- [Jake] So "Starfield" Bethesda's next big game has been out
for quite a while now. It released in September of 2023. We've been through the fall, now we're well into the winter and it's the start of 2024. So we'd figured we'd take a look back and see how things are going. There have been some
interesting conversations circling around "Starfield"
since it released, and we figured we'd take a look at some of the biggest question really just to rip the bandaid off is, "Is "Starfield" Bethesda's
biggest disappointment?" That's probably gonna be
the title of this video, this video Gameranx wanted to make. We're gonna take a look
and I think it is valid because if you look at the data out there, you look at the reviews
on Metacritics, Steam, stuff like that, "Starfield" is probably Bethesda's most divisive game. You have games that were slam dunk, beautiful hits like "Skyrim", you have "Fallout 4", which some people weren't too into, but ultimately people
mostly really liked it. You have "Fallout 76", which people just did not like. "Starfield" kind of falls somewhere in the middle. And just to set the stage up front, Gameranx were made of a couple of different voices, different opinions out there. For me personally, I put
out the "Before You Buy" review impressions video for "Starfield", and I said right at the forefront, "I like it, I don't love it." And that still stands today, months later. I haven't really let the discourse or conversations creep
in or anything like that. I played through it, I kind of enjoyed it, and I moved on. It's been interesting to see things play out though, like if you're an extremely online gamer, which would be like a trademark thing at this point, if you're an extremely online gamer, you pay attention to gaming news, you're on the social
media circles, the forums. Sorry, are there even forums anymore? Reddit threads, whatever. "Starfield" has been an interesting one, almost an anomaly. I mean, we've seen it before, but "Starfield" released two pretty decent reviews all around. Sevens, eights, nines, even a few 10s. And yeah, while some people out there think a seven outta 10 game is like the worst game in the world, but in all seriousness, there was nothing glaringly bad about "Starfield" reviews. People either kind of liked it, a couple of outliers here and there, but ultimately it seemed all right. Then as the game released, more and more people
like actually jumping in and playing it, consumers pointed out more problems and you'd see a lot more of that. The biggest thing though was watching the Steam reviews over the course of the last few months. I think that's part of what led us to making this video. You'd see the Steam reviews, the recent Steam reviews slowly, slowly pitch towards the negative side, which now at the time of recording this, it's January 8th, 2024. The recent reviews on
Steam are mostly negative and all reviews overall, the collective is now down to just mixed. "Starfield", as you probably remember, started off much more positively. But I think this is a
result of number one, more people getting
their hands on the game. But number two, more importantly, more people spending
more time with the game. Really getting up in the guts, checking everything out,
and then stewing over it and really seeing if
it lived up to the hype or their expectations as consumers, or enjoyers of video games. The other big negative
I've seen on social media, like in conversations
and circles and stuff, people are very quick to point out like, you don't really hear people talking about "Starfield" anymore. Nobody's loving "Starfield", nobody's posting funny memes and interesting things about "Starfield". It's not in the mainstream
gaming discourse. And I'd say yes, if you're just on Twitter or you're just on Instagram and you're following certain people, you might see that. You might see that things come and go. But the way I look at it is that there were so many games releasing, the conversation just quickly shifted from one thing to the next thing. And on the one hand, yes, if "Starfield" was stronger, maybe it would've stuck around a little bit longer, but it was up against a lot. And to Microsoft and Bethesda and Starfield's credit, they have put out numbers,
they are very excited. Apparently the game is a success for them. Towards the end of December, they posted a big graphic that boasted 13 million players with over 22 million in-game days played with the average playtime per player being 40 hours, which is respectable to say the least. I expect a lot more
people to spend more time in Bethesda Games. But still, the interesting part with Bethesda's number of graphics is they also pointed out that over 5 million people actually formally finished the game. So I know it's their
numbers, it's the company, the corporation's numbers, not like independently verified numbers. But if those numbers are a 100% accurate, there are people out
there playing "Starfield". And where I can point to is the official "Starfield" subreddit. It's pretty active, and
I think the conversation for this game and the fandom around this game has
really circled their wagons and found different
sections of the internet. The actual subreddit itself is pretty frequently updated with memes, players sharing stuff, weird stuff, sharing little stories,
some feedback of course. And all those posts have
a lot of interaction, a lot of upvotes and stuff. So it's definitely not like a dead game or a dead conversation
or anything like that. And in terms of what Bethesda themselves are doing, of course they made headlines recently for jumping into Steam
reviews and responding to somewhat negative Steam reviews, trying to explain the game, trying to in a very customer
service friendly way, argue against some of
the criticisms levied at the game. I think for most people
