Starfield - A Complete Critique | Part 1

do ever just feel like none of this matters like what's the point the straw that broke the camel's back is an idiom described as the last in the series of bad events that results in an upset or anger that straw is a game that had over 8 years of development and had its own creators second guessing if they even knew what they were doing and the camel is the gaming audience the feeser's massive success in this Millennium can be attributed to a larger more casual audience being enveloped into to a genre that once excluded them traditionally role playing games were too complicated or confusing so when they were streamlined and offered on a Fantastical and post-apocalyptic platter RPGs were in the perfect position to place a once- niche game Studio among the headline grabbin record-breaking AAA crowd but what happens when that General audience start to see the cracks what happens when the issues once only criticized by the hardcore crowd become so ingrained into the game that the audience at large now noce them too Starfield was inevitable it had been forecast since Oblivion it was only a matter of time until keep it simple stupid became it's too simple now stupid while those modern beerda games were lambasted by a niche fandom they still offered a complete package that made an overall good product whether it was excellent expiration an addictive gameplay Loop or in De in law and World design around the valid complaints they were still fun to be found so what happens when you strip all of those back to their bare minimum what happens when the exploration isn't excellent when the gameplay Loop isn't as addictive and the law and whe design doesn't hold the candle to what we have come to expect from the once prestigious Bethesda game Studio stamp over the next few hours myself and fellow retrospective Creator Evan Prince Will analyze critique and break down Starfield where it went wrong and and highlighting what it does right against what the Zeitgeist online says the game does have some decent elements they're just far more disjointed than they've ever been in the past and spread thin across an imposingly wide game a staple of most RPG games has always been character creation especially Bethesda games starfields creation options are pretty similar to what we've come to expect I don't have a ton to say about it beyond the fact that it's very similar to Fallout 4 and I was somewhat disappointed I love character creation in games especially RPGs meant to make me inhabit the world I'm playing but I've seen better than this in games like Saints Row 3 which has one of the better character creators I've seen however they were definitely trying to keep this one more realistic so there aren't any silly options available really one thing I'll say is that I was more satisfied with how my character looked after creating him in cyberpunk 2077 than I was with Starfield and you can take that comparison as you will I know to a degree what they were probably thinking why bother going crazy with it when modders are going to give you whatever creation options you want which is probably true I've always been one to mod my RPGs to maximize my experience going back as far as cotor yet this feeling I got that the developers were constantly thinking why should we bother when we know modders will just fill in the gaps later reoccurred quite often as I played through the game that's a point we will certainly be exploring later how much Reliance is placed on the modability of a bgs game visual character creation is a staple that we all knew would be coming to Starfield and there isn't much the critique here the facial feature and body editors are as before in Fallout 4 and 76 however instead of being able to morph and warp as you desire by interacting with the face itself which I often found quite finicky especially when using a mouse instead of a controller Starfield has decided to return to the trusty sliders from Skyrim and before the degree of edit ability available in Fallout 4 which allowed users to create rather accurate Renditions of real people remains ensuring that aesthetically be FDA are still one of the few developers that offer this level of visual character customization as Evan mentioned this is what we have come to expect and anything less would have been a disappointment remember that phrase for the rest of this critique the Creator isn't perfect for the minutu of adjustments one can make to their cheekbones or lips there are odd omissions in other areas beards haven't survived the 300 years of human progress for example as there is only one style of long facial hair available I later realize that this is probably because they would clip through the space helmets this is the same reason why glasses have been removed from the Galaxy either we all got lasic or the contact lenses cabal strangled out to the spectacle Market these limitations no matter how Miner bring up the question of whether you let the player create whomever they like or if you restrict their Choice into the confines of the law and if you are going for the latter how strict do you be for example skin tones and eye colors are quite limited and weirdly don't go as dark as they can in real life which may disappoint some faces are also brighter than the body skin tone I'll admit that this may just be the Overexposed Lighting on this particular character creator screen highlighting the faces more though it could be an oblivian fan surface reference they've been leaning into that lately but seriously these visual limitations are ju opposed against a now Infamous inclusion later on in the Creator do prefess to want us to create whomever we want for role playing purposes or not Furthermore with the eye colors for a game that allows cataracts as a design Choice why can't we pick some more unnatural colors I mean colored contact lenses exist in our world and if the dust on Mars can turn eyes red why can't we have purple eyes or crazy options like I don't know dark brown eyes the most common eye color on Earth my eyes are darker than this this isn't fantasy I get that they wanted the game to fit a more realistic design philosophy as they kept telling us it's frustrating however when you're given options that are a smidge outlandish yet refuse to go the extra mile I'm not asking for my character to be blue but I don't see why by their own law writing that only the rocks of Mars have an effect on eye color well I do know the answer they needed a neat reason for a military group you meet as part of a fion quest line to be named The Red Devils from what I can gather they didn't add more red colors because their NBCS didn't need anymore I guess we should be happy that they even let the player choose these red eyes instead of leaving them exclusive to those NPCs even if doing that would make more sense when it comes to your own character's background it's really an issue with the universe bgs have created at large there's a lot to discuss there later on it just isn't clear what the world of Starfield is meant to be clearly it isn't an at landish sci-fi game nor is it pushing the boundaries of self-expression instead taking the most vanilla aspects of our own world dashing in a few modern elements and calling it a day basically the aesthetic choices are mostly has expected from beesa then I was pleased to see an additional walk cycle animation and hope that we can get more of that type of specialization in future titles there's only a single additional option in Starfield but it's something we haven't seen from bgs before and the more customization we have access to the better it is when it comes to inhabiting a character unique from yourself this is our first time interacting with the user interface and it leaves something to be desired for one These Bars running down the left hand side of the screen appear to be sliders right they're not there are a number of thin buttons running horizontally for controller users this works just like a slider as you can easily switch through the options with the right and left d-pad buttons on PC then you would expect to be able to click where you want want and the slider would move to that place you know like any other slider interface on a PC no the slider will only move over by one selection based on whether you clicked to the right or left of the highlighted bar which is made more confusing by the design inspired by visualizations of DNA sequencing it fits a statically considering what we are doing to this poor person but it makes it seem as if each one of these colored bars indicates an option again how you would expect a slider likee UI element to work based on prior experiences and other titles is this nitpicking yeah of course it is I fly admit that most PC users perhaps felt a minor degree of frustration and then quickly forgot about it after this happened but this lack of care for mouse and keyboard users apparent on the first UI screen is indicative of more to come onto the backgrounds the triumphant return of real roleplaying options of which have been missing since the days of Daggerfall these are a small step in the right direction however the choice is superficial in the long run boiling down to a few select dialogue options and reactive voice lines their direct effect on gameplay is how they determine your play style for the opening hours of the game as they determine your initial perk Loadout perks are granted each level so this Choice can and will be overcome later on the dialogue options then are the key factors behind your decision barwing your background being the foundation of your character build backstory of course that dialogue is Half Baked the prime benefit it offers is an additional voice line you would have seen had you chosen another background they rarely have an effect on the progression of a quest or how NPCs react to you outside of a few quips nor has the dialogue implementation been applied unilaterally often miss it in areas where it makes the most sense for example when joining the local police force in new Atlantis and I was asked whether I had prior experience my Soldier build was unable to mention his time within the service despite that being one of the main fast tracks into the police force in real life a similar occasion arose when playing as an explorer who was unable to react accordingly to characters who often stated their intent to explore the Stars it's not that the dialogue choices don't exist but that it is inconsistent when they will appear and inconsequential when they do next comes the traits which have negatives as well as positives they're entirely optional if the idea of a negative choice is too frightening and even if you do choose them you will still have the benefit of removeing seg negative at a later Point often for the cost of some currency I am happy to have some variety and distinctive choices for character building some is better than none I will admit yet I can't help but feel that one how these have been implemented emphasizes bgs's fear of locking content and adversely affecting the player and two the option we do have are so milk toast that you'll find yourself opting for the same preference as many others due to the Alternatives being so empty in comparison let's start with that first point not wanting the player to regret a decision made this early they have made the traits optional and secondly even if you pick some you will always have the choice of removing it or simply ignoring it the adoran fan for example can be entirely ignored and left on a park bench after he is introduced or you can remove him fire of methods take the player house too which straight up lies in its opening text you will not need to pay your monthly mortgage there is no system in place to take money from the player like that and if you never visit either it or the bank you purchased it with you'll never be financially harmed by this Choice possibly even forgetting you ever took it traits had the potential of introducing unique challenges for repeat playthroughs motivating players to try different builds many tabletop games have already explored the game design compromises needed for such systems this isn't an unexplored area and again dagger fall had done it all before as they are the traits are mostly a set them and forget them system with the stronger choices standing out for the additional content and advantages they present kid stuff for example introduces wholesome content that adds to the experience alien DNA provides a moderate buff to a vital resource you will find yourself battling with with food items not being beneficial enough for their Nerf to be felt and religious perks offer access to a lootable chest or a means of avoiding combat with a hostile faction that isn't to say there's no point in choosing the other options but when the roleplay and effects of the traits are largely minor the feud that actually have noticeable results overpower those that are lacking in comparison interestingly a few of them have the player aligning oneself to a faction a choice one cannot make in good faith if they know nothing about the game this is one occasion where traits and encourage create an alternative build after you have played