It’s become a common refrain to blame Starfield’s issues on procedural generation, but in this video I’ll make the case that other issues are at the core of Starfield’s issues.
16 thoughts on “Starfield Deep Dive: Procedural Worlds Are Not The Problem”
excellent video would love more like it. separately i found starfield to be best understood not as a game or game world but as a harrowing first-person reconstruction of a total psychotic break from reality afflicting a very boring person.
After viewing steam reply and game director tweet. It was no wonder the game came out this way. Out of touch. Corporate nonsense.
Game dev is hard. Every job have difficulty. But something broken or bad in game, It was game studio or publishers responsibility not customer. (Who made decision)
21:33 I think that why.. no man sky -> light no fire.
Nice analysis! I especially enjoyed your rant about crappy, irresponsible RPG romances.
IMO, to make proc gen really work well, a game has to be modular and systems-driven so that the pieces can be rearranged at a sufficiently granular level, and so relatively small differences in those arrangements can have meaningful consequences for gameplay. It boggles my mind that Bethesda created a game across 1,000 planets with literally the same exact instances of dungeons and outposts being copy-pasted over and over. That's just game design malpractice.
Ever since I saw early footage of the engine for Infinity: Quest For Earth, I've been really looking forward to a game that takes full advantage of procedural planetary generation. I know there are a few games out there that do it at the moment (Astroneers, NMS, Star Citizen for example) but I don't know what it's going to take to make it truely worth it. You really need a good game before you decide to make a giant world for it.
Let's face it, Starfield is an average Indy game, GFX/quests. Made by an AAA developer who couldn't care less because the fan people will buy it just because of the name and the hype. Bethesda is like most of the AAA companies now that pump out what are basically early access games that they may finish if they get enough sales. It is a shame because as you say they have made so many great games in the past, I guess it's just a sign of the times. Why do something when you don't have to?
Very well thought out and articulated critique – not just a rant. I didn't dislike my time with Starfield but continually wondered what could possibly have been going through the dev's heads during development. As an indie or near indie effort I've have called it pretty great. With Bethesda's experience and Microsoft's money it's inexcusable.
I too have played the game for 200+ hours. A lot of youtubers, reviewers, critiques seem ill equiped or not motivated to actually explain why this game is terrible past 'everything is boring' and 'the guns feel the same'. 'This is loading screen simulator'. You start to get to the crux of the matter.
All the evidence is in front of us. Each game they make gets worse, their progression in the craft of video game development has deteriorated over time. They are unmotivated, uninspired, lazy.
And lazyness is the key factor here. They want to do less and make more money. We can compare Starfield to each past Bethesda entry and see how basically every mechanic is stripped down, simpler, doesn't work, or is just gone.
The laziness goes all the way through every facet of the game, the writing, world building, characters, themes – all bare minimum (or less sometimes) all companions are the same morally, there is no cultural diversity, the lore is there was a war. What is shown on screen is incongruent to what we're being told, there's no difference in the games they make past setting. In Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield there are no phones, no vehicles, etc etc.
The best comparison I can make is imagine if Rockstar released all their games in reverse order. They get simpler, cruder, and less refined and ambitious over time.
excellent video would love more like it. separately i found starfield to be best understood not as a game or game world but as a harrowing first-person reconstruction of a total psychotic break from reality afflicting a very boring person.
I don't enjoy the writing in Starfield. I do enjoy you going off on it.
As always this is well considered and, from what I've seen from the playthrough, spot on.
As @dakunssd said the writing rants are better written than the writing and far more enjoyable.
It was a good video outside the fucking idiotic interjections about your opinions of the real world.
I put alot of hours in starfield, however i stopped played after completing a playthrough. Didn't quite hold me like prior bethsoft titles
After viewing steam reply and game director tweet. It was no wonder the game came out this way. Out of touch. Corporate nonsense.
Game dev is hard. Every job have difficulty.
But something broken or bad in game, It was game studio or publishers responsibility not customer. (Who made decision)
21:33 I think that why.. no man sky -> light no fire.
Nice analysis! I especially enjoyed your rant about crappy, irresponsible RPG romances.
IMO, to make proc gen really work well, a game has to be modular and systems-driven so that the pieces can be rearranged at a sufficiently granular level, and so relatively small differences in those arrangements can have meaningful consequences for gameplay. It boggles my mind that Bethesda created a game across 1,000 planets with literally the same exact instances of dungeons and outposts being copy-pasted over and over. That's just game design malpractice.
I will stick to my turn based since I sick at these games. But love opinion pieces. Also realize I love watching member only since no ads. LOL
DESCENDANTS*
Ever since I saw early footage of the engine for Infinity: Quest For Earth, I've been really looking forward to a game that takes full advantage of procedural planetary generation. I know there are a few games out there that do it at the moment (Astroneers, NMS, Star Citizen for example) but I don't know what it's going to take to make it truely worth it. You really need a good game before you decide to make a giant world for it.
👌
procedural worlds are the problem but a smaller problem that is just a tiny bit in this iceberg of problems
Let's face it, Starfield is an average Indy game, GFX/quests. Made by an AAA developer who couldn't care less because the fan people will buy it just because of the name and the hype. Bethesda is like most of the AAA companies now that pump out what are basically early access games that they may finish if they get enough sales. It is a shame because as you say they have made so many great games in the past, I guess it's just a sign of the times. Why do something when you don't have to?
Very well thought out and articulated critique – not just a rant. I didn't dislike my time with Starfield but continually wondered what could possibly have been going through the dev's heads during development. As an indie or near indie effort I've have called it pretty great. With Bethesda's experience and Microsoft's money it's inexcusable.
I too have played the game for 200+ hours. A lot of youtubers, reviewers, critiques seem ill equiped or not motivated to actually explain why this game is terrible past 'everything is boring' and 'the guns feel the same'. 'This is loading screen simulator'. You start to get to the crux of the matter.
All the evidence is in front of us. Each game they make gets worse, their progression in the craft of video game development has deteriorated over time. They are unmotivated, uninspired, lazy.
And lazyness is the key factor here. They want to do less and make more money. We can compare Starfield to each past Bethesda entry and see how basically every mechanic is stripped down, simpler, doesn't work, or is just gone.
The laziness goes all the way through every facet of the game, the writing, world building, characters, themes – all bare minimum (or less sometimes) all companions are the same morally, there is no cultural diversity, the lore is there was a war. What is shown on screen is incongruent to what we're being told, there's no difference in the games they make past setting. In Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield there are no phones, no vehicles, etc etc.
The best comparison I can make is imagine if Rockstar released all their games in reverse order. They get simpler, cruder, and less refined and ambitious over time.