this is not a good look. I think it's something
that smaller developers, indie developers often do in terms of customer service. They will respond because
in terms of business, that is sometimes how you
can convert a customer. But with a big studio like Bethesda, you'd hope that they would just put out a great game and
rest on their laurels. I don't really feel too strongly about this specific topic, but I know some people have used it as a really big dunking
point for Bethesda, but it does show at least that they are out there,
they are listening and they are gathering feedback and they are implementing changes. There have been changes already added to the game with a lot more detail. At the end of 2024 on
their official subreddit, they did post that in 2024, they're gonna be updating the game roughly every six weeks with a
major big first update kicking off in February. According to the post,
throughout the year, like they're gonna have regular bug fixes and fixes and quality of life stuff. But the biggest things are city maps, new ways to travel, new ways to customize your ships, new gameplay options to further adjust difficulty, official mod support with
the launch of Creations and their first story expansion, which will be titled "Shattered Space". So I will just say, to be fair, like whatever you think about the game, the state of it, it does
seem somewhat healthy. Bethesda is still fixing
things and putting some things that arguably should have been in the game already, but they still have
content expansions planned and people are clearly
still playing the game. You just gotta really know where to look. But like again, with
the bigger conversation, is Bethesda's "Starfield"
a disappointment? It's completely subjective. I think the real answer
is a bit more nuanced. It's a boring answer. It's not great for YouTube. Everybody's different. Where I'm kind of like, "Yeah, okay, that's pretty, that's all right about "Starfield"." I've met some people
that absolutely love it. I've met a couple of people in real life, friends I know that have played through the entire game
and had a great time. And some of those people especially are just addicted to Bethesda Games. They love them, they
grew up with "Fallout" or whatever and
"Starfield" is the next one and they're loving it. But of course, just as conversely, you can go online and
find plenty of people that were totally
disappointed with the game. And I think what it comes down to for me and some of the people I've talked to, just really how the game feels. Like I said in our original, "Before You Buy" video, it feels very much like a Bethesda game, warts and all. Some people just like
that feeling of a game, the mechanics, everything involved in a Bethesda game that
you've been doing since, I don't know, "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" just slowly upgraded. It feels like that here. Some people really, really want that. Myself, personally, I saw "Starfield", especially with it being
a completely new thing for Bethesda, this was the thing I was the most excited about. It wasn't a "Fallout" or
an "The Elder Scrolls", right, with this being
a completely new thing, I thought this was going to be the point where they would really significantly step their game up. Now that is not to say that in some areas, they really have but I was hoping that it wouldn't just feel like another Bethesda game, like a "Skyrim" in space. It does. And it doesn't really, to me, bring some crazy new innovation or feature or tech that left me feeling wow. I will be fair though, where I can say that it does is with the new Game Plus mode. Without spoiling anything, Bethesda just did a really good job rethinking the new Game
Plus mode, how it works, how it plays out, how
it keeps you playing. And I think they did a really good job with that mode. Or it's not even really
called new Game Plus, but it's just how the game pans out. And with that, I will say that some people probably never even got to that point. They didn't get to see
where things got kind of cool and a little interesting. And to be frank, I think they're missing out in that aspect. But there's a lot of stuff with this game from the frame rate, the performance, the glitches and the
bugs, the loading screens, the way the game is so divided up, you're not flying in ships, you're kind of just fast traveling to places. These arguments, these
things have been pointed out on so many threads, on so many YouTube videos. NakeyJakey made a great video talking about a lot of stuff,
the better video game, Jake, shout out to him. But again, this stuff has been talked to death already. If you've made up your mind on it, chances are it's probably going to be what you're gonna end up commenting in the comment section of this video. But my opinion, any person on YouTube, any person on social media, any person in the world's opinion on this game, it's divisive. Clearly, some people love it, some people not so into it. I don't think that really mattered. I think what matters for me personally is seeing the legs of this thing like in terms of does it have long legs? Where does it go? What is the length of time? What is the life of
"Starfield" moving forward? Is it going to be the stuff Bethesda fixes and then the content they add to the game? Is it going to be the community? People don't really know yet. One of the bigger headlines, of course, that people point to in terms of the game being a disappointment is one of the bigger mods in the Bethesda game. Modder Community abandoned their work on a multiplayer mod for "Starfield" just because frankly
they didn't find the game interesting enough to pursue the work, to put in the amount
