Longtime Bethesda fan. I took a week off work over one hundred years ago when Skyrim was released and it remains one of the best gaming experiences of my life. After Fallout 4 I have been concerned that BGS has lost the thread, or maybe they straight up don't know why their earlier FO and TES games were so successful. With the number and type of miss-steps that made FO4 the worst entry in the series by far (Excluding FO76), I figured BSD would either learn a lesson and mature their development from 2009 into the 2020s, or they'd stay stuck in their rut and keep making the same mistakes and poor decisions in an attempt to capture lightning in a bottle on a 20-year-old gaming engine that felt dated 10 years ago. Sadly, Starfield is the latter.

Starfield is mostly a bad game masquerading as a mediocre game. I see a lot of people say this is a 7/10 game, with 7/10 being an 'average' game score. I disagree. I think the majority of systems present in Starfield are below-average and the only ones that succeed (like ship-building) are average/half-baked. That puts it around 5/10 in my books. Regardless, let's say it IS a 7/10 completely average game? It doesn't change much. A 7/10 single-player game that takes 10hr to complete is one thing. That can be a lot of fun. It's like watching a B movie. Not so much for a game you're meant to spend 100+ hours in. With a giant open world 100+ hour game, that 7/10 wears pretty thin by the 45hr mark.

The Good:
- Aesthetic and design philosophy is well executed and very cohesive. 'NASA-Punk' or whatever. It's really well done.
-Ship-Building. It's half-baked and can be a chore but it's the part I enjoyed most about the game by far.

The Bad:
-Artificially slowed skill progression. Seems like they decided to pad out the game by making virtually every single system/mechanic skill-locked behind a very bland grindwall. This is one of the very few games where I think, to have a better experience, you should download a trainer or use a cheat code to give yourself 25 skill points right at the start of the game. Locking skills behind earlier tiers of the same skill was fine by me mostly, but the implementation on that was bad, too. At the VERY least, it should retroactively count if you've already met the Tier 2 prerequisites. If I've already killed 1,000 guys with pistols I shouldn't have to kill 50 more to level up my pistol because I unlocked a new tier.
-Character models look like a 2015 AA game and everything in the world sort of floats/skates over the environments
-Uninspired, boring writing. The voice acting is hit-and-miss too, which doesn't help. There's the odd well-written NPC but the dialogue system is such that it's not a lot of fun to stand for 20 min looking directly into someone's face while they obviously read off cards.
-Bad UI. Not a lot to say here other than, hope you like menus, and menus for other menus, and then sub-menus for the menu-menus.
-Overall game design. This would have been a much better game if it had been smaller and maybe even focused on one planet. The space travel stuff, such as it is, could easily have been scrapped from the whole game. All it does is add menus to travel and provide you with a milquetoast dogfighting minigame. I never once enjoyed the space stuff, other than building my ship.
-Combat. Can't shoot through gaps in stuff, not really any form of the decent cover system, mostly just feels bland. Enemies are really spongey so no guns really feel that good to shoot because regardless of how powerful the gun is, you're pumping a full mag into every human enemy to kill them. I think combat in this and Cyberpunk 2077 are similarly bad in all the same ways, though Cyberpunk at least offers better ballistic variety and somewhat competent AI.
-Lack of actual content. There's tons of content but a lot of it is procedurally generated slop once you get outside the hub worlds. I think the game would have felt a lot more cohesive in general if this was done away with entirely and you were limited in what planets you could visit. It feels very much like if an AI designed a video game. Just absolutely without a soul. Content for the sake of content. It bothers me that devs and publishers think we are so stupid that we would clamour for the opportunity to spend time in something so utterly uncreative.
-Loading screens. I know it's an engine limitation but BOY does it age this game. It turns this game into that 30 Rock scene with Steve Buscemi saying 'Hello fellow kids'.

I hear a lot about how modders will fix it, and maybe they will. Hopefully even, but either way, I fear this is the death knell for Todd Howard and his team. I'm really rotted about that but if this, and FO4/FO76 is all we are losing, well maybe it's time. Morrowind, Skyrim, FO3.... maybe it's time to relegate them to the time capsule of perfect games for their times and stop hoping that a game studio will ever be able to completely recapture that type of magic. It's not all bad, though. I'm sure there's another CD ProjektRED out there who've yet to release their 'Witcher 3' and we'll have a whole new generation of video game magic. Hell, Larian just did it with Baldur's Gate 3.

Long story short, I think Starfield is an outright bad game. Even if it's not, and it's a mediocre game, it doesn't change the fact that if you're looking to sink 100+ hours into something there's a glut of better options out there. For the Bethesda die-hard, maybe you'll have more luck than me and get some fun out of this title. For anyone who isn't steeped in 20 years of Todd Howard Bethesda Games, well I can see why you would bounce off this one. My recommendation is to play the excellent Baldur's Gate 3, or the less excellent but still quite good Outer Worlds. Hell, boot up Skyrim again. It nails the formula a lot more than Starfield.

