Starfield's critical reception is an embarrassment for game critics

[Hearts™]

When Starfield released, it was met with widespread critical acclaim. This ended up divesting a lot of consumers of their money, only to discover later that they had been misled and had paid full price for a game that fails at almost everything it sets out to do. Somehow this wasn't the case for games such as Fallout 76 and Cyberpunk 2077, where the critical reception and the general audience reception were more aligned.

While it's true Bethesda deserves to be embarrassed by Starfield, I think every outlet that gave it a high review score has also tarnished their reputation and raised serious questions about their integrity.

[Crusader (Banned13x)]

Agreed, but it won't change anything. When shills like Skill Up and YongYea came out with glowing reviews of their early impressions with Cyberpunk, no one really took them to task when the game released as a disaster.

They're still as followed as ever and keep raking in Youtube ad revenue shilling games and jumping on whatever popular opinion bandwagon they can for views. This world doesn't reward or value integrity, sadly.

[lizzo (banned 48 times)]

yep i didn't forget the trailer when it had 10/10 plastered on the whole screen while we got 32k positive reviews on sept 6th. this is called review bombing and gas lighting players. But we all know by now when you defend a bad game it turns into a bad game like sf did. 29% lol

[wolfwingtube]

I'm fine with some people liking the game, with starfield that baffled me is anyone that gave it a 10/10 score, the games not even remotly close to that, that implies near perfect couldn't fix it or make it better, and so many ways the game could be better, especially embaressing around time of BG3 and cyberpunk dlc. They are suggesting starfield is as good or better then them?

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Lizzo:

yep i didn't forget the trailer when it had 10/10 plastered on the whole screen while we got 32k positive reviews on sept 6th. this is called review bombing and gas lighting players. But we all know by now when you defend a bad game it turns into a bad game like sf did. 29% lol

The "day one" reviews are explained by the early release players being able to post thier reviews only after the offical release.


Now, the other side of that policy is that people who played during the early release and refunded because they didn't like the game were not able to post reviews so the initial rating is skewed alot more positive than it otherwise would have been.

[Soulstain]

Over time the universe corrects itself.

[Krash Megiddo]

Fake news! Speak for yourself. Millions of players continue to have fun with Starfield. And there's more to come in 2024.
https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield/article/37j5d4CbPfYlZqJKcVtGcY/starfield-end-of-the-year-update-2023

[Mkhuseli5k]

Dude, stop. All the publications that actually matter gave Starfield a fair review. The most famous being IGN with a 7. The people who make game critics look bad are the anti-woke Confederacy descendants whining about how there's too much LGBTQ and White erasure in the game.

[Mkhuseli5k]

Originally posted by Crusader (Banned5x):

Agreed, but it won't change anything. When shills like Skill Up and YongYea came out with glowing reviews of their early impressions with Cyberpunk, no one really took them to task when the game released as a disaster.

They're still as followed as ever and keep raking in Youtube ad revenue shilling games and jumping on whatever popular opinion bandwagon they can for views. This world doesn't reward or value integrity, sadly.

😂What a joker you are, man. You played the game for zero hours and have the deepest criticism. What a 🤡. 😂 Guys like you make the rest of gaming look terrible.

[Maligner]

Originally posted by wolfwingtube:

I'm fine with some people liking the game, with starfield that baffled me is anyone that gave it a 10/10 score, the games not even remotly close to that, that implies near perfect couldn't fix it or make it better, and so many ways the game could be better, especially embaressing around time of BG3 and cyberpunk dlc. They are suggesting starfield is as good or better then them?

Come on, if someone likes it 10/10 or hates it 0/10. that is their opinion. I tried both BG3 and CP2077 and I like Starfield better. Because not all people like the same things equally. You have a different opinion. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong and you're not going to tell me I'm wrong.

If you refer only to the "professional" reviewers, I know I don't pay attention to those people anyway. We already know media says what they are told to say.

