I feel like the negative reaction to starfield is a culmination of all the dissapointments that bethesda has been dishing out these past few years. It's like going to your favourite restaurant regularly because you know they make the best food, but the last few times you went to dine there the food has gotten more and more bland. At some point it's our own fault for still going there and expecting better results
Starfield was just a bit of disappointment to me. Wasn't bad "Played it for 200 hours so it can't be that bad", just not was I was fully expecting or hoping for. A lot of things that made Bethesda games what they are not in Starfield, NPCs are not as good as previous games, UI feels even more clunky than their previous games, so many loading screens and pop ups that break immersion, and the clear understanding that Bethesda is behind on the times. I could go on... but it worries me for ES6.
Its mainly pony protesting. Most of the reviews are positive but the negative reviews get the headlines. As shattered space drops and official mod support is added and the game gets patched more and pony rage subsides… the review ratio between positive and negative will widen.
TBH I was done with Skyrim, I literally in no way can relate to people thinking that game wasn't complete trash. Every Elder Scrolls game has been engineered more and more for idiots, with less passion, less design, worse writing, dumped-down ugly garbage. Skyrim was trash, what did people see in it? The mindlessly repetitive dungeons with the spinning wheel "puzzle" you could solve in six seconds? More random loot? The sad, tiny cities with writing so repetitive and uninspired that it became not one but three different memes (Khajit has coin/Cloud district/Arrow knee)?
Guys, it’s the most underwhelming Bethesda game. The fascination is with who made the game not the game itself, Bethesda explaining why gamers are wrong in the steam reviews helped rekindle the hate.
I agree with you there. In the same vein, it makes you wonder if this game would've gotten alot more leeway if it was made by anyone else but Bethesda, which I'm sure it would've.
It’s this absolutely, had another studio made starfield it would have been forgotten in a few weeks, the fact it came from a studio as popular as Bethesda is why it’s kept on. I think the fact cyberpunk had its expansion in the same timeframe and comparisons between the two started a lot of discourse definitely helped keep it in the public conscience.
@@Brannon1009 "we got 12 million players" yeah because game pass. Public opinion still says 28% positive only, 65% if you want to be generous. Alot of reviews are written in the first week where the hype is still on. Hype is dead and people see the game for what it is and they dont like it. But you keep defending it and eat their ass
Agreed, I found Starfield to be pretty average, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10, nothing that stood out enough to rage about. However, the Bethesda response and Emil's out of touch moment on X is what irks me more than the game. Plus, people expected more from Bethesda because of their successes. Starfield would have garnered a lot less hate if it was from an indie studio without a track record.
Personally, I found the game to be really disappointing... I LOVED Bethesda games, but I was already getting frustrated with the engine by the time fallout 4 came out. It was such a great concept for them to tackle, but it felt half cooked slightly! "I think gamers have developed taste" is the PERFECT quote from Lawrence 😂
Personally, I found the game to be really disappointing... I LOVED Bethesda games, but I was already getting frustrated with the engine by the time fallout 4 came out. It was such a great concept for them to tackle, but it felt half cooked slightly! "I think gamers have developed taste" is the PERFECT quote from Lawrence 😂
It was mixed with admittedly a big pile on. How is the fan base supposed to feel when the response to genuine criticism is "sounds like a you problem" It's a business not a toxic relationship. It's like a restaurant hearing, "it's a little undercooked" and saying "f#ck you, you're not a cook, you don't know" of course you're getting bad reviews after that especially WHEN YOU DON'T STFU. seriously put down your phones, close Twitter and fix it. Most mods I see already implement qol and fix problems without the creation kit... You have the actual code. A good 3 months for a patch to include s#it cyberpunk had at launch.
@@x0gucx I mean, honestly - not all of that was needed. Simple fact is that it takes 2 to Tango. The Modders or any of their fans should be downing tools. The game is simply not even *Fun* in it's own right. I go as far, (well, totally real actually) to say Pokémon Scarlet & Violet offered a much more Original and moving Story for their series. LazyField literally reskins a worse ''Dragonbourrrnne!!'' with Jpeg Planets - for $100. It's crazy comical! 😂
@x0gucx yup. Cyberpunk started its redemption arc when CDPR just stayed quiet and continually patched and improved its game over months. Edgerunners was obviously a big unexpected boost, but mainly they just took the criticisms on the chin and went about fixing as much as they could.
The starfield hate is as outsized as it is because of Bethesda’s pedigree, the inane marketing that drove it, and just how aggressive a waste of players time it was. It truly felt like every worst tendency in the industry into one massive glitzy package. I’m not sure why, but it feels really insulting that Bethesda would charge me 60 bucks for a game that starts with the dreaded “walk and talk” section where the NPCs walk slower than you and you have to constantly stop to match them. It’s like they thought “hey, you are a loser with no obligations, you’ll enjoy this massive 30 hour waste of time!” Like I know this sounds hyperbolic, but playing starfield FEELS like Bethesda hates it’s players and thinks they’re stupid. all the “nuh uh, you don’t get it, our game is great” shit in the steam reviews just proves it. It genuinely feels audacious to ship and charge money for a SPACE GAME with almost no actual space travel. Like, what are we doing?
That's a great observation. I felt the same way with a lot of NPC interactions throughout, where you go up to them and they're busy for a minute before you can talk to them. Like every time you go to the Eye and talk to Vlad, he has to mumble to himself for a while before you can get his attention, usually something to make him sound smart like finishing calculations in his head. That kind of stuff is fine to do once... not every time you interact!
It is hyperbolic to feel that way. It's essence of all corporations beyond small size, which are in no way connected to their actual audience or customers anymore. All of these companies hate their customers and wish they could just take all their money without providing any service. All customers are just meat sacks with some cash. Facebook and some other tech companies actually cry because they ran out of potential customers, they had 90%+ market penetration in their core functions. Which is very bad for the sort of management they do, where customer is the product.
The problem lies in its advertisement. Starfeild was marketed as the next skyrim, marketed as the next big leap for Bethesda, and marketed as the game that would save Xbox! When Comparing this to major rpgs that came out recently it doesn’t hold up, you could say this is a cyberpunk situation but that game still had characters and a story when it came out, this game has 2D outlines for characters and a story that makes spider-man 2 look like a masterpiece. Maybe it’s just not for me!
The problem is not the marketing, people had these expectations regardless of “advertising” it’s underwhelming because it’s a fundamentally bad RPG. This is about as objective a fact as can be.
No it wasn’t. Objectively. It was marketed “Daggerfall in space” and that is Verbatim what Todd said and that’s exactly what we got. We also got exactly what the marketing said the game would be.
@@Brokenlance The problem is what the marketing didn't say, instead heavily implying things but using broad and vague grandiose statements(1000 unique worlds, endless exploration) leaving themselves an out to just play semantics on what they actually meant and eventually blaming the user for "not understanding it" which they did, or for expecting things that weren't *specifically* promised, which they also did.
@@m4nt1c0r3s I just rewatched the Xbox showcase presentation when they showed off the game about a year before launch. Not a single thing was left up to interpretation. Everything shows we can do as advertised. If you had expectations outside of what they showed, that is squarely a you problem.
@@Brokenlance again, its not about what they said, its what they omitted, like when Todd said then you can land on the planet, but it turned out you cant land on it you just click a dot and it shows you a video of a ship landing, but semantics i guess on what is meant by landing on the planet. Or when he said you can explore anywhere on the planet, again not specifying that you dont really explore *anywhere* on the planet, you get a small portion sandboxed and omitting all the loading screens left, right and center, but sure people are the problem when you upsell something and then being disappointed for actually expecting to be delivered. Like they didnt do this with FO76 already and then Todd and Pete had to tour the world trying to reinvent the english language so they can explain what they said while marketing the game was "technically" true, but people were expecting too much then too i guess.
And yet... people can't stop talking about it. Lets face it, the gaming internet loves its punching bags... and rage-baiting drives clicks & engagement. Its this self-reinforcing cycle thats settled on Starfield cuz its an easy target. It'll last until the mob moves onto the next game to start the rage-circle-jerk once again. Its predictable & somehwat funny to watch unfold, time and time again. But as No Mans Sky/Cyberunk has shown us, these same ragers are fickle sheep.
@@varno6793 Its not 'rage' its apathy but its also interesting to see a company nearly everyone used to love go down hill like so fast. Its part of the news cycle and more and more people waking up to how bad this game is and also their other recent titles. Its the same as watching a celebrity rise and fall its human nature but not rage at all, its a side spectacle.
@@scarletina5137 Maybe not 'rage'.. but some sorta obsessive, lingering bitterness? But its definitely not apathy.. as that would mean Starfield would have faded from the public eye months ago. (think something like Gotham Knights, Forspoken, Saints Row, etc. as games that are 'bad to mediocre'... that illicit apathy from the masses) But for whatever reason, Starfield is the game people can't get off their minds. I can think of a dozen 'middling/medicore' games that we've all moved on from.. but Starfield? That drives clicks & engagement.
@@varno6793 It's apathy for the game and hate towards the devs that should really stfu. It sounds hateful but as a friend they should stfu. Responding to "I'm bored" with "no it's not, it's like actually going to the moon" (side note didn't even get that right cause people are actually going to the moon in starfield seeing an atmosphere and stormy weather) it's wild. And Emil keeps posting how hard it is to make games with past articles and interviews with him stating how little he thinks of the players and his job. I'd say it should be a good mixed but they really need to stfu cause it doesn't make you look any more appealing for future games like ES6.
You mentioned Balder's gate but the better example is tears of the kingdom. TOTK was built on a game engine and map that a lot of people already knew with characters and a story line that most people could have guessed before the game released but it still had a lot of creativity and people wanted to explore and do all the things.
@@hatshepsut295 Yea,, like ''6 others''. Imagine feeling this entitled and wannabe popular. Probably another bot that dismisses the 20+ million sales as 'fiction' too, lmao! ''asset flip'' ? I dunno where to start with that waffle! 😂 You literally cannot have played the game properly - the Building is secondary to really _any_ of the Major upgrades needed to make your Quest easier to complete the game. You have no idea.
Regarding physical media, we traded in owning our purchases for renting to get faster access to the media (streaming/digital market places). The problem is we are given no guarantee to protect our purchases... they are rentals. So when a service gets boughtout or closed down, then we risk losing 10s of hundreds of dollars in rentals if the new owners do not want to honor the old system. On top of that, the owner of the digital master can change the media at a whim, or make it completely disappear. Like Max and Sesame Street, Max chose to trim their Sesame Street royalties owed (operating cost), so Sesame Street said "f that" and uploaded their content to youtube to ensure continued access to their demographic: educating and entertaining children.
I think the hatred toward the game is a culmination of other factors. I actually think the anger toward Bethesda started when Fallout New Vegas came out. I think that game really put a spotlight on the apparant flaws of Bethesda, and eventually that game created expectations for the eventual Fallout 4 a few years later. When Fallout 4 finally did drop, it seemed to be in many factors a step back from what New Vegas did. When Fallout 76 dropped, well that's self explanitory. Starfield seemed to be Bethesda finally taking the next step in graphics, writing, scale ect that people have wanted from Bethesda for a long time, and when it finally dropped we now know it's not. It's yet another game loaded with bugs, low graphic fidelity, shit writing, stoic characters with poor animations, and this stuff just isn't acceptable anymore.
i think the idea that gamers are only thinking the game is bad because its new and they would have the same receptions if old Bethesda games came out today is just wrong, i played fallout 3 and new Vegas for the first time a year and a half ago in preparation for starfield and gave then like 7.5-8/10 and starfield is like a 4/10 for me, after doing all the main stuff and some side quests. i think its because the formula Bethesda uses doesn't work when there is no natural exploration.
I'm playing NV right now and it's great. Skyrim and F4 holds up well today. Starfield is literally just worse. People complained that fallout 4 was empty... LOOK AT STARFIELD!! AND THEY'RE DEFENDING IT?!
If you think fallout 3 and new vegas are the same ... maybe we should disregard your opinion also(i say also cause bruce and laurence are on some weird shit)
Fallout New Vegas was made in 18 months cause it was in the contract with Bethesda. Bethesda made Obsidian to finish the game in 18 months and Obsidian said "hold my beer".
@@SapiaNt0mata Bethesda, in making FO3, did make the tech and much of the art that made up FNV. I like New Vegas a lot. In fact, I'm playing it right now but let's not pretend it was built from the ground up in 18 months.
I think the reason why games like Cyberpunk and Starfield retain so much attention is because of who they come from. People have expectations of these studios. Is Gollum a worse game? Yeah, but who cares? No one was expecting anything from that studio. I think, in Bethesda's case, there's also a segment of the fanbase that had negative expectations for this or that reason and had their thoughts validated.
no, bethesda has a toxic community already. everything from Morrowind elitist, people that download mods (not actual modders), and your average internet nitpicker. There is NO validation here buddy. Starfield is a neutral game that just gets smeared as 1/10.