What a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shame, though. End of an era.

Longtime Bethesda fan. I took a week off work over one hundred years ago when Skyrim was released and it remains one of the best gaming experiences of my life. After Fallout 4 I have been concerned that BGS has lost the thread, or maybe they straight up don't know why their earlier FO and TES games were so successful. With the number and type of miss-steps that made FO4 the worst entry in the series by far (Excluding FO76), I figured BSD would either learn a lesson and mature their development from 2009 into the 2020s, or they'd stay stuck in their rut and keep making the same mistakes and poor decisions in an attempt to capture lightning in a bottle on a 20-year-old gaming engine that felt dated 10 years ago. Sadly, Starfield is the latter. Starfield is mostly a bad game masquerading as a mediocre game. I see a lot of people say this is a 7/10 game, with 7/10 being an 'average' game score. I disagree. I think the majority of systems present in Starfield are below-average and the only ones that succeed (like ship-building) are average/half-baked. That puts it around 5/10 in my books. Regardless, let's say it IS a 7/10 completely average game? It doesn't change much. A 7/10 single-player game that takes 10hr to complete is one thing. That can be a lot of fun. It's like watching a B movie. Not so much for a game you're meant to spend 100+ hours in. With a giant open world 100+ hour game, that 7/10 wears pretty thin by the 45hr mark. The Good: - Aesthetic and design philosophy is well executed and very cohesive. 'NASA-Punk' or whatever. It's really well done. -Ship-Building. It's half-baked and can be a chore but it's the part I enjoyed most about the game by far. The Bad: -Artificially slowed skill progression. Seems like they decided to pad out the game by making virtually every single system/mechanic skill-locked behind a very bland grindwall. This is one of the very few games where I think, to have a better experience, you should download a trainer or use a cheat code to give yourself 25 skill points right at the start of the game. Locking skills behind earlier tiers of the same skill was fine by me mostly, but the implementation on that was bad, too. At the VERY least, it should retroactively count if you've already met the Tier 2 prerequisites. If I've already killed 1,000 guys with pistols I shouldn't have to kill 50 more to level up my pistol because I unlocked a new tier. -Character models look like a 2015 AA game and everything in the world sort of floats/skates over the environments -Uninspired, boring writing. The voice acting is hit-and-miss too, which doesn't help. There's the odd well-written NPC but the dialogue system is such that it's not a lot of fun to stand for 20 min looking directly into someone's face while they obviously read off cards. -Bad UI. Not a lot to say here other than, hope you like menus, and menus for other menus, and then sub-menus for the menu-menus. -Overall game design. This would have been a much better game if it had been smaller and maybe even focused on one planet. The space travel stuff, such as it is, could easily have been scrapped from the whole game. All it does is add menus to travel and provide you with a milquetoast dogfighting minigame. I never once enjoyed the space stuff, other than building my ship. -Combat. Can't shoot through gaps in stuff, not really any form of the decent cover system, mostly just feels bland. Enemies are really spongey so no guns really feel that good to shoot because regardless of how powerful the gun is, you're pumping a full mag into every human enemy to kill them. I think combat in this and Cyberpunk 2077 are similarly bad in all the same ways, though Cyberpunk at least offers better ballistic variety and somewhat competent AI. -Lack of actual content. There's tons of content but a lot of it is procedurally generated slop once you get outside the hub worlds. I think the game would have felt a lot more cohesive in general if this was done away with entirely and you were limited in what planets you could visit. It feels very much like if an AI designed a video game. Just absolutely without a soul. Content for the sake of content. It bothers me that devs and publishers think we are so stupid that we would clamour for the opportunity to spend time in something so utterly uncreative. -Loading screens. I know it's an engine limitation but BOY does it age this game. It turns this game into that 30 Rock scene with Steve Buscemi saying 'Hello fellow kids'. I hear a lot about how modders will fix it, and maybe they will. Hopefully even, but either way, I fear this is the death knell for Todd Howard and his team. I'm really rotted about that but if this, and FO4/FO76 is all we are losing, well maybe it's time. Morrowind, Skyrim, FO3.... maybe it's time to relegate them to the time capsule of perfect games for their times and stop hoping that a game studio will ever be able to completely recapture that type of magic. It's not all bad, though. I'm sure there's another CD ProjektRED out there who've yet to release their 'Witcher 3' and we'll have a whole new generation of video game magic. Hell, Larian just did it with Baldur's Gate 3. Long story short, I think Starfield is an outright bad game. Even if it's not, and it's a mediocre game, it doesn't change the fact that if you're looking to sink 100+ hours into something there's a glut of better options out there. For the Bethesda die-hard, maybe you'll have more luck than me and get some fun out of this title. For anyone who isn't steeped in 20 years of Todd Howard Bethesda Games, well I can see why you would bounce off this one. My recommendation is to play the excellent Baldur's Gate 3, or the less excellent but still quite good Outer Worlds. Hell, boot up Skyrim again. It nails the formula a lot more than Starfield. What a goddamn shame, though. End of an era.