the game and learned about the factions except the decision is fruitless be of any repercussions you would think a follower of a hostile faction distrusted by many would have issues while traveling the United Colonies or freest star space or that a freest Star Citizen would not be so easily accepted into the UC Vanguard but that isn't the case the choice like the background has been reduced to optional dialogue lines this would have been the perfect opportunity for these decisions to have weight actively blocking content from the player and encouraging repeat playthroughs especially as they have a new game plus system where the player could experience such changes on the same character of course you can't even change your traits when using ng+ not that it matters anyway with the traits we have been given nevertheless I am glad to see the black slate character return it's a welcome turnaround after Fallout 4's decision the force a strong background onto the player that they couldn't break from except via their own head Cannon designing your character and imagining their backstory was my favorite aspect of past bgs games Starfield is a welcome return to a creator that better facilitates this degree of character design an extravagant backstory I only wish they had more confidence behind the system as it is it feels aerial the Creator concludes with naming your character and it's here we find the controversial inclusion I'm sure you've already heard of you can choose your pronouns which as expected caused some discourse on social media whatever your stance is on the topic it should be noted that this has very little effect on the game you are rarely referred to by your pronoun so this choice is mostly an illusion which describes a lot of the choices in Starfield as we proceed through this lengthy video we'll be lending ourselves to our respective strengths and interests jear is fantastic at recognizing breaking down and analyzing mechanics progression and the like my interest has always leaned heavier towards narrative story World building lore Etc and this opening level is just really mediocre in pretty much every way checks off a lot of the expected beats for an inciting incident opening but man it's probably the worst opening I've ever seen in a Bethesda game when you introduce someone to your world your story you're given freely a handful of very important things from that person suspension of disbelief interest and attention maintaining these things is often critical in creating and maintaining an audience your opening is like meeting someone it's a first impression and you're setting the tone for what the relationship between your story and the player might reflect let's have a look at another Bethesda game for an introduction that does a pretty good job of respecting these principles hey you you're finally awake you wake up in the back of a carriage being taken to your execution you were trying to cross the border and get away from Skyrim but you got caught now you and the other prisoners with you are about to die then we see someone get their head cut off and right before we lose our own head a dragon flies in and burns everything down as the player we take control of our character right as we have to escape through a burning Village and are given a choice of who to follow the Imperial or the Nord which also sets the precedent for the Civil War Story and the fact that tensions are high and we will probably have to pick aside I'm not saying it's like the best opening ever but it's really solid it introduces the player to the world it's exciting it asks questions that make the player want answers to it and it makes me anxious to to see what's next so how does Starfield open bethesda's epic multi-year development cycle space operatic sci-fi RPG you inhabit your character as he descends down an elevator with two other miners as they throw out some Marvel tier dialogue you'll never guess what happens after that we control the player as we walk down a hallway and then we get a mining laser which we use to shoot rocks then after that we get more dialogue I was actually shocked at how mediocre this was I mean I've seen worse openings like the time I covered Bungie Oni on my channel which has one of the worst opening levels I've ever seen but this is not good at all it's not like you need to have explosions or violence as a mandatory for your opening but this is a space RPG this is the best they could do for an opening I can think of a dozen better ways to open this game okay they wanted us to be a minor why couldn't they have had us be like on a mining capital ship where we see a huge planet outside first thing and we see space or something I'll go into some better Alternatives in a second but let's keep going we as the player end up going up to an artifact and interacting with it when it gives us a vision I like this this is fine but it's not nearly enough to interest me as a player after that we skip a little time before we go up to the surface to meet Barrett a member of constellation who stopped by looking for that artifact this is where things finally get exciting as some Pirates attack us causing us all to Run for Cover and fight them off this is kind of cool but really it's a small escalation of a really low bar set by the opening after we kill the attackers we go and talk to Barrett about everything like what happened to us and guess what he does he just gives you his ship yeah he just hands you over the keys and recommends you go visit his group's Lodge I need to take a second and point out yes I see what they were going for like I get it they're going for a wish fulfillment fantasy you're a nobody a worker stuffed down in an underground mind when suddenly Everything Changes I love the idea actually we all face a kind of mundane reality and emulating that only to suddenly make everything so exciting is a great idea for an opening to a Sci-Fi game in concept the only problem is that this is not the way to do it and maybe not even the game to do it with honestly Bethesda games have a reputation for being those kinds of games people play repeatedly starting new games over and over again not to mention people are trying to role play and you are forcing us into a preset role we can't roleplay like this we're a minor nothing we can do can change that in Skyrim you were picked up trying to cross the border who were you before that fill in the blank there's so much room for head cannon in Skyrim because you could have been anyone before they found you well I mean within reason the same no one knew you until now when everything changes dragon born idea still applies there but with a more open-ended backstory that leads into a much more exciting first impression now granted Fallout 3 and 4 did not offer that kind of roleplaying Freedom they established exactly who you were with no room for madeup backstory but in Fallout three that affected the story in a significant way because you grew up in a vault so getting out into the Wasteland impacted everything about who you became after that you might not be able to make up your own Origins but it allows you to experience this new Wasteland World in a way that allows you to roleplay all kinds of different ways in which the exposure to the Wasteland affects you the fact that you were a minor on a Backwater planet does not as far as I've seen come up again in any meaningful way if I'd been the one writing the opening to this game and Todd told me he wanted that wish fulfillment story then I'd have started you in space you know for your big space game maybe that will set a significant first impression on a station a mining station to be specific if they wanted the nobody mining story so bad then here's a better way to handle it in my opinion you wouldn't have the mining tutorial you don't need that first off mining is stupid simple and easy to grasp in this game it didn't need a tutorial especially not one built into the game's opening there's all kinds of more complicated mechanics in the game that don't get tutorials so why did they even bother with this my only explanation is because they hoped it would set a tone but I don't know the ship building is an example of something where a tutorial makes sense it really deserved The Narrative Quest related to it to happen significantly earlier in the game in my opinion but we'll get to that too I'd have the game open as you descend out of a ship with a shipment from the planet surface Barrett is already in the hanger and he walks by you you're nobody remember he's there to talk to the guy who found the artifact fact you can interact with Lynn and heler here for a minute since Bethesda wanted these characters here for some reason within 3 to 5 minutes the station should be under attack spacers running around trying to find the frontier because they're chasing the treasure or whatever that's the reason they're doing it in the final game so we'll keep it then fighting through the station we encounter the artifact in a room and have the plot moment with the Visions the quest marker should say to take the artifact but you should be able to leave it because options matter in a choice-based RP G getting to the hanger you want to get off the station which was set to self-destruct and on the way to the hanger you encounter the leader and you can have the persuade tutorial you'd have had on the planet in the regular game you steal the frontier and blast off from the station to save your own life once on the frontier and away from the station you find Barrett is already there here the game should have given you the option to come with him back to the lodge or just kill him and steal it you know because role playing once you follow him back to the lodge assuming you do the rest of the game could have proceeded like normal and they could have given you the frontier here in a far more natural way if you kill Barrett then obviously the main quest line would be locked off if you don't kill Barrett but leave the artifact then it'd make for a really neat little extra side quest to come visit the wreckage later and try to find the artifact in your ship maybe you catch some enemies stealing it and have to board their ship this would have been a shorter more exciting and more fitting opening for a space RPG also you could decide for yourself while you were on the station maybe you're a minor maybe you're a freelancer maybe you're a spacer scouting the station out doesn't matter but you should be a nobody and nobody should really interact with you like they know who you are as far as what we got I'm not a fan it feels like Bethesda was just assuming people would stick it out because they're Bethesda and people know there's more after it in the case of the opening having options one might argue it's too complicated or opens too many threads well no it doesn't and in my hypothetical opening we've given the player the choice of leaving the artifact which would just open up a quest to come back later with mechanics already in the game nothing new would need to be developed and the option to kill Barrett and steal the frontier literally requires no additional content it just locks off the main quest line and he could just give you the frontier at the lodge right after you go back with him which makes so much more sense than him asking you to leave him on a random Planet instead we get a boring mining tutorial followed by a mediocre encounter and we're on a leash through the whole thing I have to agree with Evan that this is a very weak opening not just narratively but from a general gameplay standpoint notably in how it introduces its mechanics to the player if you're wondering why we are and will be making comparisons to previous pesda games it's because these flawed products were still more solid than Starfield in many areas bgs has lost some of the magic that many of them love them for for including myself you may have noticed much of the valid observations and criticism online typically has someone replying how this is a Bethesda game you should expect this order more condescending you don't like Bethesda games and that's fine don't like Bethesda games I have enough hours in them to concern most psychologists not that lame ass gamer credentials mean anything but these comments are why comparing to previous Professor titles is valid Starfield isn't just weak compared to the gaming Market at Large it's weak to the other creations bgs made their name from I'm making a point of comparing Starfield to games that historically have been criticized for their weaknesses just to show that Starfield has often times done it worse with that said let's begin with Fallout freeze opening the fda's newest IP before Starfield by which I mean it was their first game in said IP F matically it's brilliant introducing Gamers to the world of Fallout sales figures and and general fan interactions show that this was many gamers first initiation into this universe and Bethesda handled it admirably voltech 50s Americana dark humor radioactive creatures and a polluted dead landscape that pulls the player into exploring it and yet it is rightfully disliked for being slow lacking many meaningful roleplaying choices and inhibiting repeated playthroughs with its tiring tutorials that cannot be skipped starfields intro is much slower clocking in at 40 minutes compared with Fallout 3's 24 minutes when rushing through both it has even less role playing choices and it cannot be skipped baring one exception New Game Plus technically skips it but that's a whole other discussion when it comes to introducing the player to its world you wouldn't be wrong for being confused about what Starfield is even meant to be based on its opening ignore the marketing and hype around the game and imagine you've been sat in front of it with no concept of what it is is in Fallout 3 after creating our character at the literal birth of the lone Wanderer and the birth of our connection with them we learn movement World interaction assign our roleplaying stats figure out the in-game pit boy menu system and the dialogue system moving on to free shooting vat combat and decid in our taged skills all before the drama in the vault that starts the game proper even begins that's in a little over 10 minutes of game playay in Starfield we spend 2 and 1/2 minutes listening to quips from characters that have little impact on the game learn movement and then the very first brand new mechanic we're shown isn't space combat the jetpack or how to explore the hundreds of planets in the galaxy you know the main selling points of the game nope we're introduced to mining using a laser the comparison is obvious and it's more worrying that they didn't reconsider this after the backlash that no man's Sky received in 2016 mining as a mechanic is fine but imagine Skyrim's opening and the first mechanic we see after stepping off the wagon is how to use the pickaxe come forward Nord you must mind iron or if Fallout 4 told the player they should hoard aluminium cans and duct tape as they walked around their pre-war Abode as Evan said the narrative Direction with the player being a nobody a lowly minor on their first job surely looked good on the writing tail if there was one but how it was implemented does doesn't work we don't spend enough time as a nobody for it to have any impact in Mountain blade you can choose to start lower than low as an Outlaws child and it's only through hard work that your progression to Simply becoming a mercenary to a lord is enough to feel like an accomplishment like you're making a name for yourself within that world and this is a game that barely has a narrative or we can look at every Boomer's favorite moral wind far in the cryptic open and cinematic you start as a released prisoner with nothing to your name except the clothes on your back and an obscure package for a Schumer addict in a nearby Town it takes half the game to learn that you may be someone of note which again makes the progression from Zero to Hero hold meaning in Starfield you are a zero for less than 10 minutes before finding an artifact that becomes the centerpiece of The Game's plot thrusting us into the spotlight makes the entire mining sequence in congruous to the rest of the playthrough the player can keep referring to this minute segment of playtime as if it had purpose but really we're laring as a humble laborer and ignoring that on our first day on the job we found one of only a few powerful otherworldly artifacts not to mention that we may have a background often entirely incompatible with this new profession how does a chef become a minor or a diplomat for that matter what must have gone wrong in their lives uh but this is where you must write your own story use your own head Cannon to fill in the gaps which not only am I fine with I like this in RPGs I miss filling in that empty text box in mwind with your background and how you became a prisoner or wondering how you became the emperor's friend in Daggerfall but head cannon in Starfield isn't just limited to how your character became a minor it becomes a Cornerstone of the experience that is almost required to ignore the regular inconsistencies within gameplay and especially in the quest line narratives the biggest issue with this opening for myself and the one that instantly ruined the immersion is the lack of any roleplay options with Fallout 3 we can choose whether to take and foro a Marty's pistol deciding whether she kills officer Gomez or if it falls to you you can save butcher's mom kill her and Butch let her die and let Butch live or kill Butch and save her and you get to choose to kill or give Mercy to the overseer the options are tied entirely to murder or passiveness reflect in Fallout frees diametrically opposed good and bad Karma options they have little effect on the game playay except for their direct consequences to the player's Karma meter and the results of a single Quest later on but they still have those effects no matter how limited Starfield offers none of that you cannot be evil or even intrinsically good you just follow the neutral path given to you identical to a narrative driven first-person shooter instead of a grand Galactic role playing game even Skyrim lets you choose a side in the Civil War regardless of how poor that quest line end up we still have this single choice in the opening miners here cannot be killed and in what seems to be an oversight with assigning AI packages to the NPCs some of them don't even react to being attacked at all While others will and this is egregious even for Bethesda I'll take essential NPCs over this if they didn't want these NPCs to be attacked because it may interrupt their AI paing for example then why not follow the linear FPS games they seem to be channeling and have the player lower their gun while aiming at Lyn or Hela preventing us from shooting it's not like the engine is incapable of it Fallout 4 uses this all the time it has the same goal of removing player choice while not ruining immersion and at no point here are there any moral choices not even a dialogue option for characters that don't want to be perfect why can't we refuse to go grab the artifact perhaps Negan hel or someone else and offering them to do it l can still Force us to do it but at least you gave an insubordinate player build the choice of role playing these aren't huge issues yet I can't help but see this as an insight into a lack of attention to detail this is the very first time the player is giving control it should be as polished as necessary this is the company that made a single quality assurance member play test oblivion's intro on a couch for nearly a month straight clearly V tera's mind was not given the same priority given the scope of the game and that delay however QA was probably FOC focused on more important issues if you're a fan of the game a reply to this criticism will likely be along the lines of this being less than .1% of the game and in the grand scheme this barely matters sure that would be a compelling argument if First Impressions didn't matter if you want a game to be successful you cannot expect every player to sink over 6 hours into it to remove the sour taste they are left with after being forced to play through such a bland and limited opening there is an Easter egg in this area hidden beneath a bridge we can destroy a rock worldall to discover a rare NASA mug which does reward those curious enough to explore but it is not enough of a distraction to remove my woes up to this point the player on our first day at the job is sent to investigate the strange gravitational anomalies ahead of us where the sacrificial red shirt in this scenario entering into the glowing room floating rocks are accompanied by a crescendo of strings as the player mines the nearby or dislodging the string strange object in front of us this Grand light show is so good we'll get to see it four more times it gets repetitive a common theme this scene honestly feels like a New Vegas reference whether intentional or not with hel cosplay and Doc Mitchell down to the handheld tablet the limited time within the surface Outpost of the mine is clearly where the polishing time was spent from the NPC interactions to the wealth of clutter bgs are capable of showing that they understand their player base to some degree I wouldn't be surprised if most people found themselves compelled to grab every little thing that wasn't nailed down here this is one of the highlights of the game the design of these outposts is fantastic extremely lived in and with a level of interact ability that many devs dare to emulate apart from a select few and even they rarely compete with bgs's expertise hen mod to take these locations to the next level was a master stroke and I'm glad to see such talented work once done for fun being financially rewarded with our pockets sufficiently filled we observe the offbrand knockoff of Fallout Free's Capital Wasteland reveal musical stinger and all Oblivion did the same when leaving the sewers and Skyrim after leaving the cave it's a modern Bethesda staple starfields iteration doesn't have the same oomph though the landscape is an aor inspiring and we aren't as eager to enter the open world after being cooped up inside for so long partly because we haven't been inside all that long anyway but mostly because there are no distant landmarks to direct our gaze there's no wonder of exploration or excitement to get out there that's deliberate because this stinger and lighten adjustment was entirely unnecessary and this sequence would be unchanged emotionally had it not existed because this isn't the grand reveal from those previous titles letting us know that we're now free we aren't this is only the first 20% of the tutorial at best I can say this is a nod to those earlier games a bit of fan surfice but why imitate them with an uninspiring event would it not have been better to place this somewhere truly unique to Starfield like the time we enter orbit after leaving vecta with the Stinger playing as the Sun Peaks from behind the moon referencing the main screen and communicating that this is what makes the game different from what you've seen before from bgs as tedious as Oblivion Skyrims Fallout 3es and Four's introductions are on replays their introduction of the open world worked because the player had become accustomed to the Interiors they've trudged through due to this Stinger I incorrectly believed that I was now free to explore in my first playthrough running towards the nearest mountain in hopes of Discovery when I reached the peak I soon found that the tutorial moon of vecta did not have any nearby locals to an earth it's endless Rock and Mountain as far as the eye can see no spring Veil or Megaton an alien ruined accompanied by a bandit camp or a distant Nordic ruin we Oban railroaded into the main quest to our right after exiting the miners camp Barrett of the famous explorer group constellation lands nearby it's a minor timing issue but had this happened a few seconds earlier after stepping onto the surface I would have been more likely to notice this as the eye catch and attention grabber it's meant to be I'll admit that the sound barrier being broken as the ship enters the atmosphere does help the player identify that something is up so this mistake is partly on me for incorrectly assuming based on what I have been conditioned to expect well we we did the meme we saw the mountain and we climbed it but yeah there's nothing here but I would like them to have at least thought about players who might want to do this stuff you know who didn't want to just immediately get into the spaceship when I mentioned a pointless Expedition dump on the elevator earlier I was being a bit hyperbolic this sequence does have a point it's to highlight the new graphical capabilities of the creation Engine 2 updated raster-based Dynamic lighting high resolution texture work improved surface gattling and Tria facial animations this area was polished only that the air fit was expanded on this cutscene conversation in lie of the rest of the Mind sequence Lind delivered gets inches away from the player's face to display the subtle dirt and lightting bounces on her eyes it looks reasonable I mean that's the best I can say about it this isn't groundbreaking and we saw equally strong graphical Fidelity and animation work as far back as 2014's Call of Duty Advanced Warfare comparing a 6-hour long firstperson shooter with a 100 plus hour long role playing game isn't fair but Starfield would only be impressive in this regard if it could maintain the quality of the elevator throughout the game it can't Barrett a seemingly charismatic Explorer reminiscent of Orlando calisan type albe it more dorky is full of charm and overconfidence it's hard to convey this Charisma however when his face has a penchant from switching from decently animated dynamism to lifeless neutrality the young canny is often overstated in many games and while I don't feel anything unnerving when confronting these doll-like animatronics in nod Twist by trying to make the most humanlike NPCs in a be the game yet the additional graphical power and animations idly glued together with this jankiness has led them to being thoroughly unbelievable the comparatively static faces of Skyrim or Fallout 4 are less distracting as they don't try to grab your attention instead being an avatar to convey The Voice actor's performance as we enter early 2000 CGI territory with with starfields characters I can't help but feel that these detract from the overall reasonable Voice work actually harming and working against their performance characters that sound slightly worried will look devastated or vice versa and barretts are luring Charisma is stifled by clumsy pauses and glazed over eyes as the game loads in his next voice line and accompanying action they are objectively visually higher quality than previous titles but I can't help but feel that they could have been implemented better it's hard to give bgs credit in an environment of equally large games doing it Greater after this brief introduction Pirates akad pandits of Starfield invade V's airspace attempting to capture Barrett ship as Constellation Are a famous explorer group The Pirates have concluded that they must be treasure Hunters Vasco says otherwise and he's right this outdated spacecraft is empty of anything valuable the only treasure we have is this ancient artifact but no one certainly not the Pirates know of its value the player doesn't know this at this stage but ships and Starfield are capable of scanning each other's cargo holds the UC and Freestar Collective the two major factions in the central system both use these scanners to accost the player of potentially illegal cargo known as Contraband this seems to be widespread technology used in space above multiple planets throughout the Galaxy so why don't the pirates use it they could do a brief scan a Barrett ship see that it's empty and move on they may not have access to the tech or they believe that the ship is using shielded cargo to hide its Bounty that's what the Pirates themselves would do after all again though that's all head Cannon this is the kind of Gap filling the player is expected to make and this is only a minor incidence as the player isn't aware of this mechanic yet it is only on repeated playthroughs that these holes appear hearing jewar say all that actually makes me think this opening quest to against the Pirates could have been used to Greater effect if there was a little side quest later on that revealed the frontier has some fancy technology pioneered by Walter Stroud which utilizes some special metal in a hidden cargo hold on the frontier and it actually does have some treasure on it can't believe this there isn't any treasure that would have been a cool way to tie back into this opening that doesn't happen and would make Barrett's willingness to just give the ship away be senseless but it's senseless even with without that Quest missed opportunities let's be honest Bethesda games have never been known for their combat even so however they've always been passable and starfields on the ground combat shows a marked improvement in Gunplay and fun when you get it all upgraded combat Encounters in the first 10 or so hours of gameplay are going to be completely Bland and totally boring it's honestly a difficult thing for me to approach because when you've got your char character to a reasonable level and you can jump pack Dash around slide behind cover and Jedi force people around the combat really starts to feel fun and I have to admit that there is some legitimacy to the fact of working and playing to acquire new skills and watch your character grow learn and become a better Warrior over time it's just confusing is it sexist to hit you is it is it more sexist to not hit you I mean the I'm just real blurry even still I have to wonder was it really necessary to lock the slide behind a perk I kind of feel like something that simple should have been default and I'm singling out the slide only as an example of a recurring phenomenon there's so many things locked behind perks that I question whether or not they really should have been like for instance targeting certain parts of an enemy ship in space combat I'm really torn on it because I genuinely do understand and even respect the idea of working and growing with your character I love games like that yet I wonder if the combat should have been quite so Bland for quite so long because combat for the first 10 hours isn't just boring it's honestly a chore for me it was even longer than that I didn't start enjoying my combat encounters until like 20 hours in or more I always felt like I was just trying to get through them to move on so I could get more perks to make it easier to role play as my character in a more immersive way during combat moreover with this being bethesda's introduction to the world of Starfield you would think they wanted to hit the ground running you know really show off a few of the improvements in the game's combat from the get-go again I'm not criticizing the combat overall it's some of the best we've seen in a vanilla Bethesda game I'm just wondering why so many of its basic movement features are locked behind perks there's already enough perks to justify over a 100 hours to unlock most of them it's not like the slide actually does anything to mechanically improve combat it's not an efficient slide or anything it's just a fun little roleplay mechanic to help the player feel like they're really in a firefight again it's not just the slide either there's multiple different perks that are all locked off for some very basic gameplay mechanics I wonder if the additional hours of needed gameplay to unlock these actually translates to a better experience you're still playing the game for just as long if you're doing all the major quests you're just doing so with a less fulfilling experience earlier on in the game my experience was thankfully not as hampered as Evans but still the basics of combat leave much to be desired I will preface all this by saying that this is by far the most competent first-person shooter mechanics in a Bethesda game yet it finally feels on par with the industry standard and isn't a mechanical concession you are willing to make because it's an RPG from the verticality of booting the advanced movement of sliding grappling and climbing to competent gun designs and animations they all lend themselves to helping Starfield sit among among the FPS crowd without looking out of place a genre that bgs themselves consider starfields to sit within of course being the best shooter among Bethesda games still means the competition does most aspects better so don't go in expecting Titanfall two level of movement the Pirates like bandits in the Elder Scrolls and Raiders in Fallout are free from self-preservation and are willing to fight a Min and force that nearly doubles their own the pilot is the smartest one wisely choosing to a Escape when he sees how low their ODS are enemy AI is mostly similar to Fallout 4S although it is noticeably more defensive far in these idiots attacking vecta mine due to the shift into a mostly gun heavy Universe enemies will stay behind pieces of cover and fire at you from a distance they aren't entirely accurate at this range but it will force the player to be more offensive further emphasizing the usage of verticality to flank and Advance on enemy positions while avoiding damage melee AI will still suicide run at the player and while AI is now fully capable of jumping and using boost packs a mechanic blocked away from them in previous Bethesda games they won't use it often to approach you I did notice however that many melee opponents often use it as a last resort only switching to their melee weapon in close quarters where it may give them an advantage over their rifle or pistol it's a nice touch that did rarely pop me on the back foot while being a nod to the player that this may be the best usage for the melee system compared to focusing on it as a sole form of battle the game has been heavily designed around ranged weaponry and despite the Starfield direct highlight in it melee weapons and hand to-and builds are both weaker and fundamentally less interesting to play than the Alternatives except for the power fantasy associated with them rang Weaponry especially ballistic guns far outnumber any melee options and the melee system is the worst it has been beam it follows the same free attack combo mechanic of Fallout 4 including power attacks but without Vats to compensate for its jankiness it leaves the melee system appearing as an afterthought and by appearing I mean most definitely being range combat has clear improvements over that of Fallout 4 yet the same cannot be said for the alternate methods of play I can try and conclude that it was F that the player would only use these Close Quarters methods of combat when close to an enemy so they wouldn't be interacting with these same free animations on a frequent basis but that would have given beesa a free pass they cannot be so blind to the players who would want to role playay this way especially not when they design player backgrounds around them and that's without mentioning that many of the movement mechanics that would make such a play style more bearable are tied behind a lengthy progression system resulting in the first 10 plus hours of your playthrough being wholly limited to the basics even sliding is locked behind a skill point the two Clear Choices are between sci-fi laser weapons and real world ballistic Weaponry that have an interest in modern Twist on them if variety is your thing then guns take the cake from futuristic SMGs invoking memories of Halo to a classic 1911 handgun you'll be able to cover your Close Quarters with a deadly shotgun clear those a bit further away with a satisfying assault rifle or pick apart those cowardly distant enemies with a well-placed sniper rifle ballistic guns have far more options than laser guns laser guns then a style of Weaponry you would think would be highly developed in a space game set 300 years into the future or sadly lacking with the more interestes in Weaponry frustratingly locked behind level scaling laser builds will find themselves limited to the mining laser a basic rifle called The Equinox and a few starting pistols the disparity in choice is quite apparent this may be a victim of the NASA Punk design language used for the game as described in the Starfield direct a design language where the tech is advanced yet still looks grounded and relatable due to this the laser guns don't even rival the 50s retro futurism of the Fallout Universe which is disappointing the grenade system from Fallout 4 is back utilizing a hotkey as is expected in a firstperson shooter and it works as intended except for a minor issue where it can take a second or two after pushing the button for the grenade pin to be pulled and the animation to start this is a hold over from the console based controls scheme where the hotkey is shared with another function so one must hold down the key to begin the throw it's a petty gripe but has left me in some unfortunate spots where I've come out of cover periodically to throw a grenade only to find myself awkwardly standing there taking gunfire to the face because I failed to hold down the key long enough it's mostly a skill issue I'll admit but I'd prefer being able to assign the function to a unique key which doesn't require a hold down just another issue that moders will fix if only bgm didn't rely so heavily on said moders the variety of throwable weapons mirrors Fallout even including mines for setting up traps it's in zerog G where these explosive side weapons come into their own and impeded by gravity they can float on a perfect trajectory right into your enemies making their use more of a game of timing than aiming they're ideal for pushing those defensive enemies away from their hiding spots and just like in Fallout a wellplayed shot will detonate a grenade midair far more difficult than with Vats but just as satisfying starfields combat issue isn't in its competency but instead with what Evan pointed out its ease even on very hard difficulty results in combat scenarios that do not offer much variety certainly not if you have unfortunately chosen a melee or hand toand build when guns are thrown into the mix the options open up a bit explosive barrels and targeting boost packs makes for a good fireworks show and aiming while boost packing through the air offers a decent Challenge and TI feels that all important extrinsic motivation aka the rule of cool it may not be the most effective method but damn does it feel good that's what makes the failings of the melee system an issue melee in any sci-fi game relies on extrinsic motivation of course guns are the wisest choice they are the great equalizer and as Evan showed even with the advanced movement perks hidden behind many levels of progression your actions soon become repetitive due to the lack of variety if you want to improve this for yourself you need to go and unlock another skill leading to a game that requires a considerable time sync to match the satisfaction that a gun or laser build can have within half the time or less back to the pirate attack on vect Tera this is said to be the most polished be the game on release yet thanks to a 8mon long delay in my experience that does seem to be true even with the safe file blo and crashing becoming an issue for some Xbox users despite the extra polish the classic immersion breaking issues from previous games do still pop up just look at these hurt animations where the miners walk over seemingly unharmed to their particular spots before becoming overcome with pain or how they forget their woses if they are interrupted suddenly stand up acting fine and then sitting back down to be in pain again maybe they were in shock this isn't even considered a criticism by many fans and is what some attribute to bethesda's charm and look I used to agree when there wasn't any serious competition it is easy to ignore such problems when you are deep within an experience you cannot get anywhere else but the gaming Market has moved on pesda finally has serious competition and it is struggling to maintain its unique position in the market now that it is being challenged small Jun with a hurt animation isn't a gamebreaking ordeal but it is a sign of a failing attention to detail that wasn't as big of an issue with their previous games Fallout 3 introduced hurt walking and running animations why are these systems being forgotten between projects as the Pirates flee Barrett the only other person that constellation knows to have experienced these Visions decides that the best course of action is to give the player a lowly minor the keys to his spaceship and the guidance of his robot companion Vasco why does he trust us it's all based on his hunch that we are excited to learn more about the artifact Barrett trusts us because he's written to and we have no other option but to follow what he says to the letter Barrett's reasoning for over trusting a complete stranger with an invaluable artifact that could be the key to everything is that he's going to stay behind and help Lynn defend the mine against Pirates but aren't the pirates only here for Barrett ship well EML thought of that one the Pirates now want revenge against the miners which means they'll send a stronger Force next time Barrett is staying behind to offer support while Lynn and haa wait for their employers to Mountain an evacuation he isn't completely dumb Vasco has been instructed to keep us on the chosen path of the game's tutorial invoking protocol Indigo forcing no deviations no distractions no Dianes that's all well and good but aren't we an employee of a mining company somehow through some magical hidden charm spell Barrett convinces Lynn to relinquish us from our job position based on a hunch Nothing More Than A Feeling to save my sanity I'll po this down to Lynn doing Barrett a favor or taking a like into the player she does give us an affectionate nickname after all a privilege not offered to the other miners this is all head Cannon again Dusty was just as likely used because the writers wanted Lynn to refer to the player and asking her voice actor to read hundreds of names was unfeasible we cannot deviate much from The Game's pre-programmed path we weren't given Freedom as we passed the false flag Vault opening and we aren't given Freedom now that we have a spaceship and a map of the entire galaxy with hundreds of Soul systems to explore law we are still in the tutorial this is the Imperial sewers Vault 101 and Helgen on steroids what hurts at the most is these occasions where we should be free this is a Bethesda game why can't I explore the moon as I please why tease me with the freedom of a spacecraft and force me to follow your predetermined narrative on a second playthrough when this is all obvious you can blast through these beginning tutorial areas with ease as with those earlier bgs games but on the first time through where First Impressions matter Starfield is actively teasing the player with its possibilities I have to agree with Evan that starting this game with the mine is the strongest failin of the opening sequence our time as a simple laborer doesn't have the impact to the wri in wants it to have and the Magical McGuffin has already lost its significance due to the flippant candidness of those most interested in it with Barrett handing us the frontier and Lynn relinquishing our mining contract both making these decisions on a whim already we are a mini chosen one almost being begged by The Narrative to take this artifact seriously I understand the need for the balance and act else you face the same narrative concerns and immersion break of players ignoring aldwin's return or their abducted baby's son but starfields flip to the opposite where Barrett displays little responsibility for the artifact doesn't push me to follow vascal instructions to go to the lodge in and white run of aldwin's return was the wise course of action to prevent dragon attacks decimating The Province and the plot suffered if and more often than not when the player ignored that but professa still gave the option to ignore it despite this the same with all of their previous role playing games they may push you towards the main quest reminding you of a missing son or a runaway dad but freedom to explore the world and shake the shackles of the main quest always came first with Starfield they've put their foot down we we will engage in the First Act of the story whether we want to or not this isn't always an issue many RPGs rely on their story as the main pillar of the game's progression but this is a Bethesda game as many of the Storch Defenders point out and in a departure from that Bethesda formula the player has been deceived with multiple points of Freedom tantalizing us with the possibilities before forcing us to follow a predetermined path this may be on purpose the whole forbidden fruit taste the sweetest FY I can't help but find the frustration associated with the tactic as more of an annoyance than exciting you cannot explore fct Tera you cannot fly where you want and we must do as Vasco says only then are we finally free to explore the Galaxy as we please the time investment required to reach the unimpeded open world has steadily increased with each Bethesda entry but this is by far the longest nearly twice as long as any other the frontier is our first ship and our permanent ship we're stuck with this bad boy so you better get used to it Fasco teaches us to take off and we're off into space we'll cover space flight and combat later but I will point out that the FDA did learn from some of the criticisms of their opening tutorials as there is a place to skip this flight tutorial and it fits thematically both for returning players and for a build that includes the piloting skill see I said we'd be pointing out the good stuff too Vasco explains that we cannot continue on our way to ginon due to the high odds of crimson Fleet attacks remember when I mentioned how the pirate attack doesn't necessarily makes sense due to a game mechanic that the player doesn't know of yet well it gets worse we are told only a few missions later that we can use the grav drive to escape combat whenever we want we could jump the gson right now into the safety of UC system defense with no problem a plot hole in a Bethesda story line is as common as an alogy used to describe how common something is but this one is unforgivable Vasco is lying to us we are deviating from his master's direct orders because he's a bloodthirsty mechanical psychopath who has finally been given the Reigns to melt some Pirates now that Barrett is out of the picture I that or he's heed all of my criticisms up to this point and is hoping to appease me with a plot of explorable land cre is a nearby Moon that the Crimson Fleet are using as a stage area for this solar system but all of the pirate vessels are or attacking the frontier are arriving via their grab drive so this staging area is redundant they could be coming from any solar system the grav Drive allows faster than like travel the player ship doesn't even use the grav drive when traveling within a solar system as can be seen by the variation in cutscenes I guess rasco had one of those magical hunches in determining that this is where these ships are coming from it's clear at this intersection only 20 minutes into a game that should maintain one's attention for it at least 50 and up to hundreds of hours that this is not a product designed to be scrutinized the effects of kiss and EML pagler rural's Crusade against intricate narratives has left a piece of media that is best consumed with your brain switched off my opinion on this is probably controversial but I don't necessarily mind games that require the consumer to do this if anything many games especially those built around grinding are designed around it games whose monotony impls the user to multitask to provide the ample degree of enjoyment associated with the time- wased nature of this very hobby that's what second monitor videos like this exist for right but deep immersive roleplaying games are not in that category and it's a shame that the brain dead storytelling that Bethesda has recently grown Infamous 4 has led it down this path I spent half my time in dialogue pulling that classic jackiechan wat me I'm fine with adjusting my real world understanding and personality to fit to the world a game is set within that's a privilege that RPGs benefit from yet I can only stretch my suspension of disbelief so far and there is only so much head Cannon I am willing to right to fill in the glaring holes left by bgs's laziness this can be further seen by the fact that we are often given an opportunity to ask certain characters why we are doing what we are doing almost as if the writer knew would have these questions alas these are used as methods not to question the NPC but instead to shovel the reason to the player begging us to submit Vasco reiterates that we are on cre to dispatch the Pirates as they will only keep following us ignoring that we can grab Drive the gson as we please if you thought that Vasco may be doing this to protect Barrett Lynn and the mine from subsequent attacks well one that again would be head Cannon because Vasco never says this and two the ship that that subsequently attacks the mine is already seen leaving when we land or is it the ship that lands during the boss battle onr it's not really clear regardless if that was vasco's plan he failed astronomically I'll give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt and use some conjecture to assume that this sequence once made sense this is all based on the fuel cells placed behind the boss battle of the cre Outpost if you don't know originally Starfield had a realistic fuel system that would require the player to refuel in order to use their gra drive it was concluded however that this system wasn't fun during testing leading to the heavily gimped implementation the game is left with seeing as these fuel containers are placed here and are even in a position where a stealth-based build could jet pack over and steal them while avoiding a confrontation with the pilot captain my assumption is that we originally had to go to creete to fuel up so that we could jump to gson this would give a legitimate reason why we can't jump to gson right right away I mean this outshoot of rock next to the fuel cells and the boss fight placed on the roof just seems all a little too coincidental in my opinion continuing to question Vasco he reveals that his reasoning for Barrett entr trusting us with the ship is based entirely on the vision Barrett needs us to help corroborate his vision story and get constellation to take the artifact seriously perhaps Barrett believes that by sending us alone it gives a strong message to the team who sincerely believe the story with the Visions it's a contrived reason for Barrett's otherwise absurd decision but it assists a player to understand it we're informed that Barrett is personally fascinated by his vision and wants to learn more about it from the player so surely it would have been wise of him to come with us then according to Vasco Barrett is trusting in us so that we will support him this is good because it places a Reliance on the player role playing a good character that will support Barrett's push to find the artifacts because of how well he has treated us it opens the perfect opportunity to work against Barrett's interests and play the artifacts off as something insignificant of course nothing like this is ever explored in fact there are seldom any moments for the player to be anything but neutral or the hero excluding side activities and a handful of bizarre 180° flips in Morality we are expected to conform to the purity of this sterile world I'm not asking to be a levil maniac from the outer worlds I'll be happy to just be able to play Devil's Advocate to the virtuosity the game exhibits and the times where we can be more neutral seem so benign that often times without a companion chastising you you'll be hard pressed to notice that your decision was even that mischievous or immoral of an option cre is our first introduction to planetory exploration finally we are free to explore within the confines of this Landing Zone when I say the exploration on cre is B fairly unique from exploration on any other planet I am being a bit hyperbolic but not to the extent I would hope for the most part the gameplay Loop we are acquainted with here is the loop you can expect to repeat from here on out exploration is unlike what we have come to expect from Bethesda the magic is still there in Parts but man is it diluted to Hell an AP analogy would be a common criticism of Fallout New Vegas where players didn't grow attached to the Mojave desert the same way they did with the capital Wasteland or the Commonwealth often stating the baroness of the landscape and the lack of detail between locations most interesting areas in New Vegas are directly tied to discoverable locations highlighted by the compass and plac on the map when found it isn't 100% true that there are no discoveries outside of these but the point is still poignant when compared to bethesda's Fallout entries which hide Curiosities throughout their overworlds that have no ties to Quest or a location these little pieces of world design are unique to bgs rarely do other developers attempt such detail there's a reason why so many still call Fallout 4 an enjoyable loter shooter despite its lack in RPG element and poor Quest design and that's because its world is compellent enough to explore it's immersive to get lost in downtown Boston surrounded by Raiders and super mutants as you sneak around even if the law and frame rate isn't ideal the same can be said for Skyrim the overworlds of a bgs game are more than the sum of their parts they aren't just points of interest tied together by Barren open Landscapes they have roads forgotten paths and intricate geological features designed to direct the players's eyes to specific areas they want you to find the hidden dungeons gaze upon the beautiful Vistas and travel towards Grand structures in search of Adventure Daggerfall is unique from other Elder scolls games because of how baren its Wilderness is not in spite of it tager fall doesn't appeal to most TZ fans because it is lack in that key aspect that pulled them into the world of Tamriel the experience of adventuring into the unknown of exploring a world unlike what you know unaware of what you will find around the corner or over that mountain it's the result of rampant procedural generation filling the space in between content with aesthetically pretty nothingness Starfield has tried to fill this emptiness with gameplay specifically Planet surveying scanning alien phones isn't what made players fall in love with Varden felo nor was mining resources what kept me sneaking around Boston this isn't the say scanning doesn't have its place we'll discuss it more in depth later but I'll say it's a commendable attempt of adding content to land that would otherwise be desolate Perhaps it is unfair to keep comparing Starfield to the previous games from the same Studio this is a new IP why should it conform to the expectations of their other Series this is what I naively wanted to believe coming into Starfield throughout the marketing campaign and leading up to the direct I truly wanted them to try something different but it was clear after that direct that they are retreading old ground deliberately so too why else would they have developers reiterate to the camera that it is a Bethesda game through and through and what is new to the game is underbaked and inferior to similar gameplay mechanics from the games they took inspiration from after landing on cre we can look around to see some landmarks in the distance and a path leading down to the abandoned facility we are intended to venture to this is one of the rare instances that the landscape has been designed to focus us on a specific route when it does happen like in a companion Quest later in the game it's a stark reminder of what we have lost how a location designed by human hands appeals to our innate sense of wonder that a machine algorithm isn't able to successfully replicate it can get close with the help of some beautiful lien but it pales in comparison first things first let's get the contradiction out of the way I've torn this game a new one over how it has prevented and actively baited us with exploration so now that we are finally free to do so on this Alien Planet I should be happy right well that would be the case if it wasn't for protocol Indigo Vasco is meant to ensure we perform only what is necessary to reach the lodge in this case destroying the pirate base within the facility this is the one time where I would expect that we can't explore regardless I asked earlier why we can't ignore the game and do what we like and at least they have now a piece this request they must have been aware that some players were itching to ignore the main quest and see what's out there so this is is our first taste of that surprisingly bgs were very confident in their randomized point of Interest system as creit does not have any static locations bar the pirate base The frontier's Landing location and the path connecting the two everything else is unique to each playthrough the landscape is always the same feeding off a Single Seed like the procgen system in dagger fall but the disc discoverable sites are generated as you land this is exactly how the game handles every piece of land I just didn't think they would use this system this early on principally because the content shown to the player here can vastly alter their perception of the game for instance on my first playthrough which I live streamed we stumbled across an abandoned Outpost before being attacked by an overleveled alien that will later become a prominent piece of a fing quest line I incorrectly concluded that exploring onr had deliberately been designed as such to push the player towards the pirate base hearkening back to the days of mowind where enemy placement was used to her players away from locations they weren't ready for all of that was just luck on another playthrough the points of interest were different and I soon found the encounter with the terramorph was a random event I came across another one on this playthrough but it had already had a squadron of ecliptic mercenaries gunning it down by the time I ran in to finish the job the fear I felt from that first playthrough was certainly not repeated only a kilometer from the pirate base I stumbled AC Ross a pipeline with a small team of construction workers within the first hour of game play any immersion the player could have left is immediately Shattered by the radiant MPCs they claim that this is meant to be the next high-rise to rival the likes of Paradiso and that they were meant to finish the project in 60 days but are already running over schedule that's a hell of an understatement for a pipeline with no other visible construction nearby just five workers and a single robot truly a vibrant Living World the foreman hands us a radiant quest to convince an awal employee to return to work directing us towards the mission boards if we want more this is before we are even allowed to travel outside of the story locations what does Vasco have to say about all this Sid tring he can't be best pleased we're flagrantly breaching the rules of protal indigo yeah he doesn't care he doesn't comment on our diversion he doesn't even appear to be aware that we have abandoned the main quest to complete side activity I seeing as this is a Bethesda game Let's treat it like one as you leave the cave from Helgen you can follow the compass markers to find Standing Stones hostile camps Bandit field mines a small village and a witch's Hut in Starfield in the randomized version of this cre Landing Zone I found a miserable building site paradoxical with the description given to it by its workers the Builder's accommodation housing the awall radiant Quest NPC a dried up coal Reef a dried up coal Reef a dried up coal Reef a dried up Co Reef I dried up Co Reef I dried up Co Reef confidence wasn't the right word for the decision to use randomized pois on cre it's arrogance they really believed the system that would willingly spawn identical locations adjacent to each other was fit for purpose and exciting players Within These crucial First hours of gameplay after an hour of wandering the most interesting Discovery was the terramorph encounter in the first 5 minutes you could say that I'm playing the game wrong yet all I'm doing is playing the game to the rules set for me if they didn't want me to explore they could have placed High Cliff faces behind the frontier's landing Zone that was how this same problem was handled in the companion side quest I mentioned earlier and it worked to keep the player on task due to the methodology behind the creation of the world spaces if you're aware that these are created using procedural generation then you already know that they will be missing the Little Treasures and Novelty pieces of of detail fans love and if you weren't aware of the proc gem before playing it wouldn't take long for you to come to the same conclusion this isn't to say exploration is worthless only that it pales in comparison with the expectations many have from the world design of bgs wildlife will still wander around you possibly attacking if provoked and the landscape is doted with alien flora and boulders a top Rolling Hills and vast valleys it all looks very competent and it can at times evoke that wow factor we got with the volcanic Tundra of East march or the lookout from Vault 101 but it rarely succeeds in tempting the player to une Earth what Mysteries may be hidden in front of them the only time you'll find yourself searching with great intent and seeking every knck and cranny is at the handmade locations hence Planet exploration boils down to traveling as the crow flies to an icon on your screen the planet survey miname exists to break up these Journeys a mechanic designed to maintain your attention and distract one from the realization that much of this game is spent running between content rather than spending the entire time immersed within the content a handmade world obliges the player to be invested when traversing through it in a way that a machine made one cannot it is Within These handmade locations where one can find hints of that Bethesda magic they may maintain a similar quality of level design found in modern bgs games fast dungeons full of combat encounters to large Open Spaces with more interactable objects and containers than you can count the issue is not with the locations themselves on an individual level but instead with how they are integrated with the World At Large and how many unique variations of them exist I can't say running across my fifth color Reef struck me with the same sense of adventure I felt in previous titles nor did the game ified Treasure Chest located in the center help me appreciate the natural beauty of the area or how realistic it's meant to be it may be realistic for much of space exploration to be empty but is it realistic for each POI to have a convenient lootable reward or a random encounter tied to it is it realistic for not one but two UC ships to land in three star Collective space one of them belonging to the uc's mercenary military branch is it realistic to find a construction company build in a factory only a kilometer from a pathetic attempt at a hotel and a base crawling with pirates or to find an abandoned mine crawling with hostile religious Fanatics living so close to said pirates that they are directly visible from each other this mine also happens to be one of the locations that can be later randomly chosen to contain another artifact yep even the main quest locations are placed in the random POI rotation if the goal was realism then that has been completely lost in places like creit the world loses a sense of believability when such contradictory elements are cramped within walking distance of each other in the previous handmade game worlds they already had effective means of approaching the same problem the conundrum of having content close enough together to maintain the player's attention while maintaining its legitimacy within the world's authenticity for the most part the landscape would use its geography to separate the locations utilizing Rivers forests lakes or sheer Rock faces to impede your progress not that that stopped people and other times the locations were integrated into each other if a Raider Camp was near a Dwarven ruin in Skyrim you would see some Dwarven trinkets in their camp and a few dead Raiders in the ruin in Fallout 4 Raiders and super mutants will have gang wars in downtown Boston if they lived across the street from each other sure it wasn't perfect but when combined with effective level design the player was unlikely to see a similar scenario to the ones often seen in Starfield as Sidelines could be obscured the world subsequently felt real within the confines of their rule sets Starfield only follows its own rule sets when it has been scripted to do so for example antagonistic factions like the Pirates and house verun will attack each other but only in Random Encounters that have been designed for said interaction to occur the pirate and house verun bases on creit cannot acknowledge all share World building with each other because they're randomized it goes without saying that a human designer is capable of Greater World building than an algorithm in their attempt to fill an impossibly large Game World The feeser Have Made It Feel smaller and less connected than ever before when you peel back the curtain and lock upon the reality the limitations become apparent there far more to cover with these Planet surfaces such as how large each explorable area is but for now let's get get back to protocol Indigo this abandoned facility belonged to the United Colonies a peculiarity according to our robot companion as we are within Freestar Collective space this is our introduction to the factions and it's handled well enough we aren't given much insight into them only that they were at War fairly recently it places the Nugget of information needed to push us into inquiring further when we can I hope they don't accidentally ruin that suspense with a long- winded Exposition dump later oh no no no no no no no pushing further into the facility and taking out Pirates we find ourselves surrounded by the result of starfields art Direction NASA Punk NASA relating to the grounded idolization of space fairin inspired by the scientific creations of that space agency and punk meaning style it's the punk part that doesn't advertise itself here there isn't much Pion of style within Starfield at all really it isn't NASA on steroids frust in its design language to the extreme as you would expect from the industrial worlds of a steampunk design or the dystopian technological nightmare of cyberpunk it's closer to NASA but 300 years from now not much Punk to speak of indeed it closely adheres to the principles behind NASA's own design guidelines where the original meatball logo was replaced for being overly complicated and hard to produce born out of hype and art style over logic and reality logic and reality is exactly what the art style accomplishes even if it comes across as lacking imagination it's painstakingly authentic bordering on benign rarely is there any circumstance where you can appreciate that they have tried to push the boat out and appli the clean post modern style of NASA in an unexpected way it's in those surprising implementations that other Punk Styles appeal in a way that starfields NASA Punk rarely does it is commendable however that the opposite isn't true much of Starfield sits within this chosen aesthetic well except for the areas which actively oppose the art Direction in law but that's a deliberate choice not a lack of cohesive Direction the punk while lacking is still there only it's pushed to the side its most obvious application is with technology Starfield humanity is technologically cemented control rooms of a capital ship arouse imagery of the iconic 1969 NASA control room of Houston rather than anything sign science fiction to the contrary the art style is closer to science nonfiction if Fallout is the 1950s idea of the future then this is the early 1970s idea of it huge screens chunky buttons whites blues and Grays cramped corridors utilitarian clothing and cleancut appearances the choice of art style isn't necessarily wrong art is much more subjective than poor Quest design for example although it certainly harms some of the appeal to the science fiction of adoring crowd that may have wanted something more alien and contemporary this praise doesn't mean that there aren't areas of design that feel off throughout this facility we can find old PC terminals following the same purpose as the ones from Fallout a means to conveniently convey blocks of LW to the player this operating system is garbage emusion is reliant on the player feeling that the world they are playing within is authentic no matter how at landish it may be from our own the Elder Scrolls has magic and Dragons but that doesn't mean an armored Co Mech could drop from the sky and fit right in authenticity is key the world must be believable within the confines it sets itself but this UI is entirely gamified the exact same app layout is used for the email system door control system hacking into the backend filing system of Mast buying coffee and for navigating City signage despite those last two clearly displaying unique artwork before being inter interacted with this isn't a game limitation either Mission boards have Unique Designs between them and their visual elements are arranged in a manner to fit in their purpose terminals worked in Fallout because they were terminals they operated via a command line and we could only enter the commands the game offered us that limited the functionality to work within the confines of a video game while stylistically fit in the authenticity of the world just because I'm not given the option of entering my own commands doesn't mean the terminal is incapable of receiving them as far as we know those living within the world can fully navigate them akin to a Dos Spas system without to the limitations imposed upon us the player that isn't the case for PCS in Starfield because what we are shown on screen should be close to what those living there should see I'm not asking for the buttons to be there but if we cannot see where they may sit then I must assume they don't exist making these work machines next to useless except for displaying confidential information to the chosen one this was either a time constraint or a who cares decision which is valid this is a video game after all but immersive computers weren't ignored by other RPG franchises so why should we let it slide for bgs even compared to those Mission boards the starware operating system appears underdeveloped and this is ignoring how it takes up the entire screen and has a loading animation whenever you interact with it Fallout 4 removed this nearly a decade ago even even Fallout 3 never pulled us out of the game in such ways instead laying the terminal over the current gameplay just like every other modern AAA game does and has for the last 15 years this is particularly amateur stuff the player who wishes to read these emails can discover that this place was once a Xeno weapon research facility applying DNA modification to Wild forer it's our first insight into the UC and certainly not a positive one painting them as bureaucratic mad scientist focus on a achieving their goals without questioning whether they should expectedly it goes wrong and the creature they were working on has managed to escape this succeeds in both foreshadowing the UC Vanguard quest line laying some groundwork for the Curious player and provides an aha moment for characters that chose to explore creit and came across the terramorph it's only a shame that the Escape Xeno weapon isn't utilized to its full capability here you can find it exploring those randomized pois but I feel that it would have been more poignant for the Beast to attack during the upcoming boss battle better incorporating the creature into the story of this facility and rewarding players who investigated the law but didn't want to ignore protocol Indigo to wander cre RPGs are genuinely one of my favorite genres throw the term sci-fi in the mix and I'm basically sold the Knights of the Old Republic games and Mass Effect Trilogy are genuinely some of my favorite media experiences of all time and really I'm not a hard person to please in fact I'd say my standards are honestly pretty low I mean I enjoyed cyberpunk 2077 yes so on launch day right this way sorry to keep you waiting point is I can tolerate a lot of negative attributes if I find Value in the core product something I could not find in Starfield but which was most staggeringly absent in the dialogue where I most expected to find it jelar made a good point to me about people shedding off criticisms of Starfield by saying well it's a Bethesda game what do you expect so perhaps comparing it to motour or Mass Effect feels unfair games known for their compelling dialogue and choices at least for the most part so what if I compare it to I don't know Fallout New Vegas although not made by Bethesda it was made entirely on bethesda's Engine with the same basic mechanics and design as Fallout 3 indicating that at the very least anything done there should be doable in Starfield which brings me to starfields dialogue system it may as well not exist it became apparent to me about 10 hours in but far more glaring after 20 that I had no choices in the game a role playing game whose supposed value lies in being able to be or act in any way you desire in a stunning sci-fi universe doesn't let you roleplay pretty much at all your choices in any given dialogue interaction but especially and those involving a quest line boil down to three options number one agree or affirm number two agree or affirm but in a sassy way with Attitude number three disagree normally meaning you've ceased interaction with that quest line and have to re-engage and then agree to continue it you pretty much can't affect outcomes on anything this is likely the most crippling facet of the entire game to me because it turns what could and should feel like a living universe that you're just inhabiting into a linear series of events I'd say it feels like a theme park where each Quest is nothing more than its own little ride where you can choose which rides to take but all of which are unrelated to one another and do not impact each other to make all of that so much worse you can only be one type of character on those rides a good guy who wants to do the right thing well the right thing so far as the writers of Starfield have determined regardless of how you may feel you can be a pirate or an outlaw or whatever and at first glance it might appear that doing so would affect your gameplay because of how planets or stations May scan your ship for Contraband and put you in prison if they find any but beyond that it doesn't matter the factions of field or more appropriately the window dressing called factions don't matter beyond the quest that they might offer you joining one doesn't really hurt or help your reputation which I mean how could it you don't have any kind of mechanic tracking your reputation or your moral decisions because outside of playing like a raging psychopath and killing random people you are locked into playing the exact type of character the Riders have designated for you if these criticisms seem unfair because how could any game take your minute actions into account then let me briefly compare this to Fallout New Vegas a game that's 13 years old as of this video in New Vegas your actions and decisions regarding one faction would impact not only your reputation with other factions but potentially the fate of and the outcome of the faction itself the decision to not have any kind of morality or reputation system may seem bizarre at first glance Until you realize that it would be pointless to have unless starfields entire script and dialogue with is Rewritten to account for its necessity because again the only options you're ever given are to agree agree with snark or just in the conversation this isn't an inherently bad design for a game if the story is front and center and we're expected to inhabit a role rather than manifest one I have loved many games like this like the DSX games the Mass Effect games and more they have a similar style where they have dialog choices as an option but they act more as a way to inhabit the character and experience the story your way this is not not what we were pitched as an audience and even if it was Starfield does it way worse than those titles anyway what we were pitched is an RPG meant to let us create and roleplay our characters our way this was the big reason everyone gave for the pronoun inclusion prouns prouns to allow even more options for creating your character sure but just like those options pretty much all of your decisions in Starfield aren't real and do not affect the game in literally any way let's try an example what if I want to play a legalistic militant type I want things done by the book all the time and I'm willing to kill for it when Justified but I'm unwilling to do anything illegal ever well if you don't succeed in a persuasion attempt then having this moral steadfastness will soft lock you in the main story when trying to collect an artifact from an art dealer if you fail the persuasion you have to assault the dude and steal the thing or just leave you can't even roleplay the Paladin archetype one of the most basic archetypes in role playing history without potentially being soft locked out of a main quest because it's designed to require you either pass a persuade check or commit a crime that brings us to the persuade mechanic which has a little miname where you have to pick the right dialogue options to convince whoever you're talking to into agreeing with you I believe this is mostly up to dice rolls if you succeed which is super annoying because I'd rather just attempt it and have it pushed against my stats then have to do this mini game which essentially does the same thing anyway but with unne Neary extra steps the biggest reason this frustrates me is because I'm picturing how much time was spent from the writers coming up with all of the dialogue for these useless mini games that could have been spent giving me more choices overall what a misuse of resources the unfortunate reality is that each scenario was designed with an intended route in mind this would be fine if the intended route did not so often Whiplash your character into a specific kind of character to justify participation on neon I ended up just giving up on trying to role play certain ways because depending on the quest the morality of my character would need to be changing more than a Reddit user I really never got any dialogue options to let me roleplay I guess you could say that I should just refuse the quest that demanded I break that roleplay immersion but if that's the case then bethesda's supposed philosophy of trying to ensure everyone sees everything makes no sense I can already see the argument that the dialogue had to be extra restricted due to the sheer size of the game there's a 250,000 lines of dialogue in Starfield that's more than double what it was in Skyrim so does that suggest that they needed to restrict dialogue options to even manage and keep up with all of these lines maybe but if that's the case then your game is just too big that may be subjective but I mean I don't feel like quantity over quality is often the best route okay so we have all of this dialogue literally hundreds of thousands of lines that's a lot to play with so where did they spend it I'll say one thing the rule of cool was not applied when choosing where to spend all of that dialog recording space I'm thinking specifically about a quest on neon where you're running back and forth between multiple different shopkeepers and convincing them to form a union together to oppose the town's leader yes there's a real Quest where you help store owners agree to form a union together by running back and forth between multiple stores you can say well Bethesda games have always had smaller and more downto Earth quest lines like that it's part of the charm sure okay but now the necessity of keeping 300 menial little quest lines has turned into 32,000 lines of dialogue which has now become means to justify why my role-playing interactions won't let me have any dialogue choices so if you really break it down it becomes justifying the existence of hundreds of boring small quest lines taking precedence over just eradicating them for a few significant ly cooler and more interactive large quests again I suppose the better option technically boils down to subjective preference but subjectively this decision sucks hearkening back to oblivion's Infamous persuade wheel miname starfields attempt at gamifying speech is no better for immersion than that misguided implementation dialogue is poor in general which we'll get to but this persuasion miname leaves me scratching my head I'm wondering have the writers ever had a real life conversation before the options presented to the player are often disconnected from what the NPC had just said lead into a circle of debate that can barely be constituted as a form of communication how can the player take any character seriously considering their personality and wants and how best to persuade them onto our side when the discourse quickly breaks down into a disjointed back and forth the void of logic the green orange and red coding system can be assumed to be arbitrary one would assume that the green options the options that are generally coherent decently convincing and not the ramblings of a psychopath would be the most likely to work statistically that may be true but in practice rarely do these seem any more successful than the so-called riskier selections the point system to rewards gambling on the absurdity of these options forcing a speech-based player to role player deranged braget as the most effective means of achieving their goal being an RPG your success with said miname is heavily tied to your perk selections and rarely will a player who avoids said perks find much value with the miname bar trying their luck most encounters won't even punish you for attempting this antisocial Behavior either so it's often worth the shot if you do level up the speech perks the mini game is no more than a few button presses to progress onwards you won't have to contemplate the actual words your character is saying as you need only focus on what actually affects the miname that being in the tiered color system and how many points you will earn bgs have boiled down a mechanic that should be designed for orators into some crude arithmetic Baron of personality and Charisma this style of play should be for the kind of role that aims to smoothly talk their way through any scenario not play green light red light in an incoherent two and Thro Evan's comparison to New Vegas reveals the superiority of a game that has a competent team of writers behind it while still working with in the convin of a system designed to progress naturally within the flow of a conversation as with Starfield the success rate is tied with your character's build but the options presented to you are consistent with the discussion up to that point and more importantly they're actually compelling the writing allows the player to inhabit the role of their character whether they be well versed in the art of discussion or a blunt object of intimidation you don't convince an NPC with a series of ambiguous Notions but with with a wellth out response that maintains the illusion of a genuine conversation if your skill set isn't up to the task the dialogue reflects this with a feeble attempt at persuasion allowing the player to experiment with the option without dropping the most heinous of insults and somehow walking away scotf free the problem is that this is all reliant on the quality of the writing over the system itself bgs then had their work cut out for them Fallout 4 continued a similar mechanic to Fallout 3 and New Vegas implementation and was laughably poor in comparison surmised as asking pretty please and the NPC bended over backwards to work against their best interests and personal belief system up to that point while the return to a miname is another misstep I welcome the return of the silent protagonist especially after Fallout 4's voice protagonist made it difficult to role play anything other than Nate or Nora cosplay in whatever roles were required of them within their current Quest praising a game for returning to a staple of the Bethesda formula isn't the highest of Praise but I'm pleased to see it back regardless as criticism should be constructive like Evan earlier I will offer an example of what I believe may have been a better opening not because I think I'm a superior designer but to try and give some perspective rather than simply tearing the game down it's all about those vital First Impressions and starfields first impression could have been far stronger had it focused on selling its USPS and introducing the player to its World building this example may not be an improvement in your opinion but I believe it would be more exciting and Superior in grabbing the player's interest into the story note that this isn't my perfect opening that would require rewriting a lot of the game I'm going to make a point of not changing the writing all the mechanics that are taught to the player instead trying to highlight that there are better Alternatives even when working within the restrictions Bethesda have imposed upon themselves that being a forced string of events pulling the player towards the main quest some rejigging of how the ACT plays out can go a long way in altering the player's perception and interaction with the game for the most part you can keep the intro largely the same using the same characters and similar events alternatively changing the order of locations and how set events link together we're still a LLY nobody on our second job as a Freight employee transporting goods from Mars to ginson Lynn and Hela are our supervisor and coworker respectively they can have their quippy convo and walk us around the interior of the ship introducing the player to the law of space travel grav drives and the dangers associated with traveling across the solar systems as we approach the cockpit after the dangers have been explained a group of pirates grav Drive in attacking the ship they dispatch our grav drive and dock to the freighter now floating in Zer G with the power flickering in and out Lynn yells to the player to grab a pistol from the nearby gun rack and prepare for the Pirates to board beginning the Combat tutorial the Pirates are killed but in the fighting so is the freighter pilot desperate Lynn orders the player to take the Pilot's place as she and Hela start diagnosing the damage to the grav drive as you enter the pilot seat the space fly in/ Combat tutorial begins as we destroy of nearby Pirates once the space Combat tutorial has concluded the freighter continues to lose power and a cut scene akin to The Landing cut scenes plays out as we crash on a nearby moon this starts the cre section of the tutorial although rather than entering an abandoned UC facility we're venturing into an abandoned mine because Hela has found some peculiar signals from within to explain this decision you can have Hela exasperating nervously about the signals with Lynn impatiently calling for him to calm down and check it out with the player if he's so worried to stop the player wanting to explore the planet surface at this point which is my goal with this example the points between the crashed ship and the mine entrance can be designed like Sarah Morgan's companion Quest utilizing Decades of level design experience when it comes to navigating the player through an outside world as we enter the facility Hela as our companion informs us about how he used to be a miner and equips himself and us with some nearby mining lasers the lockpick and tutorial can be within the surface level of the abandoned mine and the persuasion tutorial if it's still needed at this early Point can be tied to learning more about h his backstory from there we venture into the mine to find the artifact room behind a crumbled wall that has collapsed from the vibrations of the crash landing above we grab the artifact as normal play in the rainbow cut scene and then awake in the freighter Lynn has patched up the ship and the Character Creator section plays out as normal after which Barrett radios the freighter as he lands nearby Vlad had noticed the energy Spike of the artifact activating and constellation dispatched Barrett to come grab it his conversation with us can be mostly unchanged as we agree to join him on the frontier Lyn and Hela can go off on their own now that the freighter is repaired and we part ways amicably using the same excuse for Lynn letting us leave the mining job again this isn't a bulletproof Improvement but I believe this would be a more exciting start that better sets the tone for the game it shows off the game's USPS AKA its X factors with the zerog and spaceship combat and only after does it introduce the artifacts and constellation in one Fell Swoop while never teasing the player with open-ended exploration until after they have been tied into the main story Constellation Are explorers after all the best time to have some exploration would be after you've joined them personally I would prefer that we started as a fresh immigrant to one of the three major cities invoking the Wonder and beginning from nothing feeling of mwind but that is far removed from the methods of Storytelling that modern bgs preferred to conform to we're going to have to wait for an alter at start mod for that opportunity Starfield is unique within bethesda's modern repertoire in that this is the first time that I personally believed that they fumbled the open in first few hours of gameplay so badly since Oblivion the introductions have rightfully received criticism but they served their purpose well enough introducing the player into a universe that may be brand new to them to toriz in the most important mechanics and recommending various gameplay Styles allowing the player to design a role that best reflects their personal flare Starfield technically takes all the boxes but with its low stakes in consistent removal of player agency and disordered sequence of events the entire segment feels very confused myself and Evan theorized that the sequence may have been heavily reworked between the delay and the final release of the game this is conjecture but it would help explain the disjointedness and lowquality assurance that begets dis vital opening to a game that sold itself as a one-of-a-kind experience that could only be made now because of advancements in technology with the competition this game has and with its position on Microsoft Game Pass subscription model First Impressions matter more now than ever and starfields are a mix of mediocrity at best and aggravating at worst of course there is far more the Starfield than what has shown to the player in its first hours and we will be covering all of that over the next few months following this entry with part two covering the story fion quest lines and more stay tuned And subscribe to myself and Evan Prince to ensure you won't miss a thing thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next [Music] [Music] one

Channel: Jwlar

Views: 163,001

Keywords: jwlar, starfield, starfield direct, starfield review, starfield bad, starfield good, starfield critique, starfield analysis, starfield retrospective, Starfield - A Complete Critique | Part 1, starfield complete critique, evan prince, starfield daggerfall, starfield bgs, starfield bethesda

Id: GK4E2Ih7f6o

Length: 105min 54sec (6354 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023