@@peacefusion hm, well. Idk what makes people who download mods toxic. For people going in with negative expectations though, if their expectations are met or exceeded, that would be validating. I wasn't able to play Starfield, so I can't comment on how good or bad it actually is, but I would agree that some of the more extreme criticizers seem to be exaggerating.
exactly. no, i meant to say the general view of people that download mods. I do a lot of skyrim modding, so I know the community and how many casual people just hate bethesda when all they do is download mods. But I totally agree with your first point. Same thing with cyberpunk, people can just get dragged into hypes as well as negative youtube videos. @@RockR277
At least 4 loading screens just to go anywhere or loading screens for a single vendor shop a size of a small room? what's the point of the SSD and XBOX velocity architecture.
5:08 I relate to this a lot. Starfield made me realise what I loved about skyrim(and fallout 3/4) is the aimless exploration of an interesting handmade world, because starfield does not have that at all.
In defense of negative game reviews with lots of playtime, sometimes it takes people that long to find all the things they dislike and it changes their opinion.
Like me, also I usually read the long hour reviews. Whenever I think game bad/trash I look at the long hour reviews cuz I feel like maybe I’m not doing it right. Both positive and negative reviews tooo.
Also I remember playing a quarter of a game and saying it sucked then got nothing but "you didn't finish" now no matter what I play start to finish before sharing my thoughts, I actually felt shame after seeing 100hrs I literally won't finish it. It's at the point where it's just boring like I'm wasting my time playing, I can't even laugh at how awful it is.
I really feel like it’s a lose lose situation, for people who wanted to enjoy it, and either quit or didn’t enjoy it after X many hours. Like if you don’t touch it, apparently you are okay. And if you say you love it you are Winning. Which is really confusing to me. Like I’d rather read a review of someone who played idk uh 50+ hours and see everything they liked/disliked. Then be like oh starfields getting bullied I must say I love it for the sake of? What exactly? And then get shit on if I say hey I didn’t enjoy this. I’m not the one calling it’s trash, I just say I didn’t like it.
Read a good amount of the reviews on Steam, and honestly, I have to agree with all the one's I read, its valid criticism, the game is boring, bland and uninteresting. The companions are all a copy and paste of each other. There is no ROLE PLAYING at all. The game wants you to play a certain type of character, and it just makes the game feel like a chore. It truly has been a HUGE disappointment and Bethesda seriously needs to get their shit together, because now, people are losing faith in ES6, that's definitely something you do not want as company. If people like it, then that's cool but it doesn't change the fact that this game truly is bad.
So many people who actually rate it positive read the reviews and say "they're not wrong" but because the game sales are up and a lot of people are doing it it's "unjustified" b#tch did people forget about the "success" of Velma.
@@burnt-croissants Funny that you bring that up, I- for the first time ever- attempted an "Evil" playthrough on my first run out of any Bethesda game, as I usually do a "Good" playthrough, then "Evil" the second time around, and when I tried killing certain characters, and make "bad" choices, the options were just not there. NPC's being unkillable and the linear dialog forcing me to pretty much be the "good guy". That's when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew in that moment, that the game I had been so excited for, was non existent.
17:22 To comment on Bruce's statement about the people who played 100 hours and still reviewed the game negatively, I totally get that, like why would you play it for 100 hours if you didn't enjoy enjoy it, especially if you got it on Gamepass for next to nothing. But on the flipside of that coin, there are people who probably paid full price for it, didn't like it, but felt like they needed to slug through it in order to get some return value on their investment. 100 hours is pushing that, but I can see 40 hours played and still leave a bad review. For instance, I bought Atomic Heart earlier this year for two reasons, 1. I thought it looked like a pretty cool game and I wanted something new to play, and 2. I'm a MAJOR dumbass and didn't realize it was releasing on Gamepass. So I spent the $70 and ended up really not liking the game at all, but I forced myself to play through it to get my money's worth, and also as a kind of punishment for not realizing it was coming out on Gamepass. Maybe I have too much time on my hands? But it also taught me a lesson, and that's to always check to see if a game is on Gamepass before spending money on it. But I have like 16 hours in that game and would probably leave a bad review if I ever actually spent the time to write those.
But the thing is in any game there can be some things you like, but finally you decide there are more things you don't. I'll honestly say it took me 500 hours to fully dislike Starfield. I liked some quests but played a lot of them that I didn't like or thought were bland. In doing them I spent a lot of time waiting and sleeping to be able to sell things. I spent a lot of time walking and in loading screens. I spent time with the game paused, whole submitting 10 bug reports, 7 broken quests and 1 huge gamebreaking bug. I went through things I did kind of like becoming broken. I tried workarounds. Loaded countless older saves. I went to NG+ to get rid of bugs and got a new one. I decided to get all achievements. I did that, got the gamebreaking bug that can only be temporarily fixed by going to NG+ and decided I was done. I was a fool to spend so much time in the game, but I don't have a lot of money to spend on games. And I hoped to like this one. I have Baldur's Gate 3, so I'm playing that. I can't really call a lot of what I did in Starfield, playing.
@@auntdee845 on the bright side, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game you can spend 1000 hours in and still experience new things. Honestly the best game I’ve played in the last decade at least.
What makes people still infatuated with Starfield is an easy question to answer. Some people expect to pack their virtual bags and move into Bethesda's games for years. There are lots of players, myself included, that treat Bethesda's games as life sims. You don't expect to move into Elden Ring, Hi-Fi Rush or Redfall. Good or bad, those types of games are just transient experiences.
Even if Starfield were bug-free, its design was terribly flawed; there’s nothing between POI, credits were used mostly for custom ships, and why did they think players wanted to interact w/ literal junk?
I played oblivion and had a blast with the creativity in the quests. I felt how Skyrim had made things shallow and yet was gleaming with a deeper meaning, like a the reflextion of the sky in puddle of mud. Skyrim was more shallow than oblivion, yet Starfield feels less than half as shallow as skyrim was. I really like hearing starfield described as an impressive skyrim mod, really hits the nail on the head. In Starfield, riverwood has a loading screen. And has its own planet.
The problem is people only remember Skyrim decade+ after when playing with tons of mods. And that is what they compare Starfield too, not the base game. Oblivion was already more shallow then Morrowind, btw. I disagree that Starfield has more shallow quests then Skyrim. I agree that the main quest isnt great, but Bethesda has never been great (or even particularly good) with those.
I still don't hate Starfield. Doubt I ever will. The more I play it (and I still do, just rarely), the more it becomes obvious to me what Bruce said during the talk - there were fantastic ideas for intricate quest lines, puzzles, catchy dialogues and whatnot which just didn't get fully realized. Someone somewhere decided that a line should be drawn whre maybe it shouldn't have. Being a developer myself, I can easily picture the expression of a colleague who proposed something extraordinary only to hear what I hear on a regular basis - "It's over-engineered", "It's too risky". Well isn't that what makes unique memorable software products what they are - the things that are outside of the norm, the "risky" stuff? OK, I get it, risky stuff often ends up being buggy stuff. But bugs are there either way. Better to resolve bugs and have something revolutionary afterwards rather than resolve bugs just to get to some bland, as Bruce said, mediocre status quo.
Starfields space exploration is literally on par with mass effect 1 but maybe even slightly worse with no vehicle. Besides that I have been genuinely enjoying the story and ship customization. It’s a fine game but I am just not motivated at all to explore outside the missions I’m assigned.
The general problem with Starfield is the things NPCs asks you to do would only make sense in a medieval setting. Those "talk to [person]" quests where you travel to another planet, talk to [person], and travel back to the 1st planet, would only make sense in a future where phones somehow don't exist.
Your science is wrong. The concept of FTL is you bend space around a ship so it can reach point 1 to point 2 despite the massive distance. You cannot strap an FTL device onto radio waves. So it will still need to take many years to reach another planet. You are basically saying the "Dune" Series is also "bad sci-fi" for using message couriers.
They did explain that in game why interstellar communication does not work but players can easily miss this. I do not agree with the explanation and it is evident it is only their for the game play they wanted.
I come to you guys to get your opinion. You seem genuine and honest rather than just trying to give headlines. Usually lets me see the game in a different way to help me decide what I want to do. Appreciate your work even since funhaus!
My sad story with the game is that I’ve always played on PlayStation, but the hype for Starfield was REAL, I bought an Xbox Series X on 2022 in anticipation for the game’s release (they got me good). Since release I managed to play some solid 7 hours of the game, didn’t click at all for me. Since September I have however played 40 hours of No Man’s Sky and 80 of Cyberpunk 2077.
I think once the hype dies down, people are able to look at games wayyy more objectively. I spent 100 hours with the game lying to myself saying “yes they pulled it off.” And in some ways they did. But after clearing my 10th identical mining outpost and the illusion of space travel wearing me down - I was over it. It just took me 100 hours to let go of my emotion and love for what Bethesda used to be to realize it.
Yeah, that and all the perfect scores being given by media and reviewers. Thats how propagandizing works, invest heavily in creating the impression that the game is good, so the individual people that end up not liking it start second guessing themselves that maybe its just them that think that way so they are more reluctant to leave a negative review. And usually it takes a long time for enough people to speak out so that the illusion starts cracking, but then of course the convenient shut down becomes that its just "hate for the sake of hating". And IG here did that, suggesting that it was just piling up and that people just like to rage on things, like there arent enough reasons to do while still be objective.
It is very much like an abusive relationship. You keep telling yourself it will get better. You maybe liked previous things Bethesda did, so you just know it will at some point be like that too. Then, you finally see it for what it is.
@@auntdee845 And then you go back to that abusive relationship by preordering the next bethesda game. Can't leave that part out to complete the abusive relationship loop.
@belldrop7365 exactly. I personally am done. I don't need ES6: the Starfield Edition or any other Bethesda game. Once my game broke, and Bethesda decided to attack their customers, it was over for me.
I think another huge problem is that yes, it is a big game... but a HUGE majority of that game is built upon replay, locked behind a lame fetch quest story. Me personally, i dont wanna play a boring main story quest over just to have another playthrough.... Its like wanting to have a new red dead playthrough but the snow level is 20hrs.
No one ever talks about The Outer Worlds. It’s closer to Skyrim in Space than Starfield. Also it’s a finished game with better controls and RPG elements than Starfield. It never wastes your time either. Obsidian snuck off with Bethesdas soul. Give them more money and see what they can do.
I disagree about the play time when it was Starfield shills saying the game doesnt get good until 12 hours in, and you have to mainline the story, and then the game will be fun because you get Skyrim shouts, and THEN the game is fun. I even heard people say "The game really ipens up after 60 hours." So long playtimes, and then realizing the game is lackluster makes sense. Then the terrible PR after release, and gaslighting players just makes it even worse. I have 115 hours in Starfield, and I can say that it is outtdated, bland, uninspired, poorly written, irredeemably mediocre, and downright bad at times. Edit: It took them 10 years to give us what they gave us at launch? Thats the biggest eye opener for me was they couldnt even get the basics of their own formula down in 10 years.
16:47 The thing about reviews where the person played the games for hundreds of hours is, there's this thing called the honeymoon phase. It lasts differently for not just each game, but every person too, a combination of them both. I remember with Fallout 4, it basically took me outfitting most (not all) settlements, beating the MSQ, and doing a bunch of sidequests (which, let's be honest, are mostly just radiant 'quests'), for me to eventually figure out that I didn't like the game. Once the honeymoon phase is over, you start to pick up on the things that you might've not noticed, but your brain did.
Your comment about people who have extra time really resonated with me. I tore an ankle muscle the day after Starfield came out, so I had to spend a week on bedrest so it could heal. Naturally I downloaded the game and literally played 10-12 hours a day for a week. When I had done all the faction questlines and seen how few planet are actually populated with interesting locations, I wiped it from my PC and haven't touched it since. What's funny is, the thing Starfield does best is making want to play Skyrim.
"Right place in the cultural zeitgeist" really is such a great way to describe Bethesda. They're such a fascinating conundrum, a Schrodinger's Cat of game design. You can very easily compare and criticize their regression in terms of complexity of design and game mechanics. But I just redownloaded Fallout 4 on my PS5, jumped on and I've been having a blast running around and nuking Deathclaws. I haven't played Starfield yet (thanks for the exclusivity Microsoft, bet y'all are really regretting that decision right now). However, like you guys, looking at it I knew it was going to be mid. I've been playing Bethesda games for years, stretching all the way back to Morrowind. Like a lot of players, I love what they make, but their design and tech is starting to get extremely dated. The clunkiness of moving around in the creation engine really starts to make it feel very frustrating to play especially when I (somewhat unfairly) compare it to other shooters that feel absolutely amazing to control like Doom Eternal or Titanfall 2. When I first saw Starfield gameplay, I was like "It's literally just Fallout in space. You didn't need to make an entirely new IP for that, you could have just done space fallout." I mean for fucks sakes, one of the laser rifle models looked lifted directly out of Fallout 4, down to the reload animation. The booster pack is literally just the Power Armor Jetpack from Fallout 4. If you're going to make an entirely new universe, I as a gamer would expect there to be much more to distinguish it from other universes in your portfolio. Particularly since Bethesda is known for their attention to detail when it comes to things like thematic and atmospheric design. The feel and look of the weapons, etc. Reusing models and mechanics from other IPs robs the game of its ability to express its own identity. Again, I haven't even played the game so I could be talking completely out of my ass. I will play it (eventually) but I really don't expect my mind to be changed.
