My Final Thoughts on Starfield

a couple weeks ago I released this video talking about the general gameplay and overall mechanics of Starfield and why for the most part it's enjoyable but fall short of greatness in just about every way today we're going to get a little bit deeper and analytical on the universe story and lore of Starfield while again there is a lot that I really loved there's a lot more that feels unfinished disjointed or flat out weird I also have a couple small things that I completely forgot to talk about in the last video like the digi picking system this video will contain spoil ERS for pretty much the entire main quest and what I've experienced in New Game Plus it will also contain spoilers for these games I didn't want to be another one of those guys that compares Starfield to cyberpunk considering cyberpunk has been out for 3 years gotten many updates and was also a pretty rough launch but the mechanics and story elements I'll be talking about and comparing are things that were available and working on launch I won't be talking about animation differences Graphics or any of that because to me that's all Irrelevant in the face of everything else anyway way if there's something that Bethesda pretty much always excels at it's creating a compelling and interesting world to explore filled with clutter characters locations and lore to dive into take for example Skyrim with its many many many books available to read in order to understand the world arrays of people to talk to and breathtaking locations being the first game in a new IP Starfield has to do a lot of heavy lifting to get its Concepts characters and universe presented to the player in a timely manner that doesn't feel too overwhelming or expository and to me it does as well especially in the beginning of the game in the first 30 minutes you have mentions or Encounters of the four major factions United Colonies the freest star Collective House of aroon and the Crimson Fleet the player gets Snippets of information to extrapolate off of the Freestar Collective doesn't have as many regulations or red tape as the UC house for run space is seemingly dangerous and it's left at that and of course you have the shootout with the Crimson Fleet dorks that were following Barrett as he comes to collect the artifact you find find there's also a lot of organic lore drops in this intro talking about constellation and implying that something happened to Earth given half the crew doesn't believe Earth exists but it's still there genuinely I was hooked I wanted to know what these factions were I wanted to know why Earth was seemingly forgotten and most of all I wanted to meet constellation Starfield then takes you to cre for some exploration and shootout 101 where you begin to learn about the gross biological underbelly of the Galaxy finding heat leeches and cabinets learning about the deadly and mysterious terramorph and getting to know the factions a little bit more there is so much info in the first 2 hours of the game it's borderline overwhelming but paced out just enough that you can parse it through and understand generally the state of the universe the lore also does a lot of grunt work to make the weirdly small cities make sense I mentioned in the last video that the cities in Starfield feel much bigger and more lifelike than previous Bethesda games I can't speak to games pre like Oblivion so if I'm wrong about that and there are bigger cities in older games somebody can I'm actually me anyway while these cities are larger compared to the scale of an Interstellar civilization they are tiny new Atlantis should be a sprawling city as far as the eye can see with millions of people living in it but it feels closer to an amusement park or a mega mall cities and games like this usually have to be smaller than they actually are due to technical limitations and also just sheer work these fully explorable and interactive cities are hard enough to get right on a smaller scale trying to make them match the lore would take Decades of work I mean there's a reason why Star Citizen is still in Alpha but even still the cities are not only small in scale but small in quantity there's only three major cities that I know of and again compared to the scale of an Interstellar Society they feel small new Atlantis is supposed to be the capital of the UC but has like three or four landing pads I actually had a two-page rant typed out about reconciling scale with lore and freedom and all that until I did some extra research and realized two things one I misunderstood the L L and two the reason I misunderstood the lore is that I literally believed UC propaganda at the beginning of the UC Vanguard quest line you have the opportunity to walk through a museum dedicated to the history of the United Colonies humanity and the various struggles throughout the last couple hundred years if you haven't already visited Earth by this point you learn that it was turned into an uninhabitable Barren Wasteland and Humanity was forced to evacuate the museum states that the effort was a success and I believe the bastards my idea of a success would be you know total evacuation full Global cooperation minimal to know loss of life but n odds are at least a couple billion didn't make it and that's not