Starfield is one of those games where the more I play it, the less I like it. 20 hours into the game it felt like an 8 or 9 out of 10. 50 hours in, I was down to a 7. And now that I’ve spent over 100 hours adventuring in Todd Howard’s space-faring magnum opus, I’ve come to the painful realization that Starfield is the most “mid” game Bethesda has ever created.
And one of the biggest reasons for this is that Bethesda hasn’t adapted their game design or overall formula for over a decade, which leads to Starfield feeling outdated compared to other RPGs in recent memory.
In this video, I’m going to critique the combat, companions, open world design, quest presentation and more in Starfield to show just how much Bethesda has fallen off since their glory days.
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0:00 Introduction
1:14 Combat: Lack of Imagination
6:34 The Companions Suck
8:21 Companions Share EXACT SAME OPINION on EVERYTHING!!!
15:36 Segmented “Open” Worlds
18:52 WORST Exploration in Any Bethesda Game
22:21 Scuffed, Outdate Presentation
28:05 Immersion Breakers
33:04 Miscellaneous Jank
37:10 Starfield is Just Aight
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source
In Starfield every companion is Jacob Taylor
I know everyone will hate me for it, but Bethesda has ALWAYS had the most bland version of everything. Elder Scrolls is by far the most bland fantasy environment. Their take on Fallout is the most bland post apocalypse. And Starfield is the most bland space game I've seen. I don't even think Morrowind was all that great, even for the time.
But I think that's why it's so popular. The mainstream loves bland shit. You can depend on it to be safe, inoffensive, obvious, and easy. The dialogue is dumbed down and the decisions are easy because there's always a clear line when you're being good or evil. Nothing is nuanced.
The mainstream takes decades to learn what the hardcore gamers can smell right away, so yeah, it has taken them like 20 years to realize that maybe Bethesda games aren't that good.
Is it outdated, or is it just crap? I'll still play their earlier games.
FINALLY someone said what I’ve been thinking about this game
I liked this game, till I realized how little you can impact the story. there’s very little choice and it’s unfortunate.
I still want combat turn in Final Fantasy. It's outdated? Baldur's Gate 3 shows it isn't. The mantra to appeal to "newer audiences" is so bad that FF 16 had to justify it's changes and BG3 just to appear and stomp on "outdated combat system".
Bruh this game is doooogshit
the amount of load screens is crazy in 2023
This game is ass. I dunno how u got to 100hrs. I begrudgingly got to around 35 and couldn take anymore of this todd howard amateur hour sci fi.
Bethesda hasn't adapted their game design or overall formula in over a decade."
Thank GOD for that too. Idk how you could think that making this game more similar to the crap we constantly get nowadays as a good thing.
That's why I was hoping that this game was going be part of the fallout universe. Specially since when the nuka world dlc came out they were talking about vault tec in space.
Less than 10 hours into Starfield I didn't like it. You guys said "You have to do this and that and the amazing side quests and main story!". So I did all that, just like this poor reviewer I spent well over 100 hours in Starfield. The game is bland, boring and generic. It does nothing exceptionally well, it tries to do a lot of things but nothing really stands out. The only exception is probably the ship building that was fun and I probably spent a few hours in that. The main story was so boring that I just wanted it to be over after a few hours. I did a lot of side quests and only a couple were decent or better. The space combat was really bad and simplistic. What I find so sad is that games back in the 90's had more developed systems than Starfield.
I said to my friends this is a 5/10 at after I had played ~10 hours. I still say the same after 100+ hours, it's a 5/10. It's just average at best. You might wonder why play a 5/10 game for 100+ hours? Because 5/10 doesn't mean it's a bad game. You keep playing to find something fun and certain things can be fun in that game if you really try. The new game+ was such a disappointment that it was probably the #1 reason I stopped playing. I did it 8-9 times and it was just a horrible experience and not fun at all, would not recommend.
I'm sure as patches and dlcs comes out this game will become a lot better(at least I hope so). I'm guessing they cut out a lot of content to put back in later, it would explain a lot of the more lackluster overall experience in the game.
People should have higher expectations from AAA developers.
I'll just wait for Outer Worlds 2
imagine you expected something more than fallout in space lol
Finally someone besides me says this. Biggest difference I didn't need to buy or play the game to see it was going to be nothing special. I love elderscrolls and fallout series but unlike fanboys i don't see a game come out by the same company and think oh yes it's going to be amazing. This game looked like crap from the first screen shots I saw of it. With BG3 still fun as hell and the phantom liberty expansion I can see Starfield completely forgotten in the next 2 weeks.
Agree 100% with this take. Similarly went from like 7/10 for first 10 hours, like 9/10 for 10-25 hours, and now back down to a 7 after like 100 hours. It's just all so shallow
100 hours later. Haha so its safe to say you get your moneys worth of entertainment.
Honestly I don't see what the big deal is with the loading screens. They're not that bad imo. The way the game is designed and what not can definitely see some improvements though. I'm hoping that they'll use a different engine with The Elder Scrolls 6 but I heard that they won't.. which is a baad idea.
Even worse, if sarah dies on the eye, the Girl you save just dissapear like she never existed after the funeral.
Said it all. Pin this video in the faces of Todd Haward and Phil Spencer and delete the game.
The people look SO BAD! Like the sims snuck into fallout 4
Great video. I fell in love with the game when I first started playing it through gamepass but as I started progressing and kept getting meh loot and weapons the magic of it started fading. Still better than cyberpunk, haven’t gotten far into the main story cause I’ve been enjoying side quests and saving money to build my own custom ship, whereas cyberpunk I just got done with the main story and had to put it down and haven’t touched it since.
I think they purposely make you into the Hunter character. It's a weird self-own for Bethesda
The las vanguard quest where the constellation companions berate you for “not trusting the science” of a microbe to wipe out the terrormorphs is what really broke the rose tinted glasses. ALL of them think releasing a microbe that has a chance of mutating and affecting other species is the best idea in the world? You can destroy the plant that accelerated the transformation of heat leeches and that solves the issue at hand. They’ve been dealing with terrormorphs for quite sometime, the main issue was that the first settlement was too young to have one. What’s the harm in waiting to bring back the Aceles when 1)you already destroyed the plant 2) they can start killing heat leeches instead of ignoring them. Then there no risk of a mutating virus further down the line. Horrible writing for the end of such a great quest line imo.
You're just now figuring out that Starfield is reskinned fallout 76 with more loading screens and fewer features 😂😂😂
Ur comparison with fallout 4 really makes me want to play fallout 4 again instead of starfield..i get the impression that starfield is moving backward in term of game tech, and only moving forward in term of game graphic n some ui improvement..which had been done by modders for most of their previous games…it is like saying the dev are modding old games instead of developing new games..
This review hit the nail on the head.
It’s not Bethesda anymore. It’s Microsoft.
Well sci-fi is perpetually feeding off itself, but this is ridiculous
Soooo basically every game out…😂 we are about to drop $70 on another spider-man game using the same assets on the same map. 😂
Has Bethesda ever made compelling companions though? All of them have been mid and forgettable imo.
Its a Microsoft game … what do you expect, completely sanitized and inoffensive.
Just gone back to Cyberpunk and it’s so much better. Every single aspect is better. Wild that Starfield got such high scores, feels very last gen
I kind of like the lock picking, it’s not as “realistic” as a fallout 4 lockpick, but they’re kind of like little puzzles
At this point, MonolithSoft (a Japanese company made up of devs who look up to Bethesda) is more Bethesda than Bethesda. They actually took the rpg genre in new directions while all BS can do is bs their way to a new release.