I was just as hyped as anyone else in the weeks before Starfield’s release. It was a tough position to be in, reporting on the leaks while trying everything possible to avoid spoilers, but I managed it. I was locked in from the minute it went live, and in the earliest days of the game’s lifecycle, I poured time, effort, and money into the game. That’s right – money. I enjoyed it so much that I went out a week later and bought the Constellation Edition.
But now, just one month after Starfield was released, I’ve basically forgotten about the game entirely. I completed the story and felt absolutely no drive to jump into NG+. By that point, I’d completed all the side content, too – all that was left was building outposts, playing around with ships, and scanning planets.
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Let me preface my point with a bit of a backstory: I love Bethesda’s games. I’ve lost thousands of hours of my life to Fallout 4 – and still play it today – and I’ve logged more time than I would like to admit in Fallout 76. Back in the day, I was an absolute fiend for Skyrim, too.
Related: Starfield is Rated Lower Than Fallout 76
So, what’s wrong with Starfield? Why have I totally lost interest in the game after just one month?
Firstly, I felt as though the game, despite being set in a universe with around 1,500 planets, didn’t have all that much to do or discover. For the most part, ‘randomised’ locations were rinse-and-repeat duplicates, and there’s only so much time you can run around scanning plants and alien creatures.
I wrapped the story up relatively quickly, completed the questlines for the factions, ticked some achievement-based boxes, and pummeled space pirates wherever I came across them, but it felt like too repetitive a loop for me to really stay engaged.
I’ve got no interest in building a resource-gathering factory in an outpost somewhere, and I don’t want to spend hours building all different kinds of ships. Also, I don’t care to mod the game – and even the official mod tools coming next year don’t interest me.
Related: Bethesda To Make $1 Billion on Starfield
Buck The Trend
It’s sad, in a way. I went into Starfield extremely hopeful, adamant that the game was brimming at the seams with potential, and with less than 100 hours played, it has now been shelved. It failed to keep my attention for more than a couple of weeks, and by the end of that, I was offered NG+ and turned it down. I understand the concept of it and why it’s so ‘special’ in Starfield, I just don’t want to do it.
By stark contrast, I’ll happily go back and start a new run-through of Fallout 4 any day of the week – or Fallout 3, even. For games set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, they somehow manage to feel more alive than Starfield, and infinitely more engaging and replayable – even without NG+ initiatives.
Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s a solid line-up of games coming in the next couple of months to sway my attention. I’m already neck-deep in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and can say quite honestly that it – for me – is a much more worthwhile purchase than Starfield.
Perhaps I’ll revisit Starfield when the Shattered Space expansion launches next year, but until then, I don’t think I’ll even keep the game installed.
Related: Starfield Hit 10 Million Players in Two Weeks
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Great review thank you!
My boyfriend (56) and I (58), ALWAYS go back to Fallout 4 and keep making new characters and finding ways to play each character differently etc… we have TONS of games and they sit. Except we do love picking back up up Borderlands 1 and The Pre Sequel. He won’t play Fallout 76 as it is geared and made for playing with other people. I tried it and I don’t care much for it. We are praying they put out a Fallout 5 that is made to play like the early 4,3 etc… and that you can play by yourself. The games have truly taken a nose dive. Again, thank you for your review!!! Here’s to a hopefully mind blowing Fallout 5! One can be hopeful 😉
Better graphics is not innovative enough to keep a player that has been spoiled for years, engaged.
If there is no genuine fear, excitement, danger or loss, all these types of games will die within months.
You admit to having no interest in half of the game mechanics… gee I wonder why you’ve moved on… I think I’ve legitimately spent more time in the shipbuilder tweaking and perfecting my ship than anywhere else.
You assert that the game isn’t as fun, and hasn’t engaged you as much as past Bethesda games. Why? What’s different here? How are the quests different in a less fun way? How is the repetitiveness of Starfield different from that of Fallout and Skyrim?
I completely disagree. I have 170+ hours into it and playing NG+ really enhanced the game. This author is missing out by directly trying to relate this experience with prior games. When each Bethesda game has its own ups and downs. I see myself playing starfield for years to come. Building ships is an amazing experience, designing outposts is an amazing experience as well. The subtle things spread throughout the game makes this game great. Space Grandma? Yes please! Ship Warranty, prepare to die! Also, to complain about repetitiveness and then bring up AC as superior when it has the same issue of rinse and repeat. The quests are all the same. Kill x, steal z.