taking into account incidents that would happen afterward mechanical failures hostile planets the big ass Wars that kept happening you know the usual [ __ ] there's some debate in the community about where everyone actually is and what really happened during the evacuation and there is conflicting evidence in the game itself no hold on let me stop you right there this is not a plot hole this is not a lore issue we'll talk about this more later but characters getting things wrong or lying changing their minds being imperfect is not bad writing in fact it's quite the opposite having different documents and accounts from different groups and factions from various time periods does so much to expand the lore of Starfield and touch a little bit on the Human Condition basically we don't know [ __ ] and what little we do know is barely a matter of perspective as well as a deeply flawed memory what was I talking about oh right the whole city size problem I do still think there's some contention around reconciling player freedom and trying to get the scale of the world right even by blowing up the game map to the size of a galaxy with the intent of player Freedom having to construct multiple cities that feel as big as they should be be fully explorable and still work is certainly a task take for instance KN City in cyberpunk 2077 this place is massive it's huge it feels like a city and there's so much going on all the time but 9 5% of the buildings are entirely blocked off it's full of facades to give the illusion of death but before you grab your Pitchfork this is not a bad thing but it's pretty obvious that this sort of thing is not bethesda's style which is to shrink locations down and fill them up a little bit more when you head to places like neon you can enter nearly every door that exists and behind those doors will be something possibly of interest in the first draft of my last video I talked about how Starfield would have benefited from at least having the amount of star systems in the game from 40 to 20 but it was cut for time while the absurd amount of visitable systems do a great job of selling the vastness and emptiness of space it really does nothing else of substance so much of the creative focus and Intrigue is Within These densely packed populated areas but scope wise they're only like 10% of the game the rest of the empty nothingness is borderline worthless we know space is big and empty we're here to experience a narrative as I've discussed already exploration and side content is kind of a mixed bag in Starfield there's a lot of boring repetitive emptiness but also a lot of very interesting and incredible quest lines littered throughout the game I think Bethesda kind of cornered themselves with the promises of a bigger game map and more to see and explore because all of the best parts Starfield has to offer is not related at all to picking a random system and checking out planets after your first five or so Planet Falls you'll end up seeing repeats of the same facilities down to Lord an enemy placement the first couple times I came across a duplicate I was hopeful that I would at least get some new lore but it's always the same messages and the same computers from the same people halfway across the Galaxy out in the random systems and planets is where most of the radiant missions and Mindless grinding are you can go really far out into the level 70 systems to get free XP from enemies but other than that there isn't much to do at least not that I've found what is insanely silly is that the best way to enjoy Starfield is not to be an exp Explorer or Pioneer but to be a video game protagonist by making just a few trips to gemson and Aila you end up with a near endless list of side quest Hooks and info dumps to go look at a location plus the main story weaves you through multiple planets and cities and stations that all have groups of missions to do and people to talk to in these areas there really is so much to see and do sticking to the rails of the major quest lines and side missions is where the real depth is Starfield to me has a very weird connection to the puddle metaphor where it's closer to 10 Mi wide and an inch deep except for a very specific spot near the center where it gets much deeper if you stick to that small area you can get a lot out of it but if you stray away the fun dries up real fast some of the absolute best moments I had in Starfield was doing the UC Vanguard quest line this is not a hot take I'm sure there are a lot of people talking about how it is easily the best Mission chain in the game and I'm inclined to agree but I want to use the terramorph side to discuss some concepts of Storytelling that I think are starting starting to be lost on people in general I've noticed a lot these days people are beginning to misunderstand how media tells stories and that a lot of the time not all information is given right away personally I blame streaming services in the binge model people have become accustomed to getting the entire story of a season or a show or whatever in just a few sittings maximum so if a plot Point seems off or something feels wrong in the narrative it is pretty quickly rectified or explained and due to this with some newer media moving back to an episodic weekly release