Thing is, it's not Fallout in space. The combat has none of the fun gore and bodies are not fully lootable. The universe, enemy variety, factions, and charcters are not as interesting. The cities are much more static & "sanitized" in comparison. It's worse than FO in space to me.
I bought starfield because some creators I watch played it, and had fun with the first bit of the game and I thought the traits would be fun to play around with. I'm standing by my negative review because the traits actually don't interact. If you pick the trait to have parents, and the trait to worship the space snake, you can also pick the trait to be a freestar settler. Now you are born and raised in 3 places simultaneously because your parents are from UC space, raised you in UC space, but you are from Freestar space and also a member of house Va'ruun. Because they didn't think about how your parents would effect other traits.
Starfield forces you to play as an evil character in Constellation, or at least some kind of rich psychopath. You're forced to literally use the cities' poor as human meat shields against a demigod, forced into piracy (the plot demands it, so you have to do it), are constantly driven away from some kind of post war depression (every side quest and many main quests are practically stories ripped from great depression survival stories) (this might just be cowardly writers, rather than writing skill to force you to roleplay a rich psychopath that doesn't see that), and are on a fundamental level a "rich" organization that chooses for the universe an unchangeable permanent change to it. Honestly could be a good story, it's just that the writers had no idea that it's the story they were actually writing.
I think some of the negative opinions on Starfield are more recent as much of the criticism is centered around the lack of depth, which means that you have to play the game for some time to get to criticizing that aspect. Also I think some RUclipsrs recently making videos criticizing the game also helps to drive more negative reviews (just watching this video the algorithm suggests a video by NakeyJakey from 2 weeks ago with 4M views and another by Jack Sather just as examples)
I think the reason why people are fascinated by Starfield's problems is that a large and silent portion of gamers always thought Bethesda's games were outdated (I am one of them) but were always out-shouted and downvoted by fanatical fans of the studio. Now that almost everyone agrees Starfield isn't all that, those people feel it's ok to chime in now. Also there is a certain schadenfreude element to it as well, to see that smug, outdated studio finally brought down on its knees.
Let's be honest. If this was a AA-priced game, between 30 and 50 dollars, there wouldn't be comparison with similarly priced games that have shaped the industry and thus the consumer comparisons that are made. Yes, there are generally games for every taste and level of spending, but if you're discussing sentiment then it's a matter of relative market interest.
More fun to imagine the boys are sitting uncomfortably close to eachother and not acknowledging eachothers physical existence whatsoever. Went thru a whole pod thinking that
Bethesda is great at building ideas that you internally extrapolate on, and get excited for because you can imagine just how great it is! And then you play the game and realize it's as shallow as a puddle, and all that awesome stuff you imagined isn't realized. The mediocrity hits harder when you're so disappointed - even if you ignore the marketing. The problem is that even the game itself bought into the hype, and sets itself up to deliver, and then it just doesn't. You play through, hoping it opens up, that the gameplay systems start to synergize and the story begins to dive deeper, and you just find the same stale POIs and flat writing with a poor illusion of choice. You look at the lore and see everything that seems interesting in the story has already happened.
And the niche things some people could lost in, like the base or shipbuilding or modding of gear, they gated it all behind not only skill points but having to do rote things repeatedly to activate the skill once you buy it. Again, it's the game buying into its own hype thinking it's so awesome that you'll enjoy going through meh parts to get to the less meh parts. It's beyond perplexing from a company that has a "the player can do everything playing the game once" only to hide half the game behind a really bad skill system.
I like how you guys think you're saying some new groundbreaking opinion when you echo "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" for the millionth time. I bet it makes you feel well smart doesn't it.
@@gnucompiler my man let people express how they feel. With the billions of opinions you’re going to hear a lot of the same points a lot. Its annoying yes but it will never go away whether its starfield opinions or the same sports interview questions. You just have to accept that is a part of life
I don't have and have never played Starfield (still actively playing Skyrim AE ...640), but RUclips foisting these Starfield hate videos on me, while initially fun (sure, I rubberneck at an accident, and there's an argument it's an evolutionary adaptation), has become so annoying, I started (and cancelled) several comments to criticize them. You guys have had a pretty good, nuanced take on it all, so I really appreciate it. You're smart, entertaining, and not as clickbait-y as others out there. Cheers!
Starfield is one of the best-selling and most-played games of the year and the hate is a bandwagon effect and PS fanboys. Most people who don't like a game just move on and don't keep talking about it months later that's just an obsession at that point.
I don't hate Starfield, it gave me the kick in the balls I needed to finally stop being lazy and reinstall/remod Skyrim. Now I'm level 40 with 380+ mods exploring new lands created by players I've never seen before.
I was never interested, but I think the current problem comes from love, not hate. Starfield seems to come close to being what everyone wants it to be, but keeps missing the mark in their eyes.
I kinda agree with the sentiment. I find it so bizzare seeing the 100th "Starfield bad" Video in my YT recommendation. And sure its not the greatest game this year but bruh - the content mills are really running wild with this one.
Yeah, people are intentionally generating controversy. Probably fueled by Sony and its hardcore fanbase. (since we know they actively targetted the game before and after release) Just look at how fast people forgot the actually terrible games that released in 2023. See it as a mask-off moment for content creators. Stuff like this is great to see what content creators care about giving good commentary or reviews, and which ones just want to farm controversy.
I don't think people would have loved it even in 2013 because that was right on the heels of the Mass Effect trilogy which was the bomb. Also GTAV would have overshadowed its release
I think my hottest take about general negativity in gaming is because of pricing. I don't think the vitriol would be so prevalent if gaming wasn't getting more expensive, giving more chance for buyers remorse to set in.
Gaming isnt really getting more expensive at all. Especially when comparing people's increase in buying power over the years. The real issue is that these days theres too many options as a result of digital libraries (especially on PC!) and as a result there are literally hundreds of other (much cheaper, because older) options. Not to mention many people have backlogs now. Why buy a new game if you arent massively hyped for it?
I don't think the hate is really about starfield being the boringest of mids, thats just a symptom, the disease, is Bethesda. They're still trying to milk skyrim, fkng skyrim, with paid mods. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming "mod support" for starfield turns out to be mostly about creation club crap.
Starfield would have beem better recieved if this had come out before or prior to Fallout 76. They were on thin ice for alot people this title comes out and is middleing - lazy and lacks character or innovation so people lose there minds. But interms of your core question on why its taken so long is people are used to needing to play a game more than once or waiting X period of time to see if thr game is good or gets better. Like the typical rule for MMORPGs Oh it gets good 100 hours later. That sorts of mentality has been in place for people for a long time in addition to all crap games that came out from 2019 - 2022 the no man sky type games that were broken or bad and had a redemption arc with updates and patches. So people are being conditioned to give Games more time to prove themselves before outrage you also get people who are waiting for a review and people are way more willing to buy into a 7/10 vs a 5/10. The is a massive leap in potential engagement when the game is better than 5/10. You see a 6 or 7 out of 10 you then dealing with personal taste on a review.
I played Bethesda games since the 00's and I loved them for many many years even the ones that (atleast for me) started to get mid like Fallout 4. I however did not buy Starfield nor do i really have any desire to visit it. There was something about Bethesda's marketing with Starfield that just didn't sit right with me, it felt to me as it was trying to sell me everything but at the same time nothing. Bethesda proved over the years that they were best at open world exploration and my big concern with Starfield was without just one central overworld Starfield would need to be held up by what is usually the weaker parts of Bethesda's formula. Get rid of that overworld and a big driving force as to what attracts me to BGS titles is gone. I was already pretty disenfranchised with Bethesda and saw alot of these cracks loooong before Starfield because they had been there in all of their most recent games leading to Starfield and only got worse as time went on so i just saw the writting on the wall espeically paired with Starfield's marketing that sold a lot of stuff but not one cohesive vision. So it just bred a middling and apathetic opinion, I still follow it more so becuase I like hearing about Bethesda rather than the game itself at this point.
People reeeeeaaallly want to like Starfield, and low-key do. It's just that they want the game to be better. The anticipation, the potential, Bethesda's "lessons learned" from past games, and the actual result creates a very specific brain itch that players have to try and scratch by yelling at Bethesda.
Saw the Initial reviews of Starfield and decided to pirate it and check it out, after 15 hours it was clear I made the right choice. Bethesda decided to charge over $100 here in Australia which combined with the quality of the game made me realise how disgusted I was with Bethesda and the state of capitalism as a whole.
To me, it's the shattering of Bethesda's image in the eyes of many. Bethesda have had a reputation for years quality game designers and Bethesda have rested their laurels on that image. But one peek under the hood is all it takes to see that their games aren't all that. They've always had clunky combat, bland main quests, shallow open worlds etc. But they did in such a way that many players could forgive their issues. The games were big enough to get lost in. Players could create their own adventures. Starfield to me is current-day Bethesda at their most honest. They're not banking off a bought beloved IP, they're not banking off the former company head's glorified DnD setting. It's a completely new, original IP and its everything Bethesda is already known for, with all the glitz and glamour filed off. So for many, to see Bethesda for what they are, and IMO always have been, it's a slap in the face. It's a betrayal of a world they thought they knew. And in a world where so many better games have come out, already exist, done what Bethesda do but better, Starfield is now the small fish in the big pond.
I think the only part of Starfield that I actually hated was the Ryujin quest line because so much of it was just fast travel, talk, fast travel talk. You're like a UPS driver. Then they hype up this final mission, I try to stealth, and the guard just immediately sees me no matter what I do. Ryujin sucks ass as a faction. I had fun with the rest tho. It's okay, I got my money's worth at least. Love you guys!
I would like to say that what draws me to your guys' content is how nuanced you tell the news. Even though you aren't experts on all the subjects you cover, you're not afraid to step back and say, "we don't know the full story and we can only infer/guess on what's really going on." Your giving the best answers you can instead of the quickest answers you can. I think that is a more mature and genuine approach to handling games journalism. It's always a pleasure to watch whatever stories you decide to cover and I know that I will always get reliable news coverage.
I think the issue may also be the scope of what Starfield 'promises'. It's outer inherently is infinite and unimaginable - so people imagine something that is better than they could perceive. That, hand in hand with the marketing, seemed to propel this excitement of being blown away. Then the reality of boredom that most people have felt feels like being cheated and/or being let down. Baldurs Gate 3 doesn't have the promise of grand scope but the reality of the game is a wider perspective based on the players decisions which all play out differently and feel rewarding. The difference between the two is whereon the problem lies, I feel
I think Lawrence’s final theory on why people are enjoying the starfield hate so much is right, I kind of find myself there too. I used to live Bethesda but since fallout 4 and especially since 76 if find myself completely disinterested until they can make a change. Skyrim was good when it came out because of when it came out, they are still releasing Skyrim like games or worse at a time when that is no longer acceptable. Bethesda needs to evolve and innovate or else I think they may fall to the wayside. If Elder scrolls 6 comes out and is of similar quality I’m not sure how many people are even gonna care. I hope this time Bethesda listens but their response to reviews makes me worry
load field where you have a FTL space craft with no land vehicles. a game where you have to leave the planet and re-land to be able cross the invisible land barrier that exists on foot. a game where their own devs said "planets are empty by design this is not boring but realistic". so realistic you get to pick pointless shitty super powers each time you complete the game..
I think the big thing with starfield is that people really wanted it to be good. or even be at the same level as a fallout/skyrim in space and not only did it not capture that. It missed the mark by a wide margin. watching a game studio as beloved as bethesda is akin to watching your pet die. people have emotional connection to those older games and seeing the studio put out failure after failure has put doubt in their minds that bethesda cant make good games at all anymore. destroying their excitement for things like the next elder scrolls.
I just want to add one more theory that I've been thinking of about Starfield to add to your excellent theories. I think on top of the marketing you spoke of, the practice of giving review codes selectively for such a high profile game to game the review system affected the expectations to unreasonable levels. The vast majority of consumers purchase based on reviews and that still holds true today. The glowing reviews at the start got a lot of people purchasing Starfield with unreasonable expectations. That caused people to become disenchanted with the game at a high level. I've wrote it before on another site, but Bethesda actively chose money over legacy with that move. Which is great from a business sense.
The award shows brought a review bomb with reviews that just mention the award. But the rest of the Steam reviews are equal. Not everyone has to like a game. Just like not everyone likes Skyrim or Fallout. Which has the same problems this game suffers. Just this game is not based on walking everywhere and instead you must explore with a ship and jetpack.
E3 is a relic from the times of physical distribution. E3 was typically the announcement of releases (for Christmas sales), and Gamescom the negotiation with distribution partners and shelve spaces (for Christmas sales). Those business cases are kind of void with the new distribution models.
I’m curious if either of you have seen PartitionTV’s review and analysis of Starfield. I think his series reviewing most of the Bethesda games since Morrowind illustrates the shifting objectives of the studio. I’m also curious if you guys think these waves of longer form content that come months or years after release are contributing to the changing tide of opinion?
