Starfield (PC): A Brutally Honest Analysis From Someone Who Couldn't Finish It

Buying something and having to repair it yourself is like getting the latest Mustang, but the doors fall off after you hit 20 mph. Sure, you can get them fixed, but is that why you bought it? The sad part is that it's just one of the many titles that were rushed out the door in 2023, like Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Immortals of Aveum, The Last of Us Part I, and many others.

With DLSS 3.5 and FSR 3 on the horizon, AAA gaming will get a lot worse from a technical standpoint because the companies will rely on optimization technology from AMD and Nvidia to fix their unoptimized games. Remember when games simply worked on Day 1 with no patches or updates? Those times are coming to an end now.

Stale Role-Playing

Potatoes aside, I know you can't directly compare Starfield to Baldur's Gate III, but you most certainly can in terms of role-playing, which is the purpose of an RPG.

In BG3, I felt I was the master of my fate. I did whatever pleased me during my epic journey, fully knowing that almost every decision I made had a butterfly effect on my micro and macro storyline, on my companions, other NPCs, quest outcomes, and so on. BG3 is truly a marvel of storytelling immersion.

I'm not saying that you're not in the driver's seat in Starfield, but aside from the "Persuasion" parts, many conversational roads lead down the same path, which is boring coming from Baldur's Gate III. For example, not every time, but most of the time, when I have to reply to an NPC (non-playable character), there's nothing at stake.

To me, it felt more like the same variant of different mood swings. You could be douchy, kind, uncaring, but with no actual bearing on the outcome. This was fine for Morrowind back in 2002 or Skyrim in 2011, but now we're talking 2023, post-Baldur's Gate III era. Where I'm getting at is that aside from the prescripted story moments, the illusion of choice is more prevalent in Starfield than an actual butterfly effect affecting your journey.

Boring Gameplay

Speaking of journeying, Todd Howard promised a fantastic space exploration experience, which is nowhere to be found in Starfield. I've spent more time in "Loading..." screens teleporting from place to place than anything else.

It's pretty cool when you're in space for the first time, but after you realize how restrictive everything is, it feels tacked on rather than this promised revolution. Five years ago in No Man's Sky, you could fly your ship from space and land on a planet without using a cutscene. Aside from the poor performance, this was also immersion-breaking for me.

To add to the list that ruined my experience is talking to NPCs, which again is akin to the 21-year-old Morrowind. The character in front of you is smack in the middle of the screen, like Ron Burgundy (Anchorman) presenting the news while moving like an animatronic robot. How could I possibly get immersed in something like this when I saw more human-like movements from C3PO?

This heavily indicates one of two things. Either the game was rushed, and the very talented (non-ironically) Bethesda devs stuck with their expired guns of NPC animation, or it points toward the top managers refusing to innovate this sort of interaction in any meaningful way.

The placeholder-like UI design during conversations also supports my rushed-out-the-door theory. I refuse to believe that from the reportedly 500 people working on this game, not a single one had a better idea for those ugly conversation choice windows.

If you made it here this far, you might have noticed that I said nothing about bugs ruining my experience. That's because while I encountered quite a few visual bugs and, in some places, I could magically go through solid objects, these were the least of my problems. I can endure non-game-breaking issues because they will iron out in time, but things like non-stop loading in cities are much harder to bear.

While doing the monotonous speaking and fetching quests in Neon (city), I teleported in and out doors more times than I can count, just like I did in Skyrim 12 years ago. But at least Skyrim has an excuse. I was lead to believe that Starfield's Creation Engine 2 was supposed to be this revolutionary next-gen engine.

If true, then why do you have to go through a loading screen every time you enter and leave a room inside a city? I don't know about you, but I couldn't get less immersed after 5-6 loading screens in under 3 minutes, especially not after a series of dull and uninspired quests.

Another thing that promised a fantastic experience was visiting planets on foot. For me, it's anything but. Setting aside the limit or border you run into after walking for 10 minutes in any direction, I found the lack of vehicular transportation on planets incredibly uninspired.

If the development aim was to stall for time and force the player to walk five times longer rather than using a rover or a buggy, then mission accomplished. But the planets in and of themselves are incredibly boring to explore, even with that "super fun" jetpack.

Aside from the typical and uninspired outposts filled with enemies, scanning creatures, and rock collecting, there's nothing extraordinary about walking on the surface of a planet; alien dinosaurs or not. Granted, you can visit some fantastic landmarks in certain places, which I won't spoil, but those are too few and far between to make a difference in my book.

The Good

The best features of Starfield are certainly the sound and art designs mixed with some combat elements. My favorite parts are from interior facilities or underground mines because the performance is better, and the graphics look polished.

Some 420p-quality textures pop in here and there, but nothing major. The overall look of the weapon design, building architecture, space stations, and so on are excellent and worthy of admiration.

Although I wouldn't praise the gunplay for being exciting, Bethesda stepped up their game and made the shooting feel nice. Too bad enemy NPCs have the reaction speed of a snail crossing the road, but it is what it is. It works, but that's it. I didn't find any flavor to the experience.

Fallout had that fun time-slowing-critical-point-scanning gimmick that added pizzazz to the combat. In Starfield, you have something akin to Shouts from Skyrim. For better or worse, when you progress enough, you will find special powers like you did in the latter game.

Aside from the musical score, the sound effects are top-notch, which makes the guns feel better by adding weight to the animation. In fact, almost everything you do that creates sound is dopamine-inducing, especially when you boost your ship in space.

From what I "researched," the New Game+ has an interesting spin from a storytelling point of view. So, if you liked your first playthrough, you might want to keep playing if you still feel the urge.

Conclusion

If you have never or very rarely encountered an RPG, you might like the heck out of Starfield. It's not a bad game overall, but just one with a game design that's 20 decades old. In my case, Baldur's Gate III has set the bar too high for that to fly in 2023.

I'm disappointed that I couldn't enjoy Starfield because I found its game design antiquated. I hope the same people at the top who managed this game won't be making The Elder Scrolls VI. How sad would it be if, in 5-10 years, when TES 6 comes out, we'll see the same robotic NPC animations and severe lack of proper story consequences...