of work it would take. And that sent shockwaves through the gaming world. That was like damn. That was a damning statement. So to be honest, I think the future is uncertain in terms of like how long of a
life "Starfield" has, will it live longer
than just the lifecycle of Bethesda releasing the game and then putting out
some content expansions. "Skyrim", the many
other games they've made have lived beyond when
they stopped coming up with expansion packs or
DLC or whatever for them. Will that happen with "Starfield"? Is that Modder bailing
on the multiplayer mod an indication of things to come? We don't know for sure, but just using that to try and see where things are going. And ultimately, it's difficult because there is no crystal ball. You never know how a game is going to be received three years down the line. Are people going to be playing it? Are people going to be talking about it? I think some people are, just maybe not to the extent of something like a "Skyrim". If people do have interest, I think there is a lot of opportunity for the game to be beefed up for interesting things to be put into it, for some things to be completely changed. And of course, with that, one of the bigger
conversations is the framework that the game is built on. The tool sets, the creation engine, which has been updated from game to game. Some armchair developers or speculators will argue that maybe it's holding Bethesda back. From their bigger ideas, they wanted to make a massive, huge, cool space exploration game, but half of it's stuck
behind loading screens. Again, I'm not a game developer, I can't speak to any of that. I'm not gonna pretend to either. Plenty of people online will complain about that stuff, but
we don't know for sure. Maybe this was exactly
the game they wanted to make, exactly how they made it. I was hoping for some cooler, bigger ideas in this one. I wanted it to feel like I said, a little different, a little more than just a "Skyrim" in space. The guns are awesome. The ship building is a ton of fun. The faction stuff is
actually, I think some of Bethesda's more interesting stuff. I think even compared to like "Fallout 4". So while there are aspects of the game for me that I found disappointing, I don't know if Bethesda's
biggest disappointment is gonna be labeled "Starfield". I think that might honestly still be down to "Fallout 76", which they did fix and "Fallout 76" did find a community. But that's a different type of game. This is like a mainline traditional old Bethesda Game studios game. Did it live up to the massive expectations people were lumping on it, the hype, the many, many years this game took to make the delays what have you? Again, I've tried to just
talk at all the angles, look at all the different aspects, the headlines and stuff and come to the boring conclusion. It depends on who you ask. Especially with Bethesda Games, with how much they sell, which how with how much they move, there are so many people out there that play the hell out of these games, that don't engage in online discourse, that aren't writing negative reviews on Metacritic or posting their glitches that they've found on Twitter or anything like that. These games or really the games, the Bethesda Games that came before this. "Skyrim" and "Fallout 4" sold so much that they broke into the mainstream. There are people that
just play these games and that's it. I'll use the word casual, they're like more casual players, but they're one hardcore
thing are these games. So does "Starfield" make them happy? Maybe. So it's almost like there are two pillars that people aren't really considering. The first one I mentioned at the start, the subreddits filled with people really enjoying "Starfield", but then also this casual audience, this quiet majority that we probably don't really hear much from. And this is not me defending "Starfield". My criticisms on the game itself, but also my criticisms over the many years with Bethesda still stand. I just think it's important to try and look at as much out there as possible. But again, my point just being is it Bethesda's biggest disappointment? It's a subjective thing. It comes down to the individual, their preferences. And again, we were talking about this because of the Steam reviews slowly dwindling down, some people's opinions trending negatively over time. Again, my personal opinion, I just haven't thought too much about it since I played through it. And usually I want a
little more than that. But that's just me. And we've thrown a lot
at you in this video, some information, a bunch of opinions. We definitely want to hear
yours in the comments. Was "Starfield" Bethesda's biggest disappointment to you, the player? Not in terms of like the big picture, like the gaming world, the gaming community, the industry, but to you as a player. What's your perspective? Are you a diehard Bethesda Game fan? Was there just more of that? Are you happy? Are you someone who followed gaming news, really just bought into
the hype of this one, the long buildup and
were left disappointed? Who are you? Maybe you're someone in the middle. Whoever you are, let's
talk in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. I do think at some point, "Starfield" might be one that we revisit for a "Before You Buy" down the line, maybe a year later or more, once content or DLC or
expansions are added to the game, the little
fixes and like maps and stuff are added to the game, we'd love to revisit it. We've done it for so many games, both good and bad. So keep your eyes peeled
for that eventually. But thanks for talking games with us. We talk games every day. So if you like what we're doing here, clicking a like button helps us out. And if you're new, consider subscribing, maybe hitting that notification bell because we put out videos every single day. But as always, thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next time.