I'm a games designer, and it hit me watching this video that Bethesda hasn't been... doing games design since F3/Skyrim They've just been making "Content" for their existing systems. For over 15 years No driving the "What is an RPG" idea forward, and it's really showing (And the content itself isn't even... good? It's fetch quests in space, what are they even doing over there?) (Ha, Lawrence made this point after I wrote this)
You asked "why do you love to hate starfield?" But i dont love to hate starfield; i dont even own it; i love to _watch people_ who hate starfield. I'll probably enjoy the game if I bothered to get into it, but People are funnier when they're disappointed and angry over an entertainment product. Thank you for the layoff lecture. I do wish Geoff at least acknowledged it during his most important moment. Instead he pretended like it doesn't exist, probably because embarrassed megacompanies would pull out their trailers and hurt the show.
I think the reason why Stanfield didn't release as buggy, unplayable crap is because Beth learned their lesson with 76. The public backlash was so strong they knew they couldn't do this with Stanfield, which is supposed to be Todd Howard's magnum opus.
The difference between Starfield hate and all the other games like Gollum or Kong is that noone really cared about them or who made them, but Starfield is an 8 years long project from a big established studio known for games that can be played for years and have the biggest modding communities. In terms of potential playtime and expectations Starfield is like all the other hated games of the year combined if not more. On top of that Bethesda keeps adding fuel to the fire with the Steam review responses and their writer having a twitter meltdown. Also the fans are starting to realize they have to wait another 5+ years for TES6 and based off Starfield it's probably gonna be just as dated and bland.
The only reason it's lodged in our consciousness and not immediately forgotten is because it's a mainline Bethesda Studios game, and people enjoyed Skyrim, and are now worried that the next entry is also going to be very outdated and middling. Nothing to do with this game in and of itself, everything to do with the studio that made it's reputation, fall from grace, and potential future projects. Also, people play games for thousands of hours and end up hating it, and it's justified. MMO's, MOBA's, etc. have people play for years and then end up disappointed and walk away hating the game. Starfield had lots of people play it for a hundred hours hoping that it would at some point deliver on it's promise, so they kept playing not because they were having a blast, but because they kept hoping it would improve.
I played starfield for 70-80 hours and it’s just ok/good. The main story is so boring and I couldn’t finish it BUT a lot of the side content was fun! I feel like the skill tree is super dumbed down. (Stealth didn’t even work when I played, still don’t know if it does). Constant load screens ruined the experience so much for me. Lack of maps. I will say that the gameplay is good and smooth and I really think most people can enjoy the game for 60-70 hours but it’s definitely not or nowhere near “game of the generation.” I do think it is over hated. For some reason I think people are saying it’s worse than it it is but thats just IMO. Bethesda did hype up this new IP like crazy and delivered a just ok game. Maybe thats their fault. I’d love to hear other opinions though.
I do genuinely appreciate how you two bring up bleak capitalist realities in this industry. As was alluded to during this cast, lots of people are growing up and part of that means nostalgia, not for old games, but the feeling of innocence that came with being a kid trying a cool new thing and being in dopamine overload. Way too many people still look at vidya as a fun little thing to forget about the struggles of the world, turn your brain off, and be a kid again. But, again as you mentioned, it is very much a profit-driven industry that we were fortunate enough in the past to have had passionate artists get their ideas adopted. I think this is a major factor in the Starfield hate train, lots of people are starting to accept the reality of soulless corporate capitalist crap in the things they once held dear and they don't like it (and who can blame them?) The layoffs suck and it is horrible that peoples' livelihoods are being ruined, but I think it is correct to assume that the true visionaries on these dev teams will start their own mini studios and make what they want more as a hobby than as a source of income. Perhaps I'm just trying to look at the silver lining, but I can only hope this will lead to better things.
I do think there was a lot of decisions made to pull back and make a game they can release and it will feel like a full game. More engineering and development takes time. Exploration gets reduced to loading screens. Survival mechanics gets reduced. Quests and dialog remain so very simple otherwise they might have to sacrifice even more on the number of quests. On console they focused on optimizing for 4K/30 and didn’t make a performance mode, because visuals sell games, and you can either have two unoptimized modes or one optimized mode. So if you’re only going to have 1 focus on the one that will lead to sales. The game feels like a jack of trades, master of none. There isn’t 1 thing Starfield does better than other games that have come out over the last 10 years. The game is even missing features and elements from past Bethesda games. Starfield doesn’t even feel like a culmination of the best things across Bethesda games. The game isn’t “bad”, but everywhere you go, everything you do you’re reminded how much potential there is, and nothing was done to that potential. And you want it to be better with more follow through everywhere. You assume a developer the size of Bethesda could do it. But it ends up feeling like the least ambitious title they’ve made. There’s this thought of “how could they?”
Starfield is a game that taught me 3 things : 1. Don't preorder games 2. Don't buy games from Bethesda 3. Read the whole EULA of games before playing them because surprisingly it stated there is microtransaction in Starfield, guess it was my fault for thinking there won't be microtransaction for a near 100$ single player game
I like what Bruce said about the Beatles. Despite whatever people think of them, they are the most obvious example of how artistry exceeds anything else in terms of success. It’s not an easy balance to create something that pleases both the masses and the critics, but those are the things that ultimately stand the test of time. Companies need to focus on giving freedom to developers and encouraging artistry.
I can't get over the weird narrative of "Creation Engine 2 is an entirely new engine, cut them some slack." So every year when the new CoD comes out, we should also cut whoever the developer is some slack because they're using IW X.0
I normally really like your guys content, but I think it's a little ignorant to imply that game devs are blinded by nostalgia Lawrence. I'm a AAA engineer who has been in this industry for a good amount of time now and the level of expertise and awareness among director level leadership has never been higher. It's just worth being a little bit careful because the implication there comes off just super ignorant. High concept ideation in the AAA budget space is about RoI, and hardly, if at all, about game design. The majority of us are spending day in and out focusing on executing production needs within the right budgeting constraints and making the right sacrifices. Sometimes there's levels of iteration on mechanics and stuff... but nobody is ever having any official meetings like "I think we should make the game more like X game from my childhood" after high concept, and at that, the group that makes those calls is super small. Idk, id be glad to chat more about this, but I just took a bit of offense to that implication.
Nah man, the people are upset because the mediocrity feels intentional. It's an agressive in your face mockery of your intellect. The dialogue, the setting, everything is screaming |go ef yourself" in a polite censored and unconfrontational way. This is the biggest problem with starfield. Forget procedural generation, the enemies, AI, bugs, whatever. There's also the idea of the last great American developer of role playing games bowing down to Larian studios and being straight up embarassed when it comes to characters, setting, choices, and things that Bethesda CHOSE to do poorly.
With 7 broken quests, I avoided calling it garbage. I focused on boarding and stealing ships. Then ships disappeared from my inventory. And, I avoided calling it garbage. I boarded ships, killed crews, sold thise ships. Then the crews were no longer there. I avoided calling it garbage. I spent countless hours trying to find workarounds, loading older saves, waiting, sleeping, walking, in loading screens. I liked aspects of it but every time I did, those things would break. I wrote a review not recommending it, and got a disgusting Bethesda response. I paid $100 for it. I tried still to find things I liked and focused on finishing out the achievements. Then, the game started constantly crashing. I got the Form ID bug which is somewhat inevitable for all players. I decided it was trash. Trash I unfortunately spent a lot of time in trying to find things to like. Emil Pagliarulo's tweets only convinced me that not only was the game trash, but so are those making decisions, including him, at Bethesda. Their marketing was bad and did deceive. In places the Direct outright lied. You guys saying that Starfield players should have known better is no better than Pagliarulo. And yes, it's possible yo put a lot of hours into something you eventually determine is trash. You can even spend 500 hours in a game that's broken, go to NG+ to reset the game and get rid of bugs, then realize you've no desire to ever play it again. And, in that you finally realize you were just doing a lot of stuff you weren't really enjoying. Your insulting attitude towards people because they played a lot is just awful. It's no better than the Bethesda stans who tell people 40 hours isn't enough to be able to judge the game. And that then ridicule others who dislike it after putting 100 hours into it.
This is the first game where Emil had to come up with the lore completely on his own rather than just writing stories in a world which had already been built and fleshed out lore wise by much greater writers than he. That’s why there is basically no lore and the writing is being criticised even more than normally… he’s just an average writer who’s developed a god complex
Yeah no. The reason for the dogpilling isn't that the game is a solid 5/10 and could get a GOTY if it came out in 2013. The reason for it is because some people didn't like it and Bethesda in its infinitesimal wisdom decided to start copypasting ChatGPT-esque responses to negative reviews, the lead writer acting like everyone involved in the development deserves a medal and ultimately telling on himself because there is a difference between flexibility and something being a disorganized clusterfuck, Todd's comment about empty planets comparing that to the literal Apollo program. If they said nothing and just took it on the chin the rage wouldn't ever come to boiling point, the game would die a natural death with most people just kinda marking it as one and done and not saying anything positive or negative; Steam reviews are either "Recommend" or "Don't recommend". Coming down from your ivory tower and saying "no you're wrong", to reviews that I'm sure most at least partially agreed with is what made a lot of the previously abstaining votes take inventory of all the things that were dumb in the game and turn that into a negative review.
I wouldn't say I love to hate Starfield but for me this feels like people are finally listening to what I feel I've been saying for ages? When skyrim hit big and everyone I knew and their mums were talking about how its the best game of all time I was that one PC nerd telling everyone about how there are way better RPGs out there? We have our Planescape torment, Arcanum, fallout 1/2, baldurs gate 1/2, Ultima and I would wanna sneak in Arx Fatalis here for its immersive sim aspects. Hell even Bethesda themselves used to make much more interesting RPGs with Morrowind. Exploration was more of a Kahjiit hopped up on skooma giving us vague directions and not a waypoint. You could customize magic, items would have hugely beneficial effects whilst making you blind at the same time. You were locked to certain paths instead of being the grand master of all guilds cause "People wanna have all the things". So yeah, I guess I like to hate it because it feels like vindication when a large group of people AND actual games journos (despite being parodies of actual journalists mostly) are at least publicly negative about something I felt was dated 12 years ago now.
You guys hit on a really fascinating phenomenon, the collective opinion of the internet not accurately representing most people’s views. I definitely fall into the camp of someone who really liked Starfield, played for 60 hours, and happy overall with it. Definitely has its faults,but I’m not angrily screaming on the internet about it.
For Starfield, they tried to combine "space sim" with the classic BGS formula. Which sounds cool on paper, but Bethesda don't have the tech to do seamless space sim stuff, and the space sim stuff took away from the exploration element of previous games. I don't think their tech is outdated either. They can do things no other studio does, with their radiant AI system and object persistence. But I think these features really limit world streaming, hence the hard loading screens It's pretty simple really. Still a good game though.
Regarding the perplexing "hundred hour" negative reviews: Starfield is interesting in that the more you play it, the more you discover how broken the systems are, how inconsequential the choices are, and how hilariously bad the writing is. After 100 hours in a constantly worsening environment, I think it's pretty easy to give it a bad review. Starfield leads with it's best foot forward, lures you in, and then gets worse and worse as you navigate the universe. I'd compare it to reading a poorly written book with an interesting synopsis. You might finish reading it just to see what happens -- maybe it gets better? But you won't recommend it just because you finished it. It still sucked. Sunk cost fallacy, morbid curiosity, whatever. That's Starfield. 100 hours is nothing in BGS game time, anyway.
I feel like the negative reaction to starfield is a culmination of all the dissapointments that bethesda has been dishing out these past few years. It's like going to your favourite restaurant regularly because you know they make the best food, but the last few times you went to dine there the food has gotten more and more bland. At some point it's our own fault for still going there and expecting better results
Facts
Oh but paid mods are back. They aren't done disappointing it seems 😅
Starfield was just a bit of disappointment to me. Wasn't bad "Played it for 200 hours so it can't be that bad", just not was I was fully expecting or hoping for. A lot of things that made Bethesda games what they are not in Starfield, NPCs are not as good as previous games, UI feels even more clunky than their previous games, so many loading screens and pop ups that break immersion, and the clear understanding that Bethesda is behind on the times. I could go on... but it worries me for ES6.
Its mainly pony protesting. Most of the reviews are positive but the negative reviews get the headlines. As shattered space drops and official mod support is added and the game gets patched more and pony rage subsides… the review ratio between positive and negative will widen.
TBH I was done with Skyrim, I literally in no way can relate to people thinking that game wasn't complete trash. Every Elder Scrolls game has been engineered more and more for idiots, with less passion, less design, worse writing, dumped-down ugly garbage. Skyrim was trash, what did people see in it? The mindlessly repetitive dungeons with the spinning wheel "puzzle" you could solve in six seconds? More random loot? The sad, tiny cities with writing so repetitive and uninspired that it became not one but three different memes (Khajit has coin/Cloud district/Arrow knee)?
Guys, it’s the most underwhelming Bethesda game. The fascination is with who made the game not the game itself, Bethesda explaining why gamers are wrong in the steam reviews helped rekindle the hate.
I agree with you there. In the same vein, it makes you wonder if this game would've gotten alot more leeway if it was made by anyone else but Bethesda, which I'm sure it would've.
