The problems with Starfield aren’t so much the bugs as they are fundamental, often dated, design issues. Here’s a sort of Let’s Play from a podcast I follow with one guy who loves trying to bend sandbox simulations to the point of breaking and a gal who writes comedy. Around the 10m mark, you can start to see where this sandbox should have accounted for this kind of play. If you can’t simultaneously do that while making a galaxy with 1000 planets, then you should probably scope down until you can. Starfield is not a terrible game, but Bethesda needs to evolve.
The story is bad, the ship’s weapons selection is terrible, the outposts are almost useless, the temples are ridiculous, the powers are mostly unnecessary and soooo mmmaaannnyyy loading screens….
It’s Skyrim with a coat of lead paint.
It’s been clear for over a decade that the Creation Engine (let’s be honest it’s still Gamebryo) has run its course. It is not a viable option for a modern game anymore. It has architectural limitations that simply prevent a modern gaming experience.
There have been so many Creation Engine apologists since Oblivion trying to justify its continued existence through multiple new Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, always trying to say that it’s fine. Starfield was the chance to prove that the limitations aren’t actually architectural and that it could be used for a modern game. Clearly that’s not the case. Taking just about any other modern open world RPG to directly compare, Starfield feels like crap in comparison. Hell, even the launch version of Cyberpunk felt better than Starfield does now.
It’s been clear for over a decade that the Creation Engine (let’s be honest it’s still Gamebryo) has run its course. It is not a viable option for a modern game anymore. It has architectural limitations that simply prevent a modern gaming experience.
And yet, I’m having a blast with Oblivion Remastered. The problem with Starfield is that the writing sucks and the game loops aren’t fun. Because of these things it’s an unforgivable bore. Oblivion proves you’ll trudge back and forth and deal with all the copied and pasted caves in the world if the story is engaging and the gameplay loop is fun. The dated engine has little to do with Starfield’s problems.
All of your criticisms are spot on. The only thing is disagree with is the story. I thought it was alright. Some of the side quests were great, but there weren’t a lot of those.
I really enjoyed the ship building, but it was extremely limited and unbalanced.
I will say the loading screens didn’t bother me, though.
The ship building is convoluted, difficult to establish where the doors/passageways will be. My beef is with the guns selection. We have several classes of guns but they all get mixed up in the menu.
I thought the story was weak as hell, to say the least.
Have you played No Man’s Sky? That’s how you have a good transition between space and land. Having loading screens when entering a big building doesn’t bother me. But the bugs in having or not doors and being or not in a place without atmosphere, does.
The only thing is disagree with is the story. I thought it was alright.
It was barely alright up until the end and you basically do a NewGame+ in the most boring and lazy way possible; go through this gateway to a ‘new dimension’ that’s exactly the same as this one. About the time I saw that I immediately quit and uninstalled. I couldn’t care less if there is a better story after you NG+ it however many more times, I couldn’t stand playing through that game again.
It’s not that it’s outdated, oblivion does this sort of thing. It’s that starfield just isn’t good, and the older titles are better
I am a huge BGS and “game cinema” fan, and Starfield felt so… boring. Both the first bit I played before I dropped it, and YT videos to see what I was missing.
For lack of another explanation, its like all those fun side quests and nooks individual writers went crazy making lost their spark. Even ME Andromeda had more compelling bits.
So I can see modders shying away. Why put all that work into something one has no desire to replay, especially with the alternatives we have these days.
This video manages to say everything there is to say about the game in under two minutes 😅
People still care about Starfield in 2025? I thought everyone went back to Skyrim a year ago.
Yes. I enjoy the game. I wasn’t expecting Star Wars, and therefore I was not disappointed. I got a Bethesda style take on Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen, without an always online multiplayer requirement or getting a game still in the alpha stages of development for the last 10 years.
While there are certain elements that I don’t like, they are small issues that mods can easily fix. I cannot do that with Elite or Star Citizen. And unfortunately, this genre of games is incredibly tiny. Like, basically the only other option I haven’t mentioned is EVE Online. No thanks.
Here is a dilemma: If you like getting downvoted for liking something, then do you upvote your own comment or do you downvote it?
The game isn’t good, but reading how bad it is is a certain entertainment to me, not gonna lie.
Funny thing is that I decided to pirate it around February 2024, after seeing how much people were hating it. “It can’t be that bad, can it?” - my low expectations were disappointed by reality
I really like it, I’ve got over 1000 hours in it i know its got its problems and I understand why people don’t like it, but none of the things it does wrong are that big of a deal to me and I have fun running around doing little quests. It scratches an itch for me so I keep returning to it. Of course I want tons of support for the game, but if nobody made anything more for it I’d probably still put another 1000hrs in.
That’s how projects go. But I bet it happens faster when enthusiasm for a game has the curve this title did.
There was alien life but not sentient.
The real problem was the size of everything and the lack of anything meaningful to do.
But the aliens were humans who came before/after you because humans made a thing that made them destroy the universe so everything is stuck in a time loop where humans have to… Stop other humans from fielding too many stars or else they figure out how to loop the star field again.
