I have major regret for buying this game. Games like this should have a 20 hour refund window instead of 2. It took me 2 hours to realize it wasn't possible to get the game to not run like garbage.
Huh, so this is what happens when you passive-aggressively diss your customers' reviews and tell them "no, it isn't our fault our game feels dated and like a step down from what we had before, you guys are just playing the game wrong"...
I was incredibly tempted to pre-order Starfield. Everything about it should be right up my alley. I love Sci-fi, space and all things related. But I learned my lesson after pre-ordering Diablo 4. I decided to try out the pirated version shortly after release and was so disappointed and glad I didn’t buy it. I dropped it after a few hours and had no desire to play it after that.
Also coming into it straight after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 made it look so dated. The plastic doll looking NPC’s and animations, boring dialogue and writing. I’m not even that into fantasy/D&D type settings and BG3 drew me in for many hours.
I really hope someone makes a game as good as BG3 but set in space, similar to Mass Effect etc.
I'm mostly enjoying it, but that's after I spent a lot of hours modding the game to look great. I don't mean installing mods I mean modding. (I'm on the Luma mod team). That means fixing the horrible compressed range that is terrible for OLED. Completely replacing the Hable tone mapper after multiple attempts allowing contrast to get properly ramped up. Finally properly fixing the ridiculous fog in shadows from the color grading. Last, I replaced the film grain when theirs just raises blacks and is more digital camera noise than film-like. That only took 3 months. I've enjoyed the technical challenge from doing it, but if this were a game that couldn't be modded, I wouldn't have given it a week.
I also just realized the best part of the game are the story missions. Not the side quests, not the activities or exploration.
The worst part of the game is it's both all fast-travel: where you have to jump from planet to planet in a fetch quest; and it's no fast travel where the game expects you to run on foot 2000km to complete a survey.
The story and characters have charm and personality and that's time better spent. I think there's some good elements there, but overall I don't recommend the game. It's a solid 7/10 game, but completely hit-or-miss if you connect with it.
I got so damn bored. After 40 hours I put the game down and said to myself "I don't think I'll be playing this again." It just all seemed so pointless.
I got Starfield free with my new graphics card and tbh I'm glad that was the case as otherwise I'd have serious buyers remorse. I put a good 50 or so hours into the game, enough to finish the main storyline and most of the factions quests, but at the end of the day it just felt like a hollow experience, and I doubt I'll be going back to replay it.
The NPCs are shallow and robotic, and once you've explored their dialogue tree once you may as well never talk to them again as they'll never say anything new.
The game worlds look quite visually impressive but aside from the handful of cities and occasional settlements and outposts there is just nothing to do. Who would have guessed simulating a lifeless grey rock would be boring?
The fast travel system is completely broken and ruins the purported objective of the game; to explore. Instead of encouraging the player to do so by landing on planets to find fuel for their ship, the player can just teleport across the galaxy with no consequences.
The only aspect of the game I found to be really fun was the space combat. The ship builder, while quite frustrating at times, was also enjoyable.
Overall, Starfield feels like a game whose ambitions exceed the technical capabilities of the engine it is based on. You can see the janky workarounds that are used to make the game fit the engine from a mile away; cutscenes of a ship taking off rather than an interactive first person view, invisible barriers in the world to prevent you from walking too far without reloading, a cut to black when transiting between interiors and exteriors, and the same dull and lifeless NPC "AI" (I use that term very generously given recent advances) as we saw in older Bethesda titles.
It's past time that BGS put the rotting hulk that is Gamebryo/Creation Engine/whatever this latest iteration is called out to pasture (at least for new IPs like this) as clearly it is now actively hindering their creative ambitions.
i had a lot of fun. i think people just expect too much from this type of game and bethesda. look at no mans sky, i still think its just as boring as when it released but it has gained a great following. people now seem to just assume if a game is made by a AAA team everyone must love it regardless of personal taste. in my opinion that mind set is the reason most AAA get focus grouped to death. im scared that people are going to kill off the type of games i like because everyone acts like its crime to release a game that doesn't appeal to everyones exact tastes/desires.
i will say though starfield is my least favorite bethesda game.
starfield 7/10
Starfield is one of the most bland games ever made. Bethesda needs to get better. Their game design is outdated. Starfield is not going to get saved by modders.
Good. As if the game wasn't already 100% "mostly negative" (Bethesda game but somehow even lazier), they have breached technological frontiers in being petulant little shits about the obvious feedback that that practice spawns.
Idk, I like it. Obviously it's not perfect. I'm level 32 and plan to keep playing.
My perception might be skewed though. My previous steam purchase was KSP2 and, comparatively, Starfield is much more polished and has way more content.
No it doesn't.
It confirms that people don't like the game. The general tenor of comments is that people expected better. That's not "hateful", that's disappointed.
Characterising criticism as a circlejerk is frankly shitty. That would be like me reading your numerous posts and ignoring their content and just calling you a fan boy.
I personally really enjoyed the trip. Far from perfect, and more a 2010 game in its core, but quite entertaining. However, I would have been disappointed if I had to pay 80€ for it (especially because this game lacks polish). I had no hesitation thanks to the gamepass, and I have no regret playing 100h to it :).
I think the backlash is a bit excessive. It feels like people expected this game to be exceptional, having huge expectations that were never met. It’s Bethesda, how can we expect a master piece from them on day one? Besides, it’s not like a success like Skyrim can be reproduced that easily. It’s not bad to have expectations, but if the game is different than what you had in mind, it’s not the game’s fault imo (and it happens too frequently those years, as if all major releases are bad games that should never be played).
i had a lot of fun. i think people just expect too much from this type of game and bethesda. look at no mans sky, i still think its just as boring as when it released but it has gained a great following. people now seem to just assume if a game is made by a AAA team everyone must love it regardless of personal taste. in my opinion that mind set is the reason most AAA get focus grouped to death. im scared that people are going to kill off the type of games i like because everyone acts like its crime to release a game that doesn't appeal to everyones exact tastes/desires.
i will say though starfield is my least favorite bethesda game.
starfield 7/10
One of the most unjustified review bombings in recent years, IMO. The game is very much a standard Bethesda game, and is fine. Mods and DLCs are what people buy Bethesda games for, anyways.
Don't get me wrong, Bethesda themselves are very mediocre game devs, but their specific style of game lends itself well to modding.
Starfield is just as mediocre as Skyrim and Fallout 4, everyone who made Morrowind great is gone, Bethesda games ride on the success of their modding communities.
Is the reason this game keeps getting all this hate months later because people really needed the money and feel ripped off? Or is it because they like being hateful and the game is a target they feel comfortable with?