You are the actual minority they talked about. All the data tells us reality isn’t what you say it is.
It’s this absolutely, had another studio made starfield it would have been forgotten in a few weeks, the fact it came from a studio as popular as Bethesda is why it’s kept on. I think the fact cyberpunk had its expansion in the same timeframe and comparisons between the two started a lot of discourse definitely helped keep it in the public conscience.
@@Brannon1009 "we got 12 million players" yeah because game pass. Public opinion still says 28% positive only, 65% if you want to be generous. Alot of reviews are written in the first week where the hype is still on. Hype is dead and people see the game for what it is and they dont like it. But you keep defending it and eat their ass
Agreed, I found Starfield to be pretty average, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10, nothing that stood out enough to rage about. However, the Bethesda response and Emil's out of touch moment on X is what irks me more than the game. Plus, people expected more from Bethesda because of their successes. Starfield would have garnered a lot less hate if it was from an indie studio without a track record.
Personally, I found the game to be really disappointing... I LOVED Bethesda games, but I was already getting frustrated with the engine by the time fallout 4 came out.
It was such a great concept for them to tackle, but it felt half cooked slightly!
"I think gamers have developed taste" is the PERFECT quote from Lawrence 😂
Personally, I found the game to be really disappointing... I LOVED Bethesda games, but I was already getting frustrated with the engine by the time fallout 4 came out.
It was such a great concept for them to tackle, but it felt half cooked slightly!
"I think gamers have developed taste" is the PERFECT quote from Lawrence 😂
@@chesi_7_0_79 Bad bot, go away.
@@chesi_7_0_79 is there a fucking echo in here?
@@chesi_7_0_79 ''Six-teen times the Bots!''
I think you guys are really under playing Bethesda's response to the criticism and how that was fuel to the hate fire that we're seeing rage now.
It was mixed with admittedly a big pile on. How is the fan base supposed to feel when the response to genuine criticism is "sounds like a you problem"
It's a business not a toxic relationship. It's like a restaurant hearing, "it's a little undercooked" and saying "f#ck you, you're not a cook, you don't know" of course you're getting bad reviews after that especially WHEN YOU DON'T STFU. seriously put down your phones, close Twitter and fix it. Most mods I see already implement qol and fix problems without the creation kit... You have the actual code. A good 3 months for a patch to include s#it cyberpunk had at launch.
@@x0gucx I mean, honestly - not all of that was needed. Simple fact is that it takes 2 to Tango. The Modders or any of their fans should be downing tools. The game is simply not even *Fun* in it's own right. I go as far, (well, totally real actually) to say Pokémon Scarlet & Violet offered a much more Original and moving Story for their series. LazyField literally reskins a worse ''Dragonbourrrnne!!'' with Jpeg Planets - for $100. It's crazy comical! 😂
@x0gucx yup. Cyberpunk started its redemption arc when CDPR just stayed quiet and continually patched and improved its game over months. Edgerunners was obviously a big unexpected boost, but mainly they just took the criticisms on the chin and went about fixing as much as they could.
When I received my second power from the temple, and it was just another version of Fus-Ro-Da, I was done.
The starfield hate is as outsized as it is because of Bethesda’s pedigree, the inane marketing that drove it, and just how aggressive a waste of players time it was. It truly felt like every worst tendency in the industry into one massive glitzy package. I’m not sure why, but it feels really insulting that Bethesda would charge me 60 bucks for a game that starts with the dreaded “walk and talk” section where the NPCs walk slower than you and you have to constantly stop to match them. It’s like they thought “hey, you are a loser with no obligations, you’ll enjoy this massive 30 hour waste of time!”
Like I know this sounds hyperbolic, but playing starfield FEELS like Bethesda hates it’s players and thinks they’re stupid. all the “nuh uh, you don’t get it, our game is great” shit in the steam reviews just proves it. It genuinely feels audacious to ship and charge money for a SPACE GAME with almost no actual space travel. Like, what are we doing?
That's a great observation. I felt the same way with a lot of NPC interactions throughout, where you go up to them and they're busy for a minute before you can talk to them. Like every time you go to the Eye and talk to Vlad, he has to mumble to himself for a while before you can get his attention, usually something to make him sound smart like finishing calculations in his head. That kind of stuff is fine to do once... not every time you interact!
It is hyperbolic to feel that way. It's essence of all corporations beyond small size, which are in no way connected to their actual audience or customers anymore.
All of these companies hate their customers and wish they could just take all their money without providing any service. All customers are just meat sacks with some cash. Facebook and some other tech companies actually cry because they ran out of potential customers, they had 90%+ market penetration in their core functions. Which is very bad for the sort of management they do, where customer is the product.
The problem lies in its advertisement. Starfeild was marketed as the next skyrim, marketed as the next big leap for Bethesda, and marketed as the game that would save Xbox! When Comparing this to major rpgs that came out recently it doesn’t hold up, you could say this is a cyberpunk situation but that game still had characters and a story when it came out, this game has 2D outlines for characters and a story that makes spider-man 2 look like a masterpiece. Maybe it’s just not for me!
The problem is not the marketing, people had these expectations regardless of “advertising” it’s underwhelming because it’s a fundamentally bad RPG. This is about as objective a fact as can be.
No it wasn’t. Objectively. It was marketed “Daggerfall in space” and that is Verbatim what Todd said and that’s exactly what we got. We also got exactly what the marketing said the game would be.
@@Brokenlance The problem is what the marketing didn't say, instead heavily implying things but using broad and vague grandiose statements(1000 unique worlds, endless exploration) leaving themselves an out to just play semantics on what they actually meant and eventually blaming the user for "not understanding it" which they did, or for expecting things that weren't *specifically* promised, which they also did.
@@m4nt1c0r3s I just rewatched the Xbox showcase presentation when they showed off the game about a year before launch. Not a single thing was left up to interpretation. Everything shows we can do as advertised.
If you had expectations outside of what they showed, that is squarely a you problem.
@@Brokenlance again, its not about what they said, its what they omitted, like when Todd said then you can land on the planet, but it turned out you cant land on it you just click a dot and it shows you a video of a ship landing, but semantics i guess on what is meant by landing on the planet.
Or when he said you can explore anywhere on the planet, again not specifying that you dont really explore *anywhere* on the planet, you get a small portion sandboxed and omitting all the loading screens left, right and center, but sure people are the problem when you upsell something and then being disappointed for actually expecting to be delivered.
Like they didnt do this with FO76 already and then Todd and Pete had to tour the world trying to reinvent the english language so they can explain what they said while marketing the game was "technically" true, but people were expecting too much then too i guess.
I also think Bethesda's responses to the criticism also have fueled the hate towards Starfield.
Or maybe… just maybe, Starfield shouldn’t talk up a big game when it has little to deliver.
It’s not rage bait, it’s a bed of their own making.
And yet... people can't stop talking about it.
Lets face it, the gaming internet loves its punching bags... and rage-baiting drives clicks & engagement. Its this self-reinforcing cycle thats settled on Starfield cuz its an easy target. It'll last until the mob moves onto the next game to start the rage-circle-jerk once again.
Its predictable & somehwat funny to watch unfold, time and time again. But as No Mans Sky/Cyberunk has shown us, these same ragers are fickle sheep.
@@varno6793 Its not 'rage' its apathy but its also interesting to see a company nearly everyone used to love go down hill like so fast. Its part of the news cycle and more and more people waking up to how bad this game is and also their other recent titles. Its the same as watching a celebrity rise and fall its human nature but not rage at all, its a side spectacle.
@@scarletina5137 Maybe not 'rage'.. but some sorta obsessive, lingering bitterness? But its definitely not apathy.. as that would mean Starfield would have faded from the public eye months ago. (think something like Gotham Knights, Forspoken, Saints Row, etc. as games that are 'bad to mediocre'... that illicit apathy from the masses)
But for whatever reason, Starfield is the game people can't get off their minds. I can think of a dozen 'middling/medicore' games that we've all moved on from.. but Starfield? That drives clicks & engagement.
@@varno6793
It's apathy for the game and hate towards the devs that should really stfu.
It sounds hateful but as a friend they should stfu. Responding to "I'm bored" with "no it's not, it's like actually going to the moon" (side note didn't even get that right cause people are actually going to the moon in starfield seeing an atmosphere and stormy weather) it's wild. And Emil keeps posting how hard it is to make games with past articles and interviews with him stating how little he thinks of the players and his job.
I'd say it should be a good mixed but they really need to stfu cause it doesn't make you look any more appealing for future games like ES6.
It's kind of like Pokimane, is she the worst thing on earth? Not even close. But people need to make videos about her twice a month to make money.
You mentioned Balder's gate but the better example is tears of the kingdom. TOTK was built on a game engine and map that a lot of people already knew with characters and a story line that most people could have guessed before the game released but it still had a lot of creativity and people wanted to explore and do all the things.
@@hatshepsut295amen
@@hatshepsut295 Yea,, like ''6 others''. Imagine feeling this entitled and wannabe popular. Probably another bot that dismisses the 20+ million sales as 'fiction' too, lmao! ''asset flip'' ? I dunno where to start with that waffle! 😂 You literally cannot have played the game properly - the Building is secondary to really _any_ of the Major upgrades needed to make your Quest easier to complete the game. You have no idea.
Regarding physical media, we traded in owning our purchases for renting to get faster access to the media (streaming/digital market places). The problem is we are given no guarantee to protect our purchases... they are rentals. So when a service gets boughtout or closed down, then we risk losing 10s of hundreds of dollars in rentals if the new owners do not want to honor the old system.
On top of that, the owner of the digital master can change the media at a whim, or make it completely disappear. Like Max and Sesame Street, Max chose to trim their Sesame Street royalties owed (operating cost), so Sesame Street said "f that" and uploaded their content to youtube to ensure continued access to their demographic: educating and entertaining children.
I think the hatred toward the game is a culmination of other factors. I actually think the anger toward Bethesda started when Fallout New Vegas came out. I think that game really put a spotlight on the apparant flaws of Bethesda, and eventually that game created expectations for the eventual Fallout 4 a few years later. When Fallout 4 finally did drop, it seemed to be in many factors a step back from what New Vegas did. When Fallout 76 dropped, well that's self explanitory. Starfield seemed to be Bethesda finally taking the next step in graphics, writing, scale ect that people have wanted from Bethesda for a long time, and when it finally dropped we now know it's not. It's yet another game loaded with bugs, low graphic fidelity, shit writing, stoic characters with poor animations, and this stuff just isn't acceptable anymore.
Spot on imo
i think the idea that gamers are only thinking the game is bad because its new and they would have the same receptions if old Bethesda games came out today is just wrong, i played fallout 3 and new Vegas for the first time a year and a half ago in preparation for starfield and gave then like 7.5-8/10 and starfield is like a 4/10 for me, after doing all the main stuff and some side quests. i think its because the formula Bethesda uses doesn't work when there is no natural exploration.
I'm playing NV right now and it's great. Skyrim and F4 holds up well today. Starfield is literally just worse.
People complained that fallout 4 was empty... LOOK AT STARFIELD!! AND THEY'RE DEFENDING IT?!
If you think fallout 3 and new vegas are the same ... maybe we should disregard your opinion also(i say also cause bruce and laurence are on some weird shit)
i gave 2 scores a 7.5 and an 8 bozo@@femkaand if you are a nv elitest f3 is the higher score lmao
Fallout New Vegas was made in 18 months cause it was in the contract with Bethesda. Bethesda made Obsidian to finish the game in 18 months and Obsidian said "hold my beer".
@@SapiaNt0mata Bethesda, in making FO3, did make the tech and much of the art that made up FNV. I like New Vegas a lot. In fact, I'm playing it right now but let's not pretend it was built from the ground up in 18 months.
I think the reason why games like Cyberpunk and Starfield retain so much attention is because of who they come from. People have expectations of these studios. Is Gollum a worse game? Yeah, but who cares? No one was expecting anything from that studio.
I think, in Bethesda's case, there's also a segment of the fanbase that had negative expectations for this or that reason and had their thoughts validated.
no, bethesda has a toxic community already. everything from Morrowind elitist, people that download mods (not actual modders), and your average internet nitpicker. There is NO validation here buddy. Starfield is a neutral game that just gets smeared as 1/10.
@@peacefusion hm, well. Idk what makes people who download mods toxic. For people going in with negative expectations though, if their expectations are met or exceeded, that would be validating.
I wasn't able to play Starfield, so I can't comment on how good or bad it actually is, but I would agree that some of the more extreme criticizers seem to be exaggerating.
exactly. no, i meant to say the general view of people that download mods. I do a lot of skyrim modding, so I know the community and how many casual people just hate bethesda when all they do is download mods. But I totally agree with your first point. Same thing with cyberpunk, people can just get dragged into hypes as well as negative youtube videos. @@RockR277
At least 4 loading screens just to go anywhere or loading screens for a single vendor shop a size of a small room? what's the point of the SSD and XBOX velocity architecture.
5:08 I relate to this a lot. Starfield made me realise what I loved about skyrim(and fallout 3/4) is the aimless exploration of an interesting handmade world, because starfield does not have that at all.
Absolutely right
In defense of negative game reviews with lots of playtime, sometimes it takes people that long to find all the things they dislike and it changes their opinion.
Absolutely, the flaws don't always become apparent at the start.
Like me, also I usually read the long hour reviews. Whenever I think game bad/trash I look at the long hour reviews cuz I feel like maybe I’m not doing it right. Both positive and negative reviews tooo.
Also I remember playing a quarter of a game and saying it sucked then got nothing but "you didn't finish" now no matter what I play start to finish before sharing my thoughts, I actually felt shame after seeing 100hrs I literally won't finish it. It's at the point where it's just boring like I'm wasting my time playing, I can't even laugh at how awful it is.
I really feel like it’s a lose lose situation, for people who wanted to enjoy it, and either quit or didn’t enjoy it after X many hours. Like if you don’t touch it, apparently you are okay. And if you say you love it you are Winning.
Which is really confusing to me.
Like I’d rather read a review of someone who played idk uh 50+ hours and see everything they liked/disliked. Then be like oh starfields getting bullied I must say I love it for the sake of? What exactly? And then get shit on if I say hey I didn’t enjoy this. I’m not the one calling it’s trash, I just say I didn’t like it.
yup. the modder of Starfield Together mod made 70% of the work until he said "Starfield is not a good game so I quit working for the mod".
Read a good amount of the reviews on Steam, and honestly, I have to agree with all the one's I read, its valid criticism, the game is boring, bland and uninteresting. The companions are all a copy and paste of each other. There is no ROLE PLAYING at all. The game wants you to play a certain type of character, and it just makes the game feel like a chore. It truly has been a HUGE disappointment and Bethesda seriously needs to get their shit together, because now, people are losing faith in ES6, that's definitely something you do not want as company. If people like it, then that's cool but it doesn't change the fact that this game truly is bad.
Well said
So many people who actually rate it positive read the reviews and say "they're not wrong" but because the game sales are up and a lot of people are doing it it's "unjustified" b#tch did people forget about the "success" of Velma.
an evil play through is literal unviable in starfield. it’s stifling
@@burnt-croissants Funny that you bring that up, I- for the first time ever- attempted an "Evil" playthrough on my first run out of any Bethesda game, as I usually do a "Good" playthrough, then "Evil" the second time around, and when I tried killing certain characters, and make "bad" choices, the options were just not there. NPC's being unkillable and the linear dialog forcing me to pretty much be the "good guy". That's when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew in that moment, that the game I had been so excited for, was non existent.
17:22
To comment on Bruce's statement about the people who played 100 hours and still reviewed the game negatively, I totally get that, like why would you play it for 100 hours if you didn't enjoy enjoy it, especially if you got it on Gamepass for next to nothing. But on the flipside of that coin, there are people who probably paid full price for it, didn't like it, but felt like they needed to slug through it in order to get some return value on their investment. 100 hours is pushing that, but I can see 40 hours played and still leave a bad review.
For instance, I bought Atomic Heart earlier this year for two reasons, 1. I thought it looked like a pretty cool game and I wanted something new to play, and 2. I'm a MAJOR dumbass and didn't realize it was releasing on Gamepass. So I spent the $70 and ended up really not liking the game at all, but I forced myself to play through it to get my money's worth, and also as a kind of punishment for not realizing it was coming out on Gamepass. Maybe I have too much time on my hands? But it also taught me a lesson, and that's to always check to see if a game is on Gamepass before spending money on it. But I have like 16 hours in that game and would probably leave a bad review if I ever actually spent the time to write those.
But the thing is in any game there can be some things you like, but finally you decide there are more things you don't.
I'll honestly say it took me 500 hours to fully dislike Starfield.
I liked some quests but played a lot of them that I didn't like or thought were bland.
In doing them I spent a lot of time waiting and sleeping to be able to sell things.
I spent a lot of time walking and in loading screens.
I spent time with the game paused, whole submitting 10 bug reports, 7 broken quests and 1 huge gamebreaking bug.
I went through things I did kind of like becoming broken.
I tried workarounds. Loaded countless older saves.
I went to NG+ to get rid of bugs and got a new one.
I decided to get all achievements. I did that, got the gamebreaking bug that can only be temporarily fixed by going to NG+ and decided I was done.
I was a fool to spend so much time in the game, but I don't have a lot of money to spend on games. And I hoped to like this one.
I have Baldur's Gate 3, so I'm playing that. I can't really call a lot of what I did in Starfield, playing.
@@auntdee845 on the bright side, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game you can spend 1000 hours in and still experience new things. Honestly the best game I’ve played in the last decade at least.
@@DesmondMoeller I absolutely agree about BG3.
What makes people still infatuated with Starfield is an easy question to answer. Some people expect to pack their virtual bags and move into Bethesda's games for years. There are lots of players, myself included, that treat Bethesda's games as life sims. You don't expect to move into Elden Ring, Hi-Fi Rush or Redfall. Good or bad, those types of games are just transient experiences.
Even if Starfield were bug-free, its design was terribly flawed; there’s nothing between POI, credits were used mostly for custom ships, and why did they think players wanted to interact w/ literal junk?
I played oblivion and had a blast with the creativity in the quests. I felt how Skyrim had made things shallow and yet was gleaming with a deeper meaning, like a the reflextion of the sky in puddle of mud. Skyrim was more shallow than oblivion, yet Starfield feels less than half as shallow as skyrim was. I really like hearing starfield described as an impressive skyrim mod, really hits the nail on the head. In Starfield, riverwood has a loading screen. And has its own planet.
deep
The problem is people only remember Skyrim decade+ after when playing with tons of mods. And that is what they compare Starfield too, not the base game. Oblivion was already more shallow then Morrowind, btw. I disagree that Starfield has more shallow quests then Skyrim. I agree that the main quest isnt great, but Bethesda has never been great (or even particularly good) with those.
Didn't FO3 have some fun stuff?@@Tiasung
This was a great discussion lads and some great points made/questions posed!
I still don't hate Starfield. Doubt I ever will. The more I play it (and I still do, just rarely), the more it becomes obvious to me what Bruce said during the talk - there were fantastic ideas for intricate quest lines, puzzles, catchy dialogues and whatnot which just didn't get fully realized. Someone somewhere decided that a line should be drawn whre maybe it shouldn't have.
Being a developer myself, I can easily picture the expression of a colleague who proposed something extraordinary only to hear what I hear on a regular basis - "It's over-engineered", "It's too risky".
Well isn't that what makes unique memorable software products what they are - the things that are outside of the norm, the "risky" stuff? OK, I get it, risky stuff often ends up being buggy stuff.
But bugs are there either way. Better to resolve bugs and have something revolutionary afterwards rather than resolve bugs just to get to some bland, as Bruce said, mediocre status quo.
Starfields space exploration is literally on par with mass effect 1 but maybe even slightly worse with no vehicle. Besides that I have been genuinely enjoying the story and ship customization. It’s a fine game but I am just not motivated at all to explore outside the missions I’m assigned.
The general problem with Starfield is the things NPCs asks you to do would only make sense in a medieval setting. Those "talk to [person]" quests where you travel to another planet, talk to [person], and travel back to the 1st planet, would only make sense in a future where phones somehow don't exist.
Your science is wrong. The concept of FTL is you bend space around a ship so it can reach point 1 to point 2 despite the massive distance. You cannot strap an FTL device onto radio waves. So it will still need to take many years to reach another planet. You are basically saying the "Dune" Series is also "bad sci-fi" for using message couriers.
They did explain that in game why interstellar communication does not work but players can easily miss this. I do not agree with the explanation and it is evident it is only their for the game play they wanted.
What also doesn’t help Starfield is that CDPR also dropped Phantom Liberty along with the 2.1 patch around the same time…
I come to you guys to get your opinion. You seem genuine and honest rather than just trying to give headlines. Usually lets me see the game in a different way to help me decide what I want to do. Appreciate your work even since funhaus!
My sad story with the game is that I’ve always played on PlayStation, but the hype for Starfield was REAL, I bought an Xbox Series X on 2022 in anticipation for the game’s release (they got me good). Since release I managed to play some solid 7 hours of the game, didn’t click at all for me. Since September I have however played 40 hours of No Man’s Sky and 80 of Cyberpunk 2077.
I upgraded my PC... 😂
But that also got me to buy Baldur's Gate on PC, so I guess it was worth it!
Damn they got you good brother… might still be able to sell the Xbox for half its retail cost, not sure the demand is there but now’s the time to try.
I think once the hype dies down, people are able to look at games wayyy more objectively. I spent 100 hours with the game lying to myself saying “yes they pulled it off.” And in some ways they did. But after clearing my 10th identical mining outpost and the illusion of space travel wearing me down - I was over it. It just took me 100 hours to let go of my emotion and love for what Bethesda used to be to realize it.
Yeah, that and all the perfect scores being given by media and reviewers. Thats how propagandizing works, invest heavily in creating the impression that the game is good, so the individual people that end up not liking it start second guessing themselves that maybe its just them that think that way so they are more reluctant to leave a negative review. And usually it takes a long time for enough people to speak out so that the illusion starts cracking, but then of course the convenient shut down becomes that its just "hate for the sake of hating".
And IG here did that, suggesting that it was just piling up and that people just like to rage on things, like there arent enough reasons to do while still be objective.
It is very much like an abusive relationship.
You keep telling yourself it will get better. You maybe liked previous things Bethesda did, so you just know it will at some point be like that too.
Then, you finally see it for what it is.
@@auntdee845 And then you go back to that abusive relationship by preordering the next bethesda game.
Can't leave that part out to complete the abusive relationship loop.
@belldrop7365 exactly. I personally am done. I don't need ES6: the Starfield Edition or any other Bethesda game.
Once my game broke, and Bethesda decided to attack their customers, it was over for me.
I think another huge problem is that yes, it is a big game... but a HUGE majority of that game is built upon replay, locked behind a lame fetch quest story. Me personally, i dont wanna play a boring main story quest over just to have another playthrough.... Its like wanting to have a new red dead playthrough but the snow level is 20hrs.
No one ever talks about The Outer Worlds. It’s closer to Skyrim in Space than Starfield. Also it’s a finished game with better controls and RPG elements than Starfield. It never wastes your time either. Obsidian snuck off with Bethesdas soul. Give them more money and see what they can do.
Nah probably just have em make a game about ants or whatever
I disagree about the play time when it was Starfield shills saying the game doesnt get good until 12 hours in, and you have to mainline the story, and then the game will be fun because you get Skyrim shouts, and THEN the game is fun.
I even heard people say "The game really ipens up after 60 hours."
So long playtimes, and then realizing the game is lackluster makes sense.
Then the terrible PR after release, and gaslighting players just makes it even worse.
I have 115 hours in Starfield, and I can say that it is outtdated, bland, uninspired, poorly written, irredeemably mediocre, and downright bad at times.
Edit: It took them 10 years to give us what they gave us at launch? Thats the biggest eye opener for me was they couldnt even get the basics of their own formula down in 10 years.
16:47 The thing about reviews where the person played the games for hundreds of hours is, there's this thing called the honeymoon phase. It lasts differently for not just each game, but every person too, a combination of them both. I remember with Fallout 4, it basically took me outfitting most (not all) settlements, beating the MSQ, and doing a bunch of sidequests (which, let's be honest, are mostly just radiant 'quests'), for me to eventually figure out that I didn't like the game.
Once the honeymoon phase is over, you start to pick up on the things that you might've not noticed, but your brain did.
Bethesda ego shaming people for not liking it didn't help.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the unbearable amount of loading screens & the god awful NPC's. It would have been a lot better recieved.
17:07 I think it serves as a warning to other players that your time is better used anywhere else
Your comment about people who have extra time really resonated with me.
I tore an ankle muscle the day after Starfield came out, so I had to spend a week on bedrest so it could heal.
Naturally I downloaded the game and literally played 10-12 hours a day for a week.
When I had done all the faction questlines and seen how few planet are actually populated with interesting locations,
I wiped it from my PC and haven't touched it since.
What's funny is, the thing Starfield does best is making want to play Skyrim.
"Right place in the cultural zeitgeist" really is such a great way to describe Bethesda. They're such a fascinating conundrum, a Schrodinger's Cat of game design. You can very easily compare and criticize their regression in terms of complexity of design and game mechanics. But I just redownloaded Fallout 4 on my PS5, jumped on and I've been having a blast running around and nuking Deathclaws. I haven't played Starfield yet (thanks for the exclusivity Microsoft, bet y'all are really regretting that decision right now). However, like you guys, looking at it I knew it was going to be mid. I've been playing Bethesda games for years, stretching all the way back to Morrowind. Like a lot of players, I love what they make, but their design and tech is starting to get extremely dated. The clunkiness of moving around in the creation engine really starts to make it feel very frustrating to play especially when I (somewhat unfairly) compare it to other shooters that feel absolutely amazing to control like Doom Eternal or Titanfall 2.
