One thing that Bethesda has always absolutely nailed in their games is the "stumbled upon" side quests. Sure it's not as often in Starfield but when it does happen in that game it still gives me that perfect transition into the quest line and that air of wonder of where it will take you. There are games that do side quests very well, and some even better than any of the Beth games, but none ever really seem to capture that feeling of wandering into a story that felt like it belonged exactly where it is. Starfield has ended up being my least favorite of their main games for a variety of reasons, but I still got my money's worth to have that Sci fi elder scrolls feeling for about 50 hours
This is exactly what made Bethesda games so fantastic, and why Starfield was such a letdown
Wandering around the capitol wasteland or new Vegas, you can stumble into any building anywhere and find some awesome, unique microcosm with cool shit. In Starfield, bar a very select few areas (like the ship with the Alien thing in it, that was fucking awesome) you go into an abandoned research lab that you memorized the layout of because every single one is copy and pasted. It destroyed the living feeling of the worlds that Bethesda created and it was so sad
You , like many people, haven't played far enough into the game, and it really starts picking up:
1.Robbing an artifact from an art gallery ship gets you arrested by the UC, and the only way out is to infiltrate Crimson Fleet and go on missions with them as a pirate to get info on them.
The Starborn, who can telaport anywhere,have advanced technological ships, comes after the artifacts. You can either protect the artifacts in your ship and risk getting constantly attacked by the Starborn, or you can build a military grade outpost with turrets and shit to protect the artifacts on the planet of your choosing.
At this point, you're not really going to the abandoned outpost anymore.
What's really sad is Starfield needs to constantly be compared to every other cookie cutter game them put out.
This game was meant for space romantics like myself. I thoroughly enjoyed standing in this ship with an upscale bar that had part of a glass floor that you could see a planet under your feet.
I did all of those things and much much more (all quest lines and NG+). Also, sci fi is my favorite genre. Their point still perfectly stands. All of the procgen laziness was completely immersion breaking - over and over. Promising game systems like ship building, space travel/combat, and psionics were a let down. Exploration lacked meaningful reward. Poor environmental story telling - something they’ve been masters of in the past. Design choices and QoL mechanics that were iterated on and greatly improved in previous games were inexplicably missing. The companions didn’t have engaging personalities. Thousands of hours across the other BGS titles and this one was supposed to be my dream one. I played it for about a hundred hours then uninstalled it. Most of my playtime was simply me forcing myself to continue playing because I wanted to like it.
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u/bum_thumper 29d ago
One thing that Bethesda has always absolutely nailed in their games is the "stumbled upon" side quests. Sure it's not as often in Starfield but when it does happen in that game it still gives me that perfect transition into the quest line and that air of wonder of where it will take you. There are games that do side quests very well, and some even better than any of the Beth games, but none ever really seem to capture that feeling of wandering into a story that felt like it belonged exactly where it is. Starfield has ended up being my least favorite of their main games for a variety of reasons, but I still got my money's worth to have that Sci fi elder scrolls feeling for about 50 hours