schedule something will come up in a story that seems wrong or as a plot hole or something similar but because the viewer doesn't nearly immediately get the rest of the story they begin to commit to the plot hole idea and can sometimes effectively ruin the rest of the story for themselves but that's a completely different video I'm also not trying to point fingers or act like I know something others don't I bring this up because I also fell into this trap during the Vanguard quest line let me explain when why and how it was resolved after your initial meeting with hadrien and the anomalous terramorph as well as the trip to Mars to get the extra data from the other people and so on you are brought before the United Colonies cabinet the goal is to enter the armus archives to collect additional data from the terramorph attacks on linia of course they say no why the hell would they say yes 2 days ago you were a [ __ ] rock breaker but anyway right when I thought I would be going out to try to find other instances of weird sudden tmorph attacks to present the cabinet with more data Sirens lockdown danger yeah so very conveniently the new Atlantis space or is being attacked by terram morphs if you've completed the quest line you understand where I'm coming from at this moment I was pretty annoyed I remember audibly saying to myself ah classic Bethesda relying on convenient and lucky timing to avoid dragging the quest out or something like that a nice free Deus X Maka to avoid making the player do any real work or so I thought again if you already finished this Mission you know what really happened and why if you haven't I'll condense it here really quick basically in the colony War the UC had an active Xeno Warfare division headed by this this one dude V victus turns out hadrien is the daughter clone of this war criminal and wants to not be known by the harmful Legacy of killing millions of people what a concept now vicus was supposed to be executed for the crimes of you know spearheading technology that killed millions of people and made literal planets uninhabitable the normal [ __ ] but the UCC bastards that they are were like hey let's keep them alive so we can still do stuff for us but you can't tell anybody because all the other factions would be rightly pissed off at us if they discovered we were keeping the most evil man in the Galaxy as a tool also it really pisses me off that he has such a luxurious cell when places like the well exist sorry I'm getting sidetracked anyway it turns out victus was aware of the twist of the plot line being that teram morphs come from heat leeches and can be instantly transformed by the Lazarus plant native to Tolan [Music] 2 and that he orchestrated the attacks on taet 2 and new Atlantis to help you in hyrian along in a Twisted terrible way what I'm getting at here is that this seeming convenience is actually key to the quest moral implications victus knew there was absolutely no way in hell the cabinet would hand over the keys to the archives to his clone and some random junker Captain so he set up the attack on new Atlantis to be the push the cabinet evidently needed whether you think he was in the right or not is up to you personally I told them the dude needed to be executed because for one the [ __ ] relying and needed to follow through on their Promises to the freest star Collective and the rest of the Galaxy two if he was able to do that with just one other dude helping him he was way too dangerous to be left alive and three [ __ ] this guy this quest line is a shining example of the type of stories I want out of Starfield it has fantastic characters that you love and hate deep lore implications regarding the wider Universe moral choices that genuinely do not feel so black and white and a satisfying ending also I got a free Penthouse out of it so I'm pretty happy I've also been having a lot of fun with the cyf and Crimson Fleet quest line as of writing this I've not finished it yet because it's a long line and I don't have all day to just play Starfield but I love espionage stories and while I seem to be the outlier I'm really enjoying helping out CIS def work to rid the galaxy of the pirate gum I hope however playing this quest line started to really illuminate some of the actual problems plaguing starfields writing and design choices in regards to missions the new persuasion system is straight garbage at first I thought it was cool that you could choose different options to try to talk your way into and out of situations but it's pointless when the outcomes are completely random you can pick the same Choice over and over again again and the past fail is entirely arbitrary I might as well flip a coin even worse if you do get it right it's just generic sentences and vague threats that would usually warrant a reaction like get the hell out of my face instead of oh yeah I will give you the key to this extremely prestigious award even though my literal only job is to make sure nobody touches the damn thing God damn it Todd this is worse than telling Lanas to give up on Hoover Dam cuz uh overextension and history and whatever I would have a problem with it if the dialogue choices were more informed or if you could dig up dirt on a person or anything except you're wasting my time we both