” and you’ll find tons of complaints. Hell, add critical reviews, even some of the good ones call them empty.
I think this is the issue I have with it as a long time fan of Bethesda games. It was the dense and interesting world that made it all mesh together.
Without that…you realize that 80% of their quests are just “loot, kill, return” or “talk to this person, talk to this person, done” and you realize that the faction quests and somewhat the main quest are the only meat of the game…
I have been forcing myself to play it the last couple days (I sailed the high seas it to see if it worked on PC, but just kept playing because the intro felt so bad) only because my girlfriend is watching over voice chat and commiserating with me.
There is something there for the people who loved settlement building and customization, with the ship building and outposts. But if you want immersion…play a space sim. If you want procedural stuff…play No Man’s Sky. It just doesn’t have that Bethesda energy. It feels tired and sterile and uncomfortable to explore.