When I first saw Starfield gameplay, I was like "It's literally just Fallout in space. You didn't need to make an entirely new IP for that, you could have just done space fallout." I mean for fucks sakes, one of the laser rifle models looked lifted directly out of Fallout 4, down to the reload animation. The booster pack is literally just the Power Armor Jetpack from Fallout 4. If you're going to make an entirely new universe, I as a gamer would expect there to be much more to distinguish it from other universes in your portfolio. Particularly since Bethesda is known for their attention to detail when it comes to things like thematic and atmospheric design. The feel and look of the weapons, etc. Reusing models and mechanics from other IPs robs the game of its ability to express its own identity. Again, I haven't even played the game so I could be talking completely out of my ass. I will play it (eventually) but I really don't expect my mind to be changed.
Thing is, it's not Fallout in space. The combat has none of the fun gore and bodies are not fully lootable. The universe, enemy variety, factions, and charcters are not as interesting. The cities are much more static & "sanitized" in comparison. It's worse than FO in space to me.
I bought starfield because some creators I watch played it, and had fun with the first bit of the game and I thought the traits would be fun to play around with. I'm standing by my negative review because the traits actually don't interact. If you pick the trait to have parents, and the trait to worship the space snake, you can also pick the trait to be a freestar settler. Now you are born and raised in 3 places simultaneously because your parents are from UC space, raised you in UC space, but you are from Freestar space and also a member of house Va'ruun. Because they didn't think about how your parents would effect other traits.
Starfield forces you to play as an evil character in Constellation, or at least some kind of rich psychopath. You're forced to literally use the cities' poor as human meat shields against a demigod, forced into piracy (the plot demands it, so you have to do it), are constantly driven away from some kind of post war depression (every side quest and many main quests are practically stories ripped from great depression survival stories) (this might just be cowardly writers, rather than writing skill to force you to roleplay a rich psychopath that doesn't see that), and are on a fundamental level a "rich" organization that chooses for the universe an unchangeable permanent change to it. Honestly could be a good story, it's just that the writers had no idea that it's the story they were actually writing.
I think some of the negative opinions on Starfield are more recent as much of the criticism is centered around the lack of depth, which means that you have to play the game for some time to get to criticizing that aspect. Also I think some RUclipsrs recently making videos criticizing the game also helps to drive more negative reviews (just watching this video the algorithm suggests a video by NakeyJakey from 2 weeks ago with 4M views and another by Jack Sather just as examples)
I think the reason why people are fascinated by Starfield's problems is that a large and silent portion of gamers always thought Bethesda's games were outdated (I am one of them) but were always out-shouted and downvoted by fanatical fans of the studio. Now that almost everyone agrees Starfield isn't all that, those people feel it's ok to chime in now. Also there is a certain schadenfreude element to it as well, to see that smug, outdated studio finally brought down on its knees.
Let's be honest. If this was a AA-priced game, between 30 and 50 dollars, there wouldn't be comparison with similarly priced games that have shaped the industry and thus the consumer comparisons that are made. Yes, there are generally games for every taste and level of spending, but if you're discussing sentiment then it's a matter of relative market interest.
More fun to imagine the boys are sitting uncomfortably close to eachother and not acknowledging eachothers physical existence whatsoever. Went thru a whole pod thinking that
Bethesda is great at building ideas that you internally extrapolate on, and get excited for because you can imagine just how great it is! And then you play the game and realize it's as shallow as a puddle, and all that awesome stuff you imagined isn't realized. The mediocrity hits harder when you're so disappointed - even if you ignore the marketing. The problem is that even the game itself bought into the hype, and sets itself up to deliver, and then it just doesn't. You play through, hoping it opens up, that the gameplay systems start to synergize and the story begins to dive deeper, and you just find the same stale POIs and flat writing with a poor illusion of choice. You look at the lore and see everything that seems interesting in the story has already happened.
Well said
I have seen multiple hour long videos trying to say(and failing) what you just said in ONE paragraph. Holy shit you nailed it right on the money.
And the niche things some people could lost in, like the base or shipbuilding or modding of gear, they gated it all behind not only skill points but having to do rote things repeatedly to activate the skill once you buy it. Again, it's the game buying into its own hype thinking it's so awesome that you'll enjoy going through meh parts to get to the less meh parts. It's beyond perplexing from a company that has a "the player can do everything playing the game once" only to hide half the game behind a really bad skill system.
I like how you guys think you're saying some new groundbreaking opinion when you echo "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" for the millionth time. I bet it makes you feel well smart doesn't it.
@@gnucompiler my man let people express how they feel. With the billions of opinions you’re going to hear a lot of the same points a lot. Its annoying yes but it will never go away whether its starfield opinions or the same sports interview questions. You just have to accept that is a part of life
I don't have and have never played Starfield (still actively playing Skyrim AE ...640), but RUclips foisting these Starfield hate videos on me, while initially fun (sure, I rubberneck at an accident, and there's an argument it's an evolutionary adaptation), has become so annoying, I started (and cancelled) several comments to criticize them. You guys have had a pretty good, nuanced take on it all, so I really appreciate it. You're smart, entertaining, and not as clickbait-y as others out there. Cheers!
Starfield is one of the best-selling and most-played games of the year and the hate is a bandwagon effect and PS fanboys. Most people who don't like a game just move on and don't keep talking about it months later that's just an obsession at that point.
I don't hate Starfield, it gave me the kick in the balls I needed to finally stop being lazy and reinstall/remod Skyrim. Now I'm level 40 with 380+ mods exploring new lands created by players I've never seen before.
I was never interested, but I think the current problem comes from love, not hate. Starfield seems to come close to being what everyone wants it to be, but keeps missing the mark in their eyes.
I kinda agree with the sentiment. I find it so bizzare seeing the 100th "Starfield bad" Video in my YT recommendation.
And sure its not the greatest game this year but bruh - the content mills are really running wild with this one.
Yeah, people are intentionally generating controversy. Probably fueled by Sony and its hardcore fanbase. (since we know they actively targetted the game before and after release)
Just look at how fast people forgot the actually terrible games that released in 2023.
See it as a mask-off moment for content creators. Stuff like this is great to see what content creators care about giving good commentary or reviews, and which ones just want to farm controversy.
I don't think people would have loved it even in 2013 because that was right on the heels of the Mass Effect trilogy which was the bomb. Also GTAV would have overshadowed its release
I think my hottest take about general negativity in gaming is because of pricing. I don't think the vitriol would be so prevalent if gaming wasn't getting more expensive, giving more chance for buyers remorse to set in.
Gaming isnt really getting more expensive at all. Especially when comparing people's increase in buying power over the years.
The real issue is that these days theres too many options as a result of digital libraries (especially on PC!) and as a result there are literally hundreds of other (much cheaper, because older) options. Not to mention many people have backlogs now. Why buy a new game if you arent massively hyped for it?
I don't think the hate is really about starfield being the boringest of mids, thats just a symptom, the disease, is Bethesda. They're still trying to milk skyrim, fkng skyrim, with paid mods. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming "mod support" for starfield turns out to be mostly about creation club crap.
Maybe the issue isn't so much that Starfield deserves hate, but that Bethesda doesn't deserve all the praise (or even worship) they've received
its talked about still because it was suppose to be a huge launch for a fantastic game and instead we got "meh"
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Starfield would have beem better recieved if this had come out before or prior to Fallout 76. They were on thin ice for alot people this title comes out and is middleing - lazy and lacks character or innovation so people lose there minds.
But interms of your core question on why its taken so long is people are used to needing to play a game more than once or waiting X period of time to see if thr game is good or gets better.
Like the typical rule for MMORPGs Oh it gets good 100 hours later. That sorts of mentality has been in place for people for a long time in addition to all crap games that came out from 2019 - 2022 the no man sky type games that were broken or bad and had a redemption arc with updates and patches.
So people are being conditioned to give Games more time to prove themselves before outrage you also get people who are waiting for a review and people are way more willing to buy into a 7/10 vs a 5/10. The is a massive leap in potential engagement when the game is better than 5/10. You see a 6 or 7 out of 10 you then dealing with personal taste on a review.
Well said
I played Bethesda games since the 00's and I loved them for many many years even the ones that (atleast for me) started to get mid like Fallout 4.
I however did not buy Starfield nor do i really have any desire to visit it.
There was something about Bethesda's marketing with Starfield that just didn't sit right with me, it felt to me as it was trying to sell me everything but at the same time nothing.
Bethesda proved over the years that they were best at open world exploration and my big concern with Starfield was without just one central overworld Starfield would need to be held up by what is usually the weaker parts of Bethesda's formula.
Get rid of that overworld and a big driving force as to what attracts me to BGS titles is gone.
I was already pretty disenfranchised with Bethesda and saw alot of these cracks loooong before Starfield because they had been there in all of their most recent games leading to Starfield and only got worse as time went on so i just saw the writting on the wall espeically paired with Starfield's marketing that sold a lot of stuff but not one cohesive vision.
So it just bred a middling and apathetic opinion, I still follow it more so becuase I like hearing about Bethesda rather than the game itself at this point.
This game was marketed as not your usual Bethesda game like Fallout or Skyrim. So you are right.
People reeeeeaaallly want to like Starfield, and low-key do. It's just that they want the game to be better. The anticipation, the potential, Bethesda's "lessons learned" from past games, and the actual result creates a very specific brain itch that players have to try and scratch by yelling at Bethesda.
Saw the Initial reviews of Starfield and decided to pirate it and check it out, after 15 hours it was clear I made the right choice. Bethesda decided to charge over $100 here in Australia which combined with the quality of the game made me realise how disgusted I was with Bethesda and the state of capitalism as a whole.
Comparing SF to BG3 feels like comparing Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake to the original
To me, it's the shattering of Bethesda's image in the eyes of many. Bethesda have had a reputation for years quality game designers and Bethesda have rested their laurels on that image. But one peek under the hood is all it takes to see that their games aren't all that. They've always had clunky combat, bland main quests, shallow open worlds etc. But they did in such a way that many players could forgive their issues. The games were big enough to get lost in. Players could create their own adventures.
Starfield to me is current-day Bethesda at their most honest. They're not banking off a bought beloved IP, they're not banking off the former company head's glorified DnD setting. It's a completely new, original IP and its everything Bethesda is already known for, with all the glitz and glamour filed off.
So for many, to see Bethesda for what they are, and IMO always have been, it's a slap in the face. It's a betrayal of a world they thought they knew. And in a world where so many better games have come out, already exist, done what Bethesda do but better, Starfield is now the small fish in the big pond.
I think the only part of Starfield that I actually hated was the Ryujin quest line because so much of it was just fast travel, talk, fast travel talk. You're like a UPS driver. Then they hype up this final mission, I try to stealth, and the guard just immediately sees me no matter what I do. Ryujin sucks ass as a faction. I had fun with the rest tho. It's okay, I got my money's worth at least. Love you guys!
People dont want TES 6 to end up like this game, so maybe with enough hate they will learn.
I would like to say that what draws me to your guys' content is how nuanced you tell the news. Even though you aren't experts on all the subjects you cover, you're not afraid to step back and say, "we don't know the full story and we can only infer/guess on what's really going on." Your giving the best answers you can instead of the quickest answers you can. I think that is a more mature and genuine approach to handling games journalism. It's always a pleasure to watch whatever stories you decide to cover and I know that I will always get reliable news coverage.
Mostly negative recent Steam reviews but somehow managed to win Steam's most innovate game of 2023. Smells fishy
I think the issue may also be the scope of what Starfield 'promises'. It's outer inherently is infinite and unimaginable - so people imagine something that is better than they could perceive. That, hand in hand with the marketing, seemed to propel this excitement of being blown away. Then the reality of boredom that most people have felt feels like being cheated and/or being let down. Baldurs Gate 3 doesn't have the promise of grand scope but the reality of the game is a wider perspective based on the players decisions which all play out differently and feel rewarding. The difference between the two is whereon the problem lies, I feel
I think Lawrence’s final theory on why people are enjoying the starfield hate so much is right, I kind of find myself there too. I used to live Bethesda but since fallout 4 and especially since 76 if find myself completely disinterested until they can make a change. Skyrim was good when it came out because of when it came out, they are still releasing Skyrim like games or worse at a time when that is no longer acceptable. Bethesda needs to evolve and innovate or else I think they may fall to the wayside. If Elder scrolls 6 comes out and is of similar quality I’m not sure how many people are even gonna care. I hope this time Bethesda listens but their response to reviews makes me worry
load field where you have a FTL space craft with no land vehicles.
a game where you have to leave the planet and re-land to be able cross the invisible land barrier that exists on foot.
a game where their own devs said "planets are empty by design this is not boring but realistic". so realistic you get to pick pointless shitty super powers each time you complete the game..
I think the big thing with starfield is that people really wanted it to be good. or even be at the same level as a fallout/skyrim in space and not only did it not capture that. It missed the mark by a wide margin. watching a game studio as beloved as bethesda is akin to watching your pet die. people have emotional connection to those older games and seeing the studio put out failure after failure has put doubt in their minds that bethesda cant make good games at all anymore. destroying their excitement for things like the next elder scrolls.
I just want to add one more theory that I've been thinking of about Starfield to add to your excellent theories.
I think on top of the marketing you spoke of, the practice of giving review codes selectively for such a high profile game to game the review system affected the expectations to unreasonable levels.
The vast majority of consumers purchase based on reviews and that still holds true today.