know you're going to tell me and couple that with the idea that NPCs do literally nothing with their time makes doing these quests infuriating I didn't want to try to convince this person to hand me the award because it makes zero sense that she would so my thought was that I'll just use my master lockpicking to get into this Clerk's computer and what do you mean she just sits there 24/7 are you serious so yeah if I want to grab this item for Nava I have to use this [ __ ] persuasion system I have some very mixed feelings on the writing clearly most of the time I feel it is some of the funniest wittiest and most interesting writing I've seen in a Bethesda game elevator person Springs to mind I also really like how your active companion can interact in conversations you have with other NPCs and open dialog options more dialogue options are always great in my opinion because it allows you to be more creative in how you talk to characters that said in a lot of ways roleplay in Starfield is very limited most of the actual opportunities to role play and do things in different ways is limited to New Game Plus as the main story is quite linear regardless of the choices you make who you side with in story lines or who you try to kill as far as I can tell you don't get locked out of anything I've read player accounts from people who destroyed the Cy Fleet at the end of the Crimson Fleet quest line and we're able to just Waltz back onto gemon pay a fine and move on which is insane and of course of course I'm going to have to talk about New Vegas when I bring this up I won't get too far into the general concept because many other people have mentioned these main points but I have some other thoughts as well unlike the New Vegas faction system you can commit crime After Crime towards the major factions in Starfield and there's no real permanent repercussions that lock you out of quest lines also Bethesda is seriously addicted to abusing the essential tag for NPCs that's not to say essential NPCs are bad it is exceedingly hard to tell a truly cohesive character story when you can just obliterate anyone and any anything you come across and yes I know you can do this in New Vegas but oh God this is going to piss some people off the Yes Man independent Vegas ending is [ __ ] boring the issue is that it has to be there because in New Vegas you can kill or piss off every faction in the world so there needs to be a fallback ending in case that happens but it isn't conducive to a compelling story while the other three main faction endings vary wildly in content morality they're still all interesting and full of characters and choices yes man is there in case you royally screwed up but still want to finish the game but at that point the story becomes more Rogue mailman kills everyone instead of a massive conflict between two superpowers vying for a strategic landmark and resource to try to rebuild their version of society and Mr house is there too the central NPCs are a problem I feel is pretty unique to Bethesda games at this point and it's beginning to pose a real problem trying to connect player freedom to telling a story or rather the illusion of player Freedom no matter what anyone says there will never be a video game that gives the player true Freedom unless you want to get into AI writing and voicing and stuff but all that is a bunch of regurgitator [ __ ] and cannot create anything of true substance so I believe that development teams like Bethesda should just stop trying to pursue it in that way because it will almost always fall flat break immersion or convince people that a game they're about to play is what it isn't specifically with essential NPCs that idea should kind of just be done away instead if you're in an area with NPCs that you don't want killed just don't let the player do anything cyberpunk does a great job at this there are so many characters there that cannot be killed because they are essential to the plot but instead of letting you shoot them and down them CD project red just doesn't let you even draw in the areas where they are or forces your gun down if you point at them maybe this is controversial I don't know but I mean if you're going to put a player into a room with a bunch of NPCs you are already going to Mark as unkillable just don't even let the player try because then you get into the illusion of choice yeah sure you can draw and shoot anybody you want but it's a dice roll on if they're actually going to die or not also there's so many areas where you're told not to draw your weapons and nothing happens if you do like come on man this doesn't Fallout this is supposed to be a functioning civilized society people should get annoyed if you're walking around pointing your sniper rifle at everyone as for the whole rest of the faction issue Starfield could have pretty easily done a great job of making them closer to the New Vegas style being able to get yourself completely added to a faction [ __ ] list would have a profound impact on role play and travel for example being added to wanted lists having to carefully avoid scans or using a better persuasion system to lie or bribe your way into security leaving you alone or just needing to straight up avoid faction space this would entirely change the gameplay and break up so much of the sameness that exists in Starfield for factions that are supposed to be very different they all act kind of the same towards you if you wrong them and again it doesn't stick I think a big reason why this wasn't explored is because of the location of constellation and its Central role to the main story unfortunately to progress through the main story at least before New Game Plus no matter what you do in side quests you have to return to the lodge or the eye for Mission pickups meaning you will always have to at least enter United Colony space it's simply unavoidable even what little faction based roleplay is there would be infinitely improved by moving constellation's main base to neutral space hell it would make a lot of the story in lore better constellation is a ragtag group of explorers that come from every faction some of which are not so friendly to the UC also apparently most people don't even know constellation is still around even though they're literal base of [ __ ] operations is a hop and Es skip from the new Atlantis Metro Bethesda really wanted constellation to be another sort of graybeard situation an elusive group of mysterious Masters but then they also wanted the HQ to be within walking distance of most of the other main quest [ __ ] because reasons dude I don't know sometimes this game amazes me and then sometimes it feels really really phoned in the funny part is even despite my problems with how constellation is handled and apparently I'm massively in disagreement with most of the community here I fell in love with the organization and members of constellation and so much of the side characters are great yeah I really liked constellation and every character in it what I appreciate the most is that every single character is different having their own great traits and flaws Sarah is driven and intelligent but is a massive UC boot licker Sam is tough and adventurous but definitely has some self-confidence issues Barrett is witty and cool with you stealing [ __ ] but has problems connecting to people emotionally Walter is Rich but he's rich and so on and so forth I guess I am pretty easy to please especially when space is involved but I had a ball of a time getting to know all the members before I get into my favorite character moments I want to address something I keep seeing people complain about because they miss the entire point of something Sarah says at the beginning of the game when you join up with constellation she gives you a speech about doing whatever as long as you don't dve draw negative attention to Constellation specifically people take issue with what she says here every member of constellation is their own conscience understood because later when they have her as an active companion they'll do something she doesn't like she doesn't want to be their companion anymore if you're somebody who took issue with this let me ask you something did you get kicked out of constellation did you get locked out of the rest of the game no great there's no disconnect or plot hole or character inconsistency you still get to be your own conscience but guess what Sarah is actual character with likes and dislikes you can do whatever you want but she doesn't have to like it however there is a distinct lack of companions that are truly cool with you playing an evil character which leaves a really big hole I remember Fallout 4 having strong whose Affinity genuinely goes up if you commit cannibalism so yeah Starfield could use a companion or two that are chill with that sort of thing but don't complain about misunderstanding characters and then them deciding not to be your companion anymore I'm trying my hardest to stick to to just talking about my opinions on the game but God some people in the game discourse are insufferably [ __ ] at reading comprehension anyway just in case you forgot this is a spoiler video spoiler alert a good majority of my time playing the main storyline was spent talking to the various mini members of constellation I truly felt a connection with at least the four you can have as active Companions and I was heartbroken when Sarah died in my first playthrough well okay at first I was annoyed because the directly previous Quest I did with the scow and everything really annoyed me because again the [ __ ] persuasion system sucks and I ended up having to steal the artifact and kill everyone on board which I did not want to do I'm sure many other people did that with pure enjoyment but I like playing a good character damn it plus it felt like I was suddenly thrust into a point of no return with no warning it took some time to sink in because it happened so quickly but because I had gone through Sarah's entire quest line it stung it really hit during the funeral Quest I understand that apparently it's relative atively generic save for a few voice lines about the member who died but since it was my first time doing it it was effective and talking to everyone afterward understanding their grief process especially talking to the kid We rescued on copia was Soul crushing in the best way I'm not sure why but themes of loss and mourning have been hitting me hard lately maybe it's because I'm not a kid anymore and the possibility of loss just gets higher as you age but right now it's one of the most impactful themes to me and honestly while I think for a lot of the game Bethesda has been pretty cowardly I have have to admire the balls on the riders for killing one of your two highest Affinity Companions and basically making you choose between them also in hindsight that's kind of how things are you don't really get a warning before tragedy occurs it just happens and you are left to pick up the pieces pretty cool storytelling right there and it was that entire sequence that pulled me head first back into the story after the Scout Quest very nearly put me off actually really quick let me talk about the Scout Quest and why I hated it as you come in close you have to convince the crew to allow you to dock as they they believe constellation is little more than thieves I wanted to set out to prove them wrong by bartering polite conversation and convincing scientific tact I don't know something but no the only way to get the artifact is to steal it from them literally proving them right in fact as I was making my way to the unity I went into a rift that took me back there to be like see you're not a good person you stole an artifact from this guy maybe you don't deserve to do this and I'm over here saying yeah but you didn't give me much of a choice so yeah thank Christ for somebody deciding to kill off a major side character because I was about ready to throw in the towel the companion quest lines themselves are really good as well so far I've only done Sarah's and inas but I'm pretty sure I was closing in on Sam's Quest until the hunter hit and threw me into overdrive to complete the story I was also running out of time to get the initial video out so I had to foro some stuff to finish the game on Time not only did these quest lines do so much to enrich the characters their motivations and why they're in constellation they also did a lot of work to enrich the world I sincerely hope there's more content either in the future or in parts of the Galaxy I just haven't explored yet involving house Fon that faction entirely intrigues me and I am so pumped to learn more in fact besides the Vanguard quest line these two sections were the most consistently fun engaging and interesting story lines in the game for both of them once I started the mission I had to see them through to the end because I was just so infested but that brings us to the mostly shining star of the entire game in my opinion which is the overall story I truly believe that just like with the misunderstanding of certain Companions and how they act toward the player some of the negative reactions to the story and the way it shakes out come from assumptions preconceived notions or flat out lack of comprehension however there are again huge ways that Bethesda fall short but I have some thoughts on these as well as some possible solutions that they could have implemented from the beginning for starters this is not a chosen one story as some people seem to think based on the intro itard has feel like it that's what I thought at first too you touch a random piece of metal and have a vision that nobody around you shares in fact after you wake up you can see Lynn holding the artifact tucked under her arm but this is not the case it is heavily and frequently implied that the first person to touch an artifact after retrieving it from its burial site is the only one that will have a vision associated with it this is reinforced by the few times you collect an artifact from elsewhere and do not experience the vision as well as a mentioned when talking to Petrov on the scow that the person he bought his artifact from had the vision but when you collect it you don't the idea of it being chosen one esque is also due to the powers you collect throughout the game being very akin to the Skyrim shouts but again anyone can get them in fact Barrett's companion quest line literally involves getting him a power yes there's a little bit of insane protagonist plot armor that is present but that's just the nature of gameplay in the context of the story you could be anybody every person that exists in the universe of Starfield is capable of finding the artifacts and assembling the armaly you just happen to be playing as the character who does in this universe another major complaint I see a lot is how the story begins and how it railroads you into joining constellation the thing here is it is literally the main story of the game for the player character to join up with them Railroad and Main stories are like the staple of modern Bethesda but I'm not saying this as a defense in fact just like how I mentioned it would have probably been better for them to narrow the scope and World size sometimes I wonder if Bethesda would be better Suited to stop trying to Market their games as huge Freedom oriented RPG sandboxes and focus more on the linearity they so clearly want to do with their stories but like I've seen people annoyed you can't just piss off in a random Direction at the beginning and you have to take the frontier to jemson personally I think it's a good hook and in the context of the story clearly something Barrett has pulled before project Indigo and I get it most of the expectation comes from Skyrim where after the beginning of the game you can just go off