Pixel Amiss

AKA Too much to see, too much to say

I have put 45 hours into Starfield so far. I cannot keep it out of my mind. Honestly: I haven’t enjoyed a game so much in over a decade. I don’t want to oversell it, for you it might be the worst game ever, but as someone who loves Elder Scrolls but couldn’t get into (don’t know why) Fallout, this has been a godsend.

Man, I was thirsty.

I knew very early that I had some thoughts to put to paper, but I was planning to wait and at least finish the game, but no. I can’t. Lacking any impulse control, I’m throwing out some random thoughts I’ve collected after fully exploring a couple of planets, building a couple of ships, completing one of the four faction quests, the main questline and seeing the clever (and surprisingly complex, from what I have read online) New Game+. It’s going to be very biased, I’m warning you.

Running wild

This is no doubt the best Bethesda game so far. Overall it feels like a cross between Daggerfall and New Vegas, with a modern AAA blockbuster makeover.

• Gameplay is a substantial improvement over Fallout 4 and 76.
• The main quest is actually interesting this time, faction quests seem great so far, and side quests are fun as well. And there’s a lot of them, you never know when a new one is going to pop up.
• The game looks gorgeous even at lower settings, and performance seems decent: my 1070 with FSR holds 30 FPS in heavier maps (with heavy artefacts in bigger cities and some mushiness that I suspect is connected to frame latency, but nothing too annoying) and smooth 60 everywhere else.
• Loading screens are plenty, but they go by quickly (YMMV, to me it didn’t feel like a problem).
• Ship handling is arcade-y but fun. Building your own ship is extremely rewarding, but it can take a couple of minutes to get used to the controls.
• Outpost building seems less clunky than older iterations, but haven’t looked at it in depth yet (the grind for materials is tough).
• Random planetside POIs and activities seem generally very simple, but they are completely optional. You have to approach exploration keeping in mind its scale: it’s not limited to a single on-foot zone, you get stuff in space, on multiple planets, on multiple locations per planet. It’s more diluted, more relaxed — I’d compare exploration in this game to gathering professions in MMOs: if you want to take a break, start a podcast and get scanning. Might end up being divisive, but I feel it was the right call for the setting.
• On the other hand, the places you are sent by quests are much more developed. The level design gets more complex and it can feel at times closer to an immersive sim than what Beth usually gives us.
• The new background, trait and perk system is an excellent evolution of what they have been doing for the past few games. While it lacks the depth of the crunchier tabletop games, it does a good job of defining who your character is, opens up new avenues during quests and gives micro-challenges that reinforce specific play styles.
• Persuasion is back: it’s nothing revolutionary, but it doesn’t have to be. It pops up frequently, rewards a “talker” build and solves with grace what was Bethesda’s greatest weakness.
• Lockpicking has a new puzzle that’s used both for opening stuff and hacking computers. It’s neat and miles better than what we had before, but could get repetitive over time.
• So far only two very minor glitches, that solved themselves quickly.
• The only real letdown so far has been the relative dumbing down of NPCs, no doubt due to the increased size of cities. Most of them are nameless dummies with only a couple of lines. Most named NPCs have two dialogue options and only characters involved in quests have something more to say (and even then, it’s not very much: companions, while an overall improvement, get new dialogue options only at rare points during major quests).
• The daily and weekly routine is also gone, which is a shame because it was to me one of the main selling points of these games. The world ends up feeling less alive (still, it’s at the level of every other game, so not a terrible proposition). It remains to be seen if there are technical limitations that forced Bethesda’s hand, or if modders will be able to add back some depth with their creations.

Starfield, in the field of stars

In the end, it’s not a perfect game, but a perfect game does not exist. It does what it says on the tin, and it does it masterfully. There are sacrifices to be made on some fronts, but it pushes forward on others, much like Morrowind did when it had to sacrifice some of Daggerfall’s openness to move the series to the third dimension.

It’s an ambitious game that has to make compromises: it cannot have the seamlessness of Star Citizen or No Man’s Sky (or it would never have seen release) nor the depth in every single interaction of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Deus Ex (or it couldn’t have achieved this scale), but it sits with confidence halfway through as one of the best games of this year and generation.

Both players and modders have rarely been given access to so many toys in a single package. I can’t wait to see what else the game has in store, what expansions and mods will bring, and, ultimately, what shape TES6 will take.