Starfield (Skyrim in space game)

[Ferris]

That is something that does genuinely excite me. The concept of a new 'draw distance' where as you travel the game is intelligent enough or has the ability to draw upon processor power to make entire bespoke galaxies up, asteroid belts, black holes etc and storylines.

It's a technical marvel and impressive, but the idea of actually playing through it? Christ.

I have a weird thing about feeling comfortable within a game that I could feasibly do everything. Not actually do everything, but if I wanted to I could. Skyrim just about fits the bill - but I find anything much bigger than that slightly oppressive.

It's like choice fatigue x1000, though I fully accept it's my weird thing not and likely not generally representative.

[FalseRodHull]

what's the deal with spaceship peanuts

[Thursday]

It's not like the appeal is that you'll try to 100% the game with all these planets, I think it's really just that it creates the sense that there's an unknowably big galaxy out there, and also will make a good playground for modders to weird and cool things.

It does seem strange thing to strive though yes considering the desire many people have for completionism. The illusion of all these auto-generated quests is going to fall away pretty quickly when you start to see obvious repetition even within your first planet. Although I imagine some mental twitch streamers will exhaustively do them all within a couple of weeks.

[Ferris]

It's not like the appeal is that you'll try to 100% the game with all these planets, I think it's really just that it creates the sense that there's an unknowably big galaxy out there, and also will make a good playground for modders to weird and cool things.

It does seem strange thing to strive though yes considering the desire many people have for completionism. The illusion of all these auto-generated quests is going to fall away pretty quickly when you start to see obvious repetition even within your first planet. Although I imagine some mental twitch streamers will exhaustively do them all within a couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, I completely agree - I'm just a bit of a weirdo about that kind of game.

I'll end up getting it anyway and soldiering through, but I've been put off by the sheer size of games in the past.

[oggyraiding]

It took me years to finish the first Mass Effect, as I felt I needed to explore every planet in the shitty buggy, then I'd realise how many planets there were and just give up. I only managed to finish a playthrough when I limited my exploration to the planets with actual side quests on. 1000+ planets to explore in Starfield worries me.

[shoulders]

We've speculated that there will be about 950 featureless planetoids and 50 that might have something interesting beyond mineral ore on them.

[Inspector Norse]

Bit like dungeons and caves in Skyrim etc probably, just for fetch and radiant quests. Go to Cacklecock Barrow and find the legendary axe, no thanks I'm level 62 and already have a way better weapon.

It basically feels like they are just trying to give people more of the same except in space and I for one will rue the lack of development and their rehashing of their old ideas while probably pouring the next year of my life into it.

[oggyraiding]

This has been available for preload for a few days, plus a day zero patch was released yesterday. Totals 130GB+ on Series X. Review embargo ends tomorrow.

Baldur's Gate 3 seems to have taken all the WRPG hype away from Starfield, barely see anyone talking about the latter.

[Lemming]

There's definitely hype for it but it does feel like there's substantially less than there was back in the lead-up to Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo3 and Fo4.

Probably partly due to BG3, partly due to many people being disappointed with more recent Bethesda offerings, partly just the "NASApunk" setting seemingly generating almost no excitement.

Bethesda's public image nowadays seems to have boiled down to three memes:
- endlessly re-releasing Skyrim
- buggy games
- Todd lying

All of which generated goodwill and fun ten years ago, but less so today when people are being asked to pay £60 for a game that looks like it might just be a worse version of a game they've already bought five times, and also might be completely broken and half-finished on release.

[Alberon]

I quite like the NASApunk theme, somewhat of a change from the endless fantasy worlds.

Could be completely wrong, of course, but the buzz from people actually reviewing it right now (avoiding spoilers) have said that it seems to run very well with few bugs.

The review embargo drops tomorrow so we'll know for sure then.

[Harpo Speaks]

There's definitely hype for it but it does feel like there's substantially less than there was back in the lead-up to Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo3 and Fo4.

Xbox exclusivity is also a factor I think. And of course a couple of those titles were trading on being the next entry in a beloved franchise whereas this is an unknown (at least to a degree, it's a Bethesda game after all).

I'll be getting Game Pass back for this.

[Mobius]

I wondered why there wasn't much hype for this. Only just realised yesterday it's an XBOX exclusive, and I have a PS5, so it won't have been mentioned on any of the websites/reddits I read.

Pretty annoyed, didn't even fucking know there was still console exclusives. Can't play the new game from Skyrim makers, cheers cunts.

[Kelvin]

I feel sorry for the developers, really. There's an insane amount of pressure on them to deliver a colossal ten out-of-ten super-hit for the XBox, in a year already swimming in well reviewed games. If Starfield isn't comfortably deemed the best game on XBox, and one of the best games of the year, its going to be considered a failure by many. 

