ind33d
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Forgot that I wrote a review of Starfield that never came out because the gaming journalism website I wrote for fired my honky ass to increase its diversity quotient. Enjoy!
Captain’s log, stardate September 6, 2023: Bethesda Game Studios boldly voyages where no developer has gone before. While Bioware’s Mass Effect proved that there was room in the galaxy for a AAA sci-fi roleplaying experience and Frontier’s Elite: Dangerous warped flight sims into the 21st century, combining as many genres as there are planets into a seamless open world was Todd Howard’s most ambitious vision yet. Unfortunately, Bethesda’s eyes were bigger than their interns.
Starfield is a lot of things, arguably too many: a mediocre dogfighter, a middling truck simulator, a mindless looter shooter. Worst of all, it’s boring. Every design decision feels coldly calculated to be as inoffensive as possible—Fallout’s dismemberment and edgy humor were jettisoned out the airlock—which is especially insane considering this game is rated M for Mature. Helium-3 refueling? Evaporated. Survival mode? Vaporized. Astrogation? The closest you get to watching a NASA launch is watching the uninstall bar. Not a space opera: a space school play.
Many unfazed fans set their sights on Emil Pagliaro’s script. True, it is a retread of the same fantasy tropes we’ve seen hundreds of times before: a chosen one, a mystery box, a blonde sidekick. But Bethesda’s writing has always been less-than-stellar. The Elder Scrolls was never about quests; it was about your character. In theory, Starfield’s unspoken lore and unfathomable plot would be the perfect tabula rasa on which an incoming traveler could scrawl his own legend. In practice, this multiverse is so boring that nobody would want to.
Touching down on a virgin planet in Starfield feels like shopping at a looted Walmart. Three abandoned mining platforms, two NPCs asking for help repairing a radio, one scannable species of fruit. Daggerfall-style procedural generation just doesn’t cut it in a post-Breath of the Wild world. Even if patches knocked down the invisible walls and added vehicles, there’s nowhere to drive. Whereas every inch of Morrowind was crafted with a coherent art direction and a consistent theme, Starfield feels like a merry-go-round that Bethesda is too short to ride.
To say Starfield might be generated by artificial intelligence is like saying Firefly might be best TV show ever made. Deep down, we all know it’s true. The scope of modern games is simply too large for one studio to handle, manifesting in Destiny 2’s spaghetti code and Baldur’s Gate 3’s conspicuously absent third act. On the other hand, auteurs like Hideo Kojima can tie together even bizarre and experimental titles like Death Stranding. Starfield feels like a focus group trying to land on the moon using decolonized math.
Too complex for casuals but too simple for grognards, Starfield feels as though it were recovered from a time capsule buried in 1999. Long-time Beth fans will feel lost in space, since Skyrimesque freeform exploration is gated behind an eternity of loading screens. Meanwhile, Game Pass players can’t dedicate the hundreds of hours it takes to build outposts and optimize their starfleet, especially considering how many bugs they’ll have to stomp to get there. Gamebryo’s glitches may have been funny back in the Bush years, but today they just look amateurish next to techno-marvels like Cyberpunk 2077.
Starfield has its strengths. Faction questlines like the Crimson Fleet and Ryujin Industries are best-in-class, rivaling Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood. Shipbuilding can be more addictive than Amp, although the best reactors and missile launchers and gravity drives are gated behind obnoxious level requirements. If you enjoyed Fallout 4, you’ll love the gunplay, considering it’s identical. The perk tree and challenges are good enough for government work: you can make any spacer you can imagine, from an intimidating smuggler to a pickpocketing roboticist. There’s even some minor choice and consequence, plus New Game Plus.
Boarding a hostile Big Rig with your crewmates, zero gravity shootouts in an abandoned casino, sneaking contraband past a UC scanner—there’s a lot of fun to be had in Starfield. Is there $69.99 worth of fun? That’s up to you to decide. Once the Creation Kit lands, modders will repair most of the game’s problems. Already, freelancers have added an in-game radio, a PC-centric user interface, the Mandalorian’s armor. Thanks to recent advancements in art generation and text-to-speech, content creation’s barrier to entry has never been lower. The sky is the limit.
Overall, Starfield is technically competent. After 50 hours of gameplay across the Steam Deck and two different computers, we experienced only one bug. During the Showdown mission, a quest NPC was downed in a firefight and halted our progress. A quick console command resurrected him and triggered his dialogue. Had we been on Xbox instead of PC, we would have been out of luck. Controls and performance on Deck were acceptable and will only improve with further optimization. Though the graphics are unremarkable, even underpowered hardware maintains a stable framerate. We also tested DLSS but found frame generation to be too visually distracting to merit the increased FPS.
Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC should energize sometime in 2024. Be sure to make space on your calendar for this expansion pack. Details are scarce, but fans suspect it will reintroduce much of the cut content from House Varuun. After the title’s troubled development cycle and a tragic showing at The Game Awards, we hope that, like Phantom Liberty, Shattered Space will right the ship.
Final Verdict: 4/5
It’s no masterpiece, yet. Hopefully, the DLC will make it so.