The glowing reviews at the start got a lot of people purchasing Starfield with unreasonable expectations. That caused people to become disenchanted with the game at a high level.
I've wrote it before on another site, but Bethesda actively chose money over legacy with that move. Which is great from a business sense.
The award shows brought a review bomb with reviews that just mention the award. But the rest of the Steam reviews are equal. Not everyone has to like a game. Just like not everyone likes Skyrim or Fallout. Which has the same problems this game suffers. Just this game is not based on walking everywhere and instead you must explore with a ship and jetpack.
People who supported Fallout 76 let Bethesda feel that they could get away with everything.
E3 is a relic from the times of physical distribution. E3 was typically the announcement of releases (for Christmas sales), and Gamescom the negotiation with distribution partners and shelve spaces (for Christmas sales). Those business cases are kind of void with the new distribution models.
I’m curious if either of you have seen PartitionTV’s review and analysis of Starfield. I think his series reviewing most of the Bethesda games since Morrowind illustrates the shifting objectives of the studio. I’m also curious if you guys think these waves of longer form content that come months or years after release are contributing to the changing tide of opinion?
If Bethesda really believed it to be good themselves they wouldn't have given the review codes to only a few "friend" outlets.
I'm a games designer, and it hit me watching this video that Bethesda hasn't been... doing games design since F3/Skyrim
They've just been making "Content" for their existing systems. For over 15 years
No driving the "What is an RPG" idea forward, and it's really showing
(And the content itself isn't even... good? It's fetch quests in space, what are they even doing over there?)
(Ha, Lawrence made this point after I wrote this)
You asked "why do you love to hate starfield?"
But i dont love to hate starfield; i dont even own it; i love to _watch people_ who hate starfield. I'll probably enjoy the game if I bothered to get into it, but People are funnier when they're disappointed and angry over an entertainment product.
Thank you for the layoff lecture. I do wish Geoff at least acknowledged it during his most important moment. Instead he pretended like it doesn't exist, probably because embarrassed megacompanies would pull out their trailers and hurt the show.
I think the reason why Stanfield didn't release as buggy, unplayable crap is because Beth learned their lesson with 76. The public backlash was so strong they knew they couldn't do this with Stanfield, which is supposed to be Todd Howard's magnum opus.
The difference between Starfield hate and all the other games like Gollum or Kong is that noone really cared about them or who made them, but Starfield is an 8 years long project from a big established studio known for games that can be played for years and have the biggest modding communities. In terms of potential playtime and expectations Starfield is like all the other hated games of the year combined if not more. On top of that Bethesda keeps adding fuel to the fire with the Steam review responses and their writer having a twitter meltdown. Also the fans are starting to realize they have to wait another 5+ years for TES6 and based off Starfield it's probably gonna be just as dated and bland.
The only reason it's lodged in our consciousness and not immediately forgotten is because it's a mainline Bethesda Studios game, and people enjoyed Skyrim, and are now worried that the next entry is also going to be very outdated and middling. Nothing to do with this game in and of itself, everything to do with the studio that made it's reputation, fall from grace, and potential future projects.
Also, people play games for thousands of hours and end up hating it, and it's justified. MMO's, MOBA's, etc. have people play for years and then end up disappointed and walk away hating the game. Starfield had lots of people play it for a hundred hours hoping that it would at some point deliver on it's promise, so they kept playing not because they were having a blast, but because they kept hoping it would improve.
How can you compare 2011 Skyrim vs Balders Gate 3??? Skyrim has more concurrent players than Starfield.. that's all you need to know.
I played starfield for 70-80 hours and it’s just ok/good. The main story is so boring and I couldn’t finish it BUT a lot of the side content was fun! I feel like the skill tree is super dumbed down. (Stealth didn’t even work when I played, still don’t know if it does). Constant load screens ruined the experience so much for me. Lack of maps. I will say that the gameplay is good and smooth and I really think most people can enjoy the game for 60-70 hours but it’s definitely not or nowhere near “game of the generation.” I do think it is over hated. For some reason I think people are saying it’s worse than it it is but thats just IMO. Bethesda did hype up this new IP like crazy and delivered a just ok game. Maybe thats their fault. I’d love to hear other opinions though.
Lmao that opening.
Algorithm 1: **hat tip**
Algorithm 2: **hat tip**
I do genuinely appreciate how you two bring up bleak capitalist realities in this industry. As was alluded to during this cast, lots of people are growing up and part of that means nostalgia, not for old games, but the feeling of innocence that came with being a kid trying a cool new thing and being in dopamine overload. Way too many people still look at vidya as a fun little thing to forget about the struggles of the world, turn your brain off, and be a kid again. But, again as you mentioned, it is very much a profit-driven industry that we were fortunate enough in the past to have had passionate artists get their ideas adopted. I think this is a major factor in the Starfield hate train, lots of people are starting to accept the reality of soulless corporate capitalist crap in the things they once held dear and they don't like it (and who can blame them?)
The layoffs suck and it is horrible that peoples' livelihoods are being ruined, but I think it is correct to assume that the true visionaries on these dev teams will start their own mini studios and make what they want more as a hobby than as a source of income. Perhaps I'm just trying to look at the silver lining, but I can only hope this will lead to better things.
I do think there was a lot of decisions made to pull back and make a game they can release and it will feel like a full game. More engineering and development takes time. Exploration gets reduced to loading screens. Survival mechanics gets reduced. Quests and dialog remain so very simple otherwise they might have to sacrifice even more on the number of quests. On console they focused on optimizing for 4K/30 and didn’t make a performance mode, because visuals sell games, and you can either have two unoptimized modes or one optimized mode. So if you’re only going to have 1 focus on the one that will lead to sales.
The game feels like a jack of trades, master of none. There isn’t 1 thing Starfield does better than other games that have come out over the last 10 years. The game is even missing features and elements from past Bethesda games. Starfield doesn’t even feel like a culmination of the best things across Bethesda games. The game isn’t “bad”, but everywhere you go, everything you do you’re reminded how much potential there is, and nothing was done to that potential. And you want it to be better with more follow through everywhere. You assume a developer the size of Bethesda could do it. But it ends up feeling like the least ambitious title they’ve made. There’s this thought of “how could they?”
Starfield is a game that taught me 3 things :
1. Don't preorder games
2. Don't buy games from Bethesda
3. Read the whole EULA of games before playing them
because surprisingly it stated there is microtransaction in Starfield, guess it was my fault for thinking there won't be microtransaction for a near 100$ single player game
I like what Bruce said about the Beatles. Despite whatever people think of them, they are the most obvious example of how artistry exceeds anything else in terms of success. It’s not an easy balance to create something that pleases both the masses and the critics, but those are the things that ultimately stand the test of time. Companies need to focus on giving freedom to developers and encouraging artistry.
i love starfield
🌿
I can't get over the weird narrative of "Creation Engine 2 is an entirely new engine, cut them some slack."
So every year when the new CoD comes out, we should also cut whoever the developer is some slack because they're using IW X.0
I normally really like your guys content, but I think it's a little ignorant to imply that game devs are blinded by nostalgia Lawrence. I'm a AAA engineer who has been in this industry for a good amount of time now and the level of expertise and awareness among director level leadership has never been higher.
It's just worth being a little bit careful because the implication there comes off just super ignorant.
High concept ideation in the AAA budget space is about RoI, and hardly, if at all, about game design. The majority of us are spending day in and out focusing on executing production needs within the right budgeting constraints and making the right sacrifices. Sometimes there's levels of iteration on mechanics and stuff... but nobody is ever having any official meetings like "I think we should make the game more like X game from my childhood" after high concept, and at that, the group that makes those calls is super small.
Idk, id be glad to chat more about this, but I just took a bit of offense to that implication.
Nah man, the people are upset because the mediocrity feels intentional. It's an agressive in your face mockery of your intellect. The dialogue, the setting, everything is screaming |go ef yourself" in a polite censored and unconfrontational way. This is the biggest problem with starfield. Forget procedural generation, the enemies, AI, bugs, whatever.
There's also the idea of the last great American developer of role playing games bowing down to Larian studios and being straight up embarassed when it comes to characters, setting, choices, and things that Bethesda CHOSE to do poorly.
This is how they fix starfield load screens gone, more land travel choices more random encounters like skyrim.
With 7 broken quests, I avoided calling it garbage.
I focused on boarding and stealing ships. Then ships disappeared from my inventory. And, I avoided calling it garbage.
I boarded ships, killed crews, sold thise ships. Then the crews were no longer there. I avoided calling it garbage.
I spent countless hours trying to find workarounds, loading older saves, waiting, sleeping, walking, in loading screens. I liked aspects of it but every time I did, those things would break.
I wrote a review not recommending it, and got a disgusting Bethesda response.
I paid $100 for it. I tried still to find things I liked and focused on finishing out the achievements.
Then, the game started constantly crashing. I got the Form ID bug which is somewhat inevitable for all players.
I decided it was trash. Trash I unfortunately spent a lot of time in trying to find things to like.
Emil Pagliarulo's tweets only convinced me that not only was the game trash, but so are those making decisions, including him, at Bethesda.
Their marketing was bad and did deceive. In places the Direct outright lied.
You guys saying that Starfield players should have known better is no better than Pagliarulo.
And yes, it's possible yo put a lot of hours into something you eventually determine is trash.
You can even spend 500 hours in a game that's broken, go to NG+ to reset the game and get rid of bugs, then realize you've no desire to ever play it again.
And, in that you finally realize you were just doing a lot of stuff you weren't really enjoying.
Your insulting attitude towards people because they played a lot is just awful.
It's no better than the Bethesda stans who tell people 40 hours isn't enough to be able to judge the game. And that then ridicule others who dislike it after putting 100 hours into it.
This is the first game where Emil had to come up with the lore completely on his own rather than just writing stories in a world which had already been built and fleshed out lore wise by much greater writers than he. That’s why there is basically no lore and the writing is being criticised even more than normally… he’s just an average writer who’s developed a god complex
Maybe Bethesda should stop making unfinished games and charging people 70 dollars for them
Yeah no. The reason for the dogpilling isn't that the game is a solid 5/10 and could get a GOTY if it came out in 2013. The reason for it is because some people didn't like it and Bethesda in its infinitesimal wisdom decided to start copypasting ChatGPT-esque responses to negative reviews, the lead writer acting like everyone involved in the development deserves a medal and ultimately telling on himself because there is a difference between flexibility and something being a disorganized clusterfuck, Todd's comment about empty planets comparing that to the literal Apollo program.
If they said nothing and just took it on the chin the rage wouldn't ever come to boiling point, the game would die a natural death with most people just kinda marking it as one and done and not saying anything positive or negative; Steam reviews are either "Recommend" or "Don't recommend". Coming down from your ivory tower and saying "no you're wrong", to reviews that I'm sure most at least partially agreed with is what made a lot of the previously abstaining votes take inventory of all the things that were dumb in the game and turn that into a negative review.
I wouldn't say I love to hate Starfield but for me this feels like people are finally listening to what I feel I've been saying for ages?
When skyrim hit big and everyone I knew and their mums were talking about how its the best game of all time I was that one PC nerd telling everyone about how there are way better RPGs out there? We have our Planescape torment, Arcanum, fallout 1/2, baldurs gate 1/2, Ultima and I would wanna sneak in Arx Fatalis here for its immersive sim aspects.
Hell even Bethesda themselves used to make much more interesting RPGs with Morrowind. Exploration was more of a Kahjiit hopped up on skooma giving us vague directions and not a waypoint. You could customize magic, items would have hugely beneficial effects whilst making you blind at the same time. You were locked to certain paths instead of being the grand master of all guilds cause "People wanna have all the things".
So yeah, I guess I like to hate it because it feels like vindication when a large group of people AND actual games journos (despite being parodies of actual journalists mostly) are at least publicly negative about something I felt was dated 12 years ago now.
You guys hit on a really fascinating phenomenon, the collective opinion of the internet not accurately representing most people’s views.
I definitely fall into the camp of someone who really liked Starfield, played for 60 hours, and happy overall with it. Definitely has its faults,but I’m not angrily screaming on the internet about it.
For Starfield, they tried to combine "space sim" with the classic BGS formula.
Which sounds cool on paper, but Bethesda don't have the tech to do seamless space sim stuff, and the space sim stuff took away from the exploration element of previous games.
I don't think their tech is outdated either. They can do things no other studio does, with their radiant AI system and object persistence. But I think these features really limit world streaming, hence the hard loading screens
It's pretty simple really. Still a good game though.
Regarding the perplexing "hundred hour" negative reviews:
Starfield is interesting in that the more you play it, the more you discover how broken the systems are, how inconsequential the choices are, and how hilariously bad the writing is. After 100 hours in a constantly worsening environment, I think it's pretty easy to give it a bad review. Starfield leads with it's best foot forward, lures you in, and then gets worse and worse as you navigate the universe. I'd compare it to reading a poorly written book with an interesting synopsis. You might finish reading it just to see what happens -- maybe it gets better? But you won't recommend it just because you finished it. It still sucked. Sunk cost fallacy, morbid curiosity, whatever. That's Starfield.
100 hours is nothing in BGS game time, anyway.