[Rev+]

Well it's coming out for PC too, but the minimum RAM requirement is 16gb, which is ridiculous.  I know it's all futuristic and that, but 16gb is far from being a normal setup at the moment.  Also, it will only run from a solid state drive apparently.

My setup meets these criteria but fucking hell, I'll not be bothering.  It sounds like it's being released with its arse hanging out, with the hope that hardware will take care of what optimisation should have.

Also it's a load of space bollocks, who gives a fuck.

[Thursday]

Maybe I have stupid gamer brain, but surely if you are in the market of playing modern triple A games on PC, most people have 16gb by now? Certainly one of the simplest/cheapest things to upgrade regardless.

[Thursday]

Reviews mostly good then, Kind of despise resetera and the obsession with metacritic scores, but also... it is quite useful

https://www.resetera.com/threads/starfield-review-thread.759606/

[madhair60]

era is fucking toilet

[Jerzy Bondov]

There's always at least one thread one the first page of Resetera about sales and marketing, fucking BOKE honestly

[holbob]

Serious review sites are either saying it's dull or they haven't received their copies until the last minute meaning they haven't been able to review the game yet.  So Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed a different Starfield :-

Rock Paper Shotgun

[shoulders]

Oh no Starfield, bad Starfield. You ate all the space lasagne you dickslash

[Alberon]

Seems to be a solid 7/10 game. One site that liked it said you have to get through the first dozen hours or so before it starts to get interesting.

This sort of thing always makes me wonder why internal playtesting either didn't pick up the problems or they wouldn't/couldn't fix them. And this is after the extra delay to make sure it's ready for launch.

[Rev+]

Maybe I have stupid gamer brain, but surely if you are in the market of playing modern triple A games on PC, most people have 16gb by now? Certainly one of the simplest/cheapest things to upgrade regardless.

Loads of pricey gaming laptops are still 8gb, because they're prioritising cards with more VRAM.  16gb RAM as a minimum isn't something I'd expect to see for a few years - there's nothing else I can think of that has had that requirement.  It'll be the standard eventually, but, y'know, eventually.

[Johnny Textface]

This sort of thing always makes me wonder why internal playtesting either didn't pick up the problems or they wouldn't/couldn't fix them. And this is after the extra delay to make sure it's ready for launch.

It's full of bugs at launch? Sounds about right (unless you're a Nintendo AAA of course).  I was going to sign up to Gamepass to play it but might leave it a few weeks.

[Alberon]

When it comes to actual bugs it's reportedly quite good (for a Bethesda game), it's just there's some sub-optimal gameplay choices. Some of it, like the shit inventory system (you can, apparently, only see the container you're looting or your inventory, you can't see both at once) can be modded fairly easily, but there seems to be some stuff that at least early on is just dull. That should have been picked up by internal testing.

One review I read described it as a mile wide and an inch deep. I think it was hyped as No Man's Skyrim (another review headline) and it ends up being neither.

I think it's also suffered by being released so close to Baldur's Gate 3. Who would have thought that Starfield would come off worse in that head to head?

[PlanktonSideburns]

Baldur's stargate?

Is that good

[Johnny Textface]

Testers would be testing it against the design / spec to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. If what it's supposed to be doing is dull shit then that's on the design team / product owners.

[Alberon]

Testers would be testing it against the design / spec to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. If what it's supposed to be doing is dull shit then that's on the design team / product owners.

Oh sure, it's doing what they want it to do. I just don't understand why that's what they want it to be.

I can understand they might not be able to have the single open world of Skyrim, but rather a lot of smaller locations linked by fast travel, but beyond technical limitations it seems they've missed the mark. It's a shame as I do prefer a Sci Fi setting over a Fantasy one.

[Mecha Rodney]

I bought a Series X for this but I still have a week to send it back to Amazon thank fuck.
Game is fine, Doc Martens of games. You know what you're getting, reliable clunkers but never gonna blow your dick off.

[Inspector Norse]

Reviews mostly good then, Kind of despise resetera and the obsession with metacritic scores, but also... it is quite useful

https://www.resetera.com/threads/starfield-review-thread.759606/

Someone on Reddit has made a thread summarising all the reviews and highlighting the pros and cons which is a more revealing way of looking at it than just Metacritic scores.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/166fbp1/starfield_review_megathread/

Seems like it's a very good game with lots to do and lots of fun to be had, and not many bugs compared to the usual state of AAA games on release, but probably not a generational classic like Skyrim.
Most of the criticisms these reviewers seem to have are basically Bethesda's traditional problems - crap NPCs, maps and main story are par for the course.

[Utter Shit]

Is this the sort of game that you can just hang around in, absorbing the atmosphere and world without getting into fights etc?