in any direction and do whatever there was clearly really a battle of some sort fought over wanting to tell a linear story and letting the player freely explore and discover their own I guess it's down to personal preference but I don't want another space game where I have to go off and find the fun myself I wanted a good story and damn it that's what I got simply put I love starfields main story maybe it's the space nerd in me but it just hit all the right notes and it brings me back to the idea of exploration and Discovery as it's a story- based game the nature of Discovery is connected to the characters and driving narrative the goal is not to explore a thousand worlds to just find neat things or do space Trucking again this isn't a space Sim as a member of constellation your goals are constellation's goals which come down to the deeper Mysteries and questions of the universe like what is the purpose of the artifacts who made the artifacts who are the starborn why does this guy look like Tom Holland how does this planet have trees but no oxygen the last two are jokes but it's important to remember the purpose and Writer's intent man it just does exactly what I want mysterious possible precursor race check funny wacky but interesting Side characters and companions check space based sci-fi [ __ ] that is just fun check the crushing weight that we are insignificant nothing we have done or ever do will actually matter in the long run because we've been here for a fraction of a fraction of existence and if we disappeared tomorrow literally nothing would change check space is big and terrifying and mysterious and so so cool I have 700 goddamn hours loged in Stellaris because I just like looking at the funny space stuff so yeah I'm a sucker for a space story what I think I like the most is it doesn't revolve around saving the universe or trying to make some massive change it's a personal story about curiosity self-discovery and the nature of existence but again it's not all perfect I already complained about the whole scow thing but there is another glaring problem Starfield has story-wise and that is until the hunter decides to come a knocking for your favorite companion there's pretty much no Stakes no reason to get deep into the artifact hunting and main quest except for your own curiosity but with all of the other quest lines and and stuff to look at the main story isn't the only thing demanding your attention just like how the Hunter's involvement kept me from giving up after the disaster that is the scows quest it also quickly ramps up the stakes to a proper race against a presumed Superior being and that really led a fire under my ass I guess this is another not so agreed on take but the twist of the true identity of the starborn had me before then I was under the assumption they were some sort of progenitor alien race or something but no turns out they are regular people who have been reborn into something more judg all you want but the reveal of the hunter being a version of keeper aquilis and the Emissary being a version of Sarah from different universes was something I would have never guessed and I was hooked in for the rest of the game through the characters of The Hunter and the Emissary Starfield actually has a lot to say about the nature of how people approach an action RPG like bethesda's many titles especially through New Game Plus upon completing the armal are and jumping through You Begin Again remade into the starborn restarting with your levels and skills but losing everything else except for for a new ship and a sweet ass armor set the implication is you can do it all again find the temples upgrade your abilities and become more powerful now honestly the ship is complete and total dog [ __ ] and the armor is not much better but the gear within shops is tied to the almighty level list so getting better gear isn't that difficult especially since it is so easy to make money I know the themes presented here aren't exactly profound but the hunter I thought is a pretty good mirror into the average RPG enjoyer in essence he represents the pointless futility of replaying the same game over and over again experiencing the same story foregoing everything else to the point where it feels pointless before you write that hate comment to be clear neither I nor the game are saying it's bad to experience something over again but it ties into what people are saying about the new game plus I've seen time and again people expressing that they don't want to complete the story because they would leave behind this world they've created and have to restart and it feels pointless to do so I want to postulate that this is exact L the point the hunter tells you flat out he's done the cycle countless times and has basically grown numb his entire goal is to collect the artifacts as quickly and as easily as he can just to gain a tiny bit of power does this not mirror the endless pile of XP farm guides and grinding guides and repeatable exploits mindless menial even tedious tasks just to level up one more time and get a tiny bit of power he's a defeated shell of what used to be a man stuck in an endless cycle of his own making what if one day he decided to just stop to stay in the universe disregard some arbitrary power and just