really boring, big letdown, doesnt capture the same sense of awe from older games. This is the first time i ever uninstalled a Bethesda game after a couple weeks of trying it
The year is 2502 and Bethesda has still not managed to make a game equaling Morrowind, but surely next time they bring Tod out of cryosleep will be the game to do it *copium*
I agree that the interiors are great. The problem comes when you realize that the interior of the "Abandoned Mining Outpost" that you're inside is exactly identical to every other Abandoned Mining Outpost in the entire galaxy.... For me that actually made the intricate detail of the interiors have LESS impact. And once I saw that they were all copies of each other, I couldn't unsee it.
True - I actually can't believe they didn't procedurally generate SOME of their random buildings. We've seen a million rogue like games do it. And the cell-like, snapping nature of the space buildings feel like it would be really easy to do...
I found myself nodding in agreement all throughout the video. Im enjoying my time with Starfield, but the longer i play, the more glaring the problems become. The Main Quest is just...awful. This points to a greater issue Bethesda has had in its writing for the past few games, but Starfield's MQ-and by extension Constellation-exists only to supply a rationale for porting Skyrim's dragon shouts into Starfield. I find myself struggling to like any of the companion characters. Where is my Nick Valentine, Paladin Danse, hell, even Lydia? The faction questlines are quite good, easily one of the most enjoyable parts of the game-credit where credit is due. The problem are the factions themselves; you can tell someone on the Bethesda staff was really a fan of Starship Troopers and Firefly, because the UC and FC are those two franchises. Starfield's biggest overarching problem is its essentially a skeleton or a framework on which Bethesda intends to hang future content. So much feels unfinished. The procedural generation was not a success; when your brand is built on handcrafted, well-designed worldspaces to explore, having X number of planets to explore means very little if theres no reason for the player to want to explore them. The factions questlines are good; shipbuilding and starship combat are good-maybe my favorite part of the game. Gunplay and crafting are both fine, with the exception that encumbrance seems especially harsh in a game where you'll be lugging tons of resources around to build outposts and decorate your home(s). When you mentioned that Starfield NPCs behave just like Oblivion NPCs, the first thing that popped onto my head was "...without the quirky charm of Oblivion." I've been waiting for half a lifetime for a spiritual successor to Morrowind to come out, and Starfield doesn't encourage me for TES VI, which will likely mark Todd Howard's retirement. I hope Bethesda proves me wrong and TES VI blows us all out of the water. At least we still have Morrowind and Oblivion.
Very well put! Super interested to see how this game grows over time from mods and Bethesda support. If the community takes to it like they did Skyrim we could be in for a very interesting time. If they dont...well it will stay a game that's just good enough
I'll listen to your thoughts later, just dropping you a comment now for the algorithm. My take after having completed the free copy I got of Starfield, as a "fan" of the Daggerfall type Bethesda gameplay, is an arbitrary 2/10. To the people who think it's too much like Daggerfall I can only assume they've been dropped a few too many times as children. I'm of the opinion that Starfield would be a much better game if it had fully embraced a more dynamic, generated world (and here I mean more than just a bunch of boring planets, I'm talking factions, warfare, world-simulation type stuff), rather than shoving the Todd Howard experience on top of a bunch of barren worlds, and mixing in some Skyrim shout mechanics for your amazing STARBORN protagonist (excuse me while I go hurl in a corner).
I agree! A more simulation style experience definitely would have been intriguing. It's basically just the gameplay of Fallout 4...but in space. Which some people will love and others will hate...for me it's just, decent.
Bethesda content getting in the way of Bethesda's content. seems to about sum it up. I enjoy the content and feel that they are leaning to heavy on both the new game plus option it is a cool concept but not very well implemented as after the first lap I was able to refinish the game in 30mins.. (not fun) but! I do enjoy how it definitely feels like the left the door open on a lot of things.
Finished the video lol! Definitely agree with most of what you've said. Got about 65 hrs in and my interest has slowed a lot. It just makes me more impatient for ES6 for sure. I've redownloaded Oblivion again to mod and enjoy to scratch the ES itch some. I don't regret buying the game at all. I had a feeling it wasn't gonna be that great based on the marketing. Also with Todd saying that they were trying to make that game that keeps people engaged for a decade like ES5; that just has to happen, you can't make that. I think the only reason ES5 has been so relevant so long is because they haven't made anymore also. Thanks for the video Coffee
Congrats on surviving the marathon! Glad you enjoyed it! And I agree...what does making a game that lasts a decade even mean? Does that mean having a really open engine and platform for modders? Tons of AI generated, radiant content? Games as a service content support? (Eww) I'd be interested to see Todd dive into topic more as we learn more about ES6
The core problem of this game is that Bethesda is stuck in the past with no fresh ideas, no risk at all 100 % on safe and the worst thing to me is the fact that Beth exluded their best gaming skill: the REAL world exploration. Fallout 4 had its flaws but I loved the game for its world when doing a quest along the way there was plenty of new and interesting things to discover around practically every corner, the surprise fact was always there. Starfield sorely lacks the immersion (Bethesda's soul) of previous titles what makes this game a huge dissapointment. I know there are plenