Why Starfield Isn't The Masterpiece We Were Promised

[Music] Starfield is not Skyrim in space they truly gave themselves a tremendous challenge the scope of Starfield is truly impressive the gun playay is excellent but this grander came at a cost its core gameplay Loop completely strips away the main appeal of Bethesda tit a backdrop that feels as though it's briming with Endless Possibilities becomes forgettable because of its lack of death what Bethesda tried to achieve with Starfield is admirable despite what the critics say Starfield is not Skyrim in space every aspect of its formula diverges quite heavily from The Fallout Elder Scrolls dogma and I want you guys to keep this in mind when I dismantle much as Starfield core gameplay Loop and design choices for I believe that the many very ambitious experiments launched by Todd Howard and his team imploded before takeoff and be very difficult to correct you see starfields core issues are Apparent from its opening hours you begin your journey on a small mining colony where after a period of of shooting rocks you are tasked by your boss to collect a mysterious substance after touching the substance and experiencing a vivid Acid Trip you are introduced to the central mystery of the main story The artifacts shortly after this introduction the mining colony is attacked by Pirates and you are tasked with transporting this substance to the headquarters of the organization who commissioned the search constellation now many have talked about the problems of the set piece when compared to other BDA titles it just lacks the drama and Grandeur of the dragon attack and Skyrim the thrill of The Emperor's assassination in Oblivion nor the strange charm of the Bethesda and obsidian fallouts but my issue with the intro is not its content but where it leads the player you see being tasked with the artifact and given access to Interstellar travel through Barrett ship could have been the impetus for a grand introduction to space that would have kickstarted a broader journey of exploration but instead what actually happens when you enter your ship for the first time and go to the navigation console you're sent to a loading screen for for me this gets at the fundamental problem with Starfield its core gameplay Loop completely strips away the main appeal of Bethesda titles exploration because there is nothing interesting about the specific map marker of new Atlantis or Aila or neon or Paradiso you'll never naturally drift into their Direction Instead The Player's exploration is dictated by missions not personal whims and curiosity but for me the problem with starfields exploration is much bigger it's not confined to the loading screen the main problem with starfields exploration is the excessive scope of the map if players were able to explore Maps maybe a size of an eighth or a quarter of a standard Fallout or Elder Scrolls map and not lose the novelty of exploration not driven by Quest markers Starfield could turn into an interesting experience that also diverges from the standard one map model of Skyrim Fallout son and so forth but it doesn't try to achieve this balance most planets even those that house the major settlements may only contain one non autogenerated area therefore exploration is essentially pointless when you travel to the planet that houses the game's most expansive settlement new Atlantis there is no reason to leave it and start exploring its flora and fora or to search for new settlements because everything on that planet even the main one is entirely generic now just to make it clear I'm not saying that Starfield is a complete flop I enjoyed it just like a pizza if you take a few toppings off it doesn't ruin the meal entirely I'll go even further than that I'll say that in many ways Starfield even improved many parts of the classic Elder Scrolls and Fallout formula the Gunplay first of all is excellent whether they took some direction from ID software the creators of Doom or not it's clear the Gunplay represents a massive leap from The Fallout series moreover as I mentioned before the scope of Starfield is truly impressive when I first went to New Atlantis it blew my mind with its tremendous size remember in 2015 this was a large Bethesda settlement now Rivet City and Diamond City cool and all right one so on and so forth but they just don't compare to the Grandeur of new Atlantis or Aila or neon and the various smaller settlements throughout but this grander came at a cost you see Bethesda doesn't have unlimited resources in time they had to make a decision about what features to prioritize and what to deemphasize and you can see this with a lack of interesting content in most of the settlements despite their immense size most of the cities are packed to the rim with shops and characters who pollute your inventory with Decades of uninteresting Fetch and I mean decades this overabundance of miscellaneous nonsense and lack of depth can after first impressions make these vast settlements seem remarkably small when I entered gagaran for the first time I was excited Snippets of convos with the corporate Elite city Folk and UC security gave me the impression of a highly interesting setup for a large scale factional conflict you see gagaran gave the impression of a city with a clear identity Cris crisis at its boiling point an angry but proud population suff with deindustrialization following the war were increasingly at loggerheads with a greedy corporate Elite who counterintuitively might offer a route for investment and do good as trying to keep the peace but instead of the perfect setup for a great multiple faction Quest my introduction to Gagarin set up a fetch Quest a corporate fetch Quest another Quest centered around convincing shop owners to help Vanguard recruitment this left me so disappointed that the next time I was brought there during Barrett's Mission I Rush straight past the settlement and into the lawyer's office and for me my experience in gagaran exemplifies the core issues of the game in Starfield a backdrop that feels as though it's brimming with Endless Possibilities becomes forgettable because of its lack of depth almost like a mirage in the desert this is because on the whole quests that actually matter will just take you on fetch missions from A to B and so your experience will train you to ignore large SES of the map it gets to the point where struggle to remember a single name within starfields colossal settlements and yet doc Mitchell or Benny or sunny or temp peny still come to mind more than a decade later the sad thing about all of this is that Bethesda knew what they were going for they consciously made this decision it's ignorant to think that they would not have more than aware of the success obsidian had with the comparatively more condensed galaxy of the outer world and they have a stellar record of creating some of the most long-lasting and distinctive RPGs in gaming history but they chose scope not only did they choose scope of a de they made it boring staford settlement are just that boring new Atlantis is a generic vision of a high-tech sci-fi Future IT shops resemble a remodeled Apple Store neon is less eccentric more condensed and smaller scale than night City Akila is just cowboys in space Paradiso screams tacky and the spite supposedly being the playhouse of the elite ends up looking more like an all-inclusive family resort now I'm not saying that Starfield was a copy and paste exercise real thought was placed into many of the design choices Starfield is full of interesting and truly Innovative design but is mostly confined to Barren or abandoned planets and so in my view does not add to a cohesive experience and this leads me to something Bethesda did get right the atmosphere of the planets now I'm unsure why this is the case it could be the often fantastic soundtrack feeling of being in vast empty spaces but once you're on the surface Planet exploration is almost a meditative experience quite to the extent that Skyrim was of course no game at least for me has captured the pure sense of relaxation and escapism that Skyrim exemplified Skyrim captured our attention so memorably that there's a channel solely dedicated to Skyrim Vibes 12 years after its initial release but Starfield does somewhat replicate this to a much more muted gray colorer almost reminiscent of the capital Wasteland can fall out to but with a slightly ethereal touch and in space so I hope if Starfield 2 is on the books Bethesda learns from the many positives and negatives of the initial starford experiment and really focuses more on Space itself and less on a rather generic sci-fi worldbuilding Obsession and I just want to reiterate before the video ends I'm not saying this to haes on Bethesda they truly gave thems a tremendous Challenge and didn't try to take the easier way out by trying to create a Skyrim or Fallout in space but and this makes me sad to say the execute just wasn't there maybe in the future they'll be able to create a new universe greater in scope than any RPG in history and fill this world with interesting and unique stories and locations but in the present we're left with this

Channel: Cosoman

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Keywords: Is Starfield Good?, Starfield analysis, Starfield review, Starfield Loading Screen

Id: pYq6Uy0-Hvs

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2023