try to live when you enter the unity you are given a choice leave your Universe your friends your companions hell your spouse if you decided to go that route with somebody to chase some mystery that you've been told has no answer or do you stay live in the universe that you helped shape and live well Starfield has no definite ending if you choose to go through the unity you go into new game plus if you choose to stay you stay and continue the game as normal either way the game doesn't force you to finish your story there isn't a c off where you're told that's it you're done you can turn it off now that's the third choice be done end the story on your own terms for the purposes of talking about Starfield I went through the unity to get an understanding of how it ends and how New Game Plus begins as well as the sort of choices you can make I was honestly devastated about having to leave these characters before finishing I made certain to talk to every single constellation member to get their thoughts on what was about to happen I'm actually not sure my writing skill is up to the level to which I can explain the complex feelings I had talking to them all but it actually felt wrong for me to leave as I was working this interpretation out from my head onto the document that I wrote this script on a thought kept nagging me if the true impossible best ending is to end the story and be done why play it all if that's the case isn't Starfield itself saying it isn't worth it to play if the hunter mirrors the player is Todd saying he thinks we're sad people just going through the game to reach an arbitrary number no games like this one are what you make of it mostly if you get enjoyment happiness entertainment or really any feeling out of it it's worth it there hits a point where you no longer feel these things and it becomes empty if it gets there and you continue out of some vain sense of completion or something else then you've become the hunter stuck in an endless cycle of your own making personally I felt a wide range of emotions playing Starfield Joy anger depression excitement and so many more if you didn't that's fine if you're somebody who played some of the game found you weren't having fun stopped playing and moved on congratulations you got the good ending even if if you don't know it we're all different and our paths are all different some of us like me will continue to get something from Starfield for years to come others won't but if every time you open Starfield or any game for that matter and you still feel something you win but that's just my interpretation I've said it before but I believe video games do fall under art and a narrative most certainly does and art is subjective maybe you think I'm completely wrong about the themes of the game I certainly believe there are a decent amount of people who fundamentally misunderstood about half the quests and characters but hey like I said we're all different I'm really curious as to what everyone else thinks of the general themes and the ending but I'm not going to get in any arguments or fights if you're going to just leave a pointedly negative comment just don't move on I don't care I have a couple parting thoughts regarding new game plus and a few other mechanics that don't really fit into an entire chapter so I'll just kind of lightning round them out apart from my interpretation of the story and thematic implications I found the options in New Game Plus lacking it's cool that you can immediately spill about everything to Constellation but you also have a lot of knowledge about other hugely important things heat leeches or teram morphs that you can't say [ __ ] about maybe it's a mechanical thing and would break stuff but come on you guys had to think that would play a factor right though it is neat to be doing a side quest and see the starborne option pop up to skip the section or something I like it I just wish it was expanded upon more I also really like the new lockpick Min game it actually feels like a puzzle and not just a repeat trial and error however it would be nice if on like the last security level you could automatically unlock novice Andor Advanced locks because it does get tiring in the late game with all that said I think that is the book closed on Starfield for the time being I said in the last video but I'll probably revisit the game in 6 months to a year or so when the modding scene is exploded and there's updates or DLC I also have a couple announcements and changes coming up regarding streaming and some other stuff so stay tuned all right that's all I have for you today have a wonderful day and don't get stuck in any depressing endless Cycles I'll see you next [Music] [Music] time [Music]

Channel: seththepotate

Views: 25,731

Keywords: starfield, starfield review, starfield gameplay, starfield positive review, starfield neutral review, starfield story, starfield story explained, starborn starfield, constellation, unity, the hunter starfield, the emissary starfield, review starfield, starfield negative review, starfield is good, starfield good, bethesda, bethesda starfield, starfield 2023, starfield is amazing, starfield is bad, starfield rant

Id: U5ZYiA1q4bA

Length: 37min 32sec (2252 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2023