Starfield Review: The Kingdom of Heaven is Loading
“Be careful not to choke on your aspirations.” Darth Vader
“Be careful not to choke on your aspirations.” Darth Vader
Captain’s log, stardate September 6, 2023: Bethesda Game Studios boldly voyages where no developer has gone before. While Bioware’s Mass Effect proved that there was room in the galaxy for a AAA sci-fi roleplaying experience and Frontier’s Elite: Dangerous warped flight sims into the 21st century, combining as many genres as there are planets into a seamless open world was Todd Howard’s most ambitious vision yet. Unfortunately, Bethesda’s eyes were bigger than their interns.
“It just works.” Todd
Starfield is a lot of things, arguably too many: a mediocre dogfighter, a middling truck simulator, a mindless looter shooter. Worst of all, it’s boring. Every design decision feels coldly calculated to be as inoffensive as possible—Fallout’s dismemberment and edgy humor were jettisoned out the airlock—which is especially insane considering this game is rated M for Mature. Helium-3 refueling? Evaporated. Survival mode? Vaporized. Astrogation? The closest you get to watching a NASA launch is watching the uninstall bar. Not a space opera: a space school play.
Never A Straight Answer
Many unfazed fans set their sights on Emil Pagliaro’s script. True, it is a retread of the same fantasy tropes we’ve seen hundreds of times before: a chosen one, a mystery box, a blonde sidekick. But Bethesda’s writing has always been less-than-stellar. The Elder Scrolls was never about quests; it was about your character. In theory, Starfield’s unspoken lore and unfathomable plot would be the perfect tabula rasa on which an incoming traveler could scrawl his own legend. In practice, this multiverse is so boring that nobody would want to.
It’s a small world, after all.
Touching down on a virgin planet in Starfield feels like shopping at a looted Walmart. Three abandoned mining platforms, two NPCs asking for help repairing a radio, one scannable species of fruit. Daggerfall-style procedural generation just doesn’t cut it in a post-Breath of the Wild world. Even if patches knocked down the invisible walls and added vehicles, there’s nowhere to drive. Whereas every inch of Morrowind was crafted with a coherent art direction and a consistent theme, Starfield feels like a merry-go-round that Bethesda is too short to ride.
“Compassion: that’s the one thing no machine ever had.” McCoy
To say Starfield might be generated by artificial intelligence is like saying Firefly might be best TV show ever made. Deep down, we all know it’s true. The scope of modern games is simply too large for one studio to handle, manifesting in Destiny 2’s spaghetti code and Baldur’s Gate 3’s conspicuously absent third act. On the other hand, auteurs like Hideo Kojima can tie together even bizarre and experimental titles like Death Stranding. Starfield feels like a focus group trying to land on the moon using decolonized math.
“It is impossible to live in the past.” Frank Herbert
Too complex for casuals but too simple for grognards, Starfield feels as though it were recovered from a time capsule buried in 1999. Long-time Beth fans will feel lost in space, since Skyrimesque freeform exploration is gated behind an eternity of loading screens. Meanwhile, Game Pass players can’t dedicate the hundreds of hours it takes to build outposts and optimize their starfleet, especially considering how many bugs they’ll have to stomp to get there. Gamebryo’s glitches may have been funny back in the Bush years, but today they just look amateurish next to techno-marvels like Cyberpunk 2077.
“Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.” Han Solo
Starfield has its strengths. Faction questlines like the Crimson Fleet and Ryujin Industries are best-in-class, rivaling Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood. Shipbuilding can be more addictive than Amp, although the best reactors and missile launchers and gravity drives are gated behind obnoxious level requirements. If you enjoyed Fallout 4, you’ll love the gunplay, considering it’s identical. The perk tree and challenges are good enough for government work: you can make any spacer you can imagine, from an intimidating smuggler to a pickpocketing roboticist. There’s even some minor choice and consequence, plus New Game Plus.
Ludicrous Speed
Boarding a hostile Big Rig with your crewmates, zero gravity shootouts in an abandoned casino, sneaking contraband past a UC scanner—there’s a lot of fun to be had in Starfield. Is there $69.99 worth of fun? That’s up to you to decide. Once the Creation Kit lands, modders will repair most of the game’s problems. Already, freelancers have added an in-game radio, a PC-centric user interface, the Mandalorian’s armor. Thanks to recent advancements in art generation and text-to-speech, content creation’s barrier to entry has never been lower. The sky is the limit.
“We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.” Mal
Overall, Starfield is technically competent. After 50 hours of gameplay across the Steam Deck and two different computers, we experienced only one bug. During the Showdown mission, a quest NPC was downed in a firefight and halted our progress. A quick console command resurrected him and triggered his dialogue. Had we been on Xbox instead of PC, we would have been out of luck. Controls and performance on Deck were acceptable and will only improve with further optimization. Though the graphics are unremarkable, even underpowered hardware maintains a stable framerate. We also tested DLSS but found frame generation to be too visually distracting to merit the increased FPS.
Hope for the Future
Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC should energize sometime in 2024. Be sure to make space on your calendar for this expansion pack. Details are scarce, but fans suspect it will reintroduce much of the cut content from House Varuun. After the title’s troubled development cycle and a tragic showing at The Game Awards, we hope that, like Phantom Liberty, Shattered Space will right the ship.
Final Verdict: 4/5
It’s no masterpiece, yet. Hopefully, the DLC will make it so.
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