““We were finally at a state in the project where we could play through the whole [game]. And it became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together and have a satisfying action-filled payoff,” Shen said. “I was both implementing the main quest and leading the quest design team, so I had absolutely no time. The entire quest design team was already overbooked.””
The quest design team being overbooked and not having time certainly explains a lot.
My biggest issue with starfield is that it ended there. Like literally right when it got good imo. Imagine if they continued on and you did the whole time traveling thing with a dedicated story instead of just a new game+ thing. Not super original, but definitely would’ve been better than what we got.