A game that allows you or has you sink close to 100 hours into it in less than a month is actually a hell of a game. Most games don’t make it past 5 hours for a lot of folks unless it’s a sports or FPS with some type of multiplayer. The things that don’t interest you are the main draws of the game. Your criticism of it is honestly unfair and just based on the fact it is a Bethesda game. Should this game have been made from another studio every game reviewer would be gushing over it and saying it’s a perfect 10.
Nah, he’s right. The game is empty. Devoid if anything to do after the main story and major side quests. 140 hours, I’ve done new game plus twice now and the second playthrough I simply skipped the story, spend a few hours collecting powers and artifacts and went right back to the singular for a third go around. Very boring. Not interested in outposting because… what’s the point
You completed every side quest with less than 100 hours? Somehow I doubt that. You don’t like Starfield and thats okay. Not everyone is going to be into it. Personally it’s my favorite Bethesda game for the long list of things you mentioned the game has that you don’t want to do. Personally I am approaching 200 hours and still have only done the main quest and the free stat collective ranger one. So I still got a lot to do as well as ships and bases to build. I’ll probably also explore every planet before it’s all over. I want to live in the Starfield Universe! To each their own though.
Play fallout if you want to. I’ll dive back into 76 once Atlantic city comes out. Can’t play fallout 4 or Skyrim anymore because I’ve done just about all those games have to offer. I haven’t played 76 in 6 months because they haven’t released much worth going back. I am excited for Atlantic City though!
I’m not too big of a Bethesda fan. But i did finish Skyrim and FO4. I didn’t even finish Starfield. It’s so bad.
It has it’s problems, but that’s pretty harsh. That and Fallout 4 was complete rubbish and one of the most nonsensical stories in gaming. I have a character that runs the Institute and the whole organization still makes zero sense. The main story and factions are terrible. Starfield needs things. It needs vehicles to make exploration more enjoyable, it needs a much expanded settlement system, it needs another pass on it’s planetary generationt tech, but I’m enjoying the game far more than Skyrim or Fallout 4. That and you have to kind of be lying because you can’t possible see all the content on one playthrough. You have to choose sides in different situations and there’s content that only becomes available after you plunge into newgame+, but if you don’t like it, you don’t like it I guess.
Couldn’t agree more. I went in with a bit of hope, bit of skepticism, but ultimately I thought I’d enjoy at least the old Bethesda gameplay loop I loved in fallout 3, 4, oblivion and Skyrim. But it mostly felt lifeless for me. It had its moments for sure, but even those moments where I wasn’t finding the game monotonous and dull weren’t anything to write home about. Off work atm so had a lot of time to kill, and I pushed myself at about 50 hours thinking it will get better than this, as that’s what I’d heard. But it didn’t, at 80 hours, while having completed 3 faction quest lines and being around 80-90% through the main quest (according to igns walkthrough which I used to check), I was utterly bored and felt no compulsion to continue so I figured I’d shelve it and return at a later date at least to finish the main quest. Cyberpunk was calling me back and I’ve had immensely more fun with the new update and expansion than I had for 80 hours of starfield.
Getting that amount of time out of me isn’t bad, I’ve played games for less, not finished them and still had fond memories, but most of what I’ll remember of starfield is… how unmemorable it is. I don’t think I’ll ever return and if I do it’ll only be to tick a box. The games main grievance is that it doesn’t push the genre forward at all in the ways that oblivion, then fallout, then Skyrim did before it. Their games always felt like they had a big jump, well maybe until fallout 4 but even that was better than this. Starfield just feels like their ambition drowned them and they couldn’t actually create a fun game. Real shame as Bethesda are a one of a kind company, if this is what they release after 7 since fallout 4, they are effectively dead to me. I now have no hype for ES6 as if this is the kind of product they put out as their first new ip in ages and with so much investment and time behind it, I have no faith they’ll do better in the future ever again.
Todd Howard is a dinosaur in the industry at this point and if he honestly thinks this is good enough, he’s mad.