[fRaNtIc]

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

Originally posted by Crusader (Banned5x):

Agreed, but it won't change anything. When shills like Skill Up and YongYea came out with glowing reviews of their early impressions with Cyberpunk, no one really took them to task when the game released as a disaster.

They're still as followed as ever and keep raking in Youtube ad revenue shilling games and jumping on whatever popular opinion bandwagon they can for views. This world doesn't reward or value integrity, sadly.

😂What a joker you are, man. You played the game for zero hours and have the deepest criticism. What a 🤡. 😂 Guys like you make the rest of gaming look terrible.

It's a mediocre game at best. Early reviews were a scam.
Especially weird that the early Steam reviews were all so positive, that's what made me shell out premium for this thing.

[Hearts™]

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

😂What a joker you are, man. You played the game for zero hours and have the deepest criticism. What a 🤡. 😂 Guys like you make the rest of gaming look terrible.

I should point out that a lot of people played this on GamePass rather than Steam.

[HeyYou]

Wait, what?? The 'gaming press' is supposedly 'unbiased'??? Where did anyone ever get that mistaken impression? Same goes for youtube reviewers. They are only in it for the buck. At initial release, yep "GREAT GAME"!! After the players universally pan it.... crickets. No apologies, no articles saying "Ooops, maybe we were wrong." Just bandwagon jumping, and articles that follow the current trend. Which is to say, "The Hate Train."

Why anyone pays any attention to them at all, just baffles me.

[Crusader (Banned13x)]

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

Originally posted by Crusader (Banned5x):

Agreed, but it won't change anything. When shills like Skill Up and YongYea came out with glowing reviews of their early impressions with Cyberpunk, no one really took them to task when the game released as a disaster.

They're still as followed as ever and keep raking in Youtube ad revenue shilling games and jumping on whatever popular opinion bandwagon they can for views. This world doesn't reward or value integrity, sadly.

😂What a joker you are, man. You played the game for zero hours and have the deepest criticism. What a 🤡. 😂 Guys like you make the rest of gaming look terrible.

Haha, you're so right dude. I'm such clown emoji. I should've wasted $75 and hundreds of hours playing a 29% positive reviewed game. Haha, what a fool I am.

Laugh-crying so hard right now at my own opinion of someone else too, as only a non-clown-emoji does.

[ZombieHunter]

The game is still a 7 / 10 for me. I don't know why critics had such glowing reviews. Later ones did not. AJ put it at 6 / 10 and that is just a tad too low for me. There are other games that are 6 / 10 that SF is much better than. I appreciate AJ's review b/c even though it took forever, he played a lot of the game and so his score reflected his experiences. I feel it was a fair review, just a bit too low IMO. But it was fair and that is what is important.

Some other reviewers like Mac, IMO, did not give the game a fair chance. He saw a few things and then went off the deep end with those things while ignoring other good aspects of the game. It was not a very balanced take. I would have loved to have heard Total Biscuit's take on this game, but sadly he is no longer with us so we will never hear that. I feel he would have been critical, albeit, fair and balanced between the positives and the negatives.

I don't like fanboy reviews and I don't like over the top hateful ones either. Thankfully, most of the reviewers I listen to sit somewhere between those two extremes.

[Mkhuseli5k]

Originally posted by Crusader (Banned5x):

Originally posted by Mkhuseli5k:

😂What a joker you are, man. You played the game for zero hours and have the deepest criticism. What a 🤡. 😂 Guys like you make the rest of gaming look terrible.

Haha, you're so right dude. I'm such clown emoji. I should've wasted $75 and hundreds of hours playing a 29% positive reviewed game. Haha, what a fool I am.

Laugh-crying so hard right now at my own opinion of someone else too, as only a non-clown-emoji does.

Dude, you're a professional refunder. People that only buy games on sale have a more valuable opinion on games. Last time I checked this game stands at 83 on Metacritic. Also there's a sizeable amount of anti-woke cancel culture surrounding the game that automatically makes a lot of those negative Steam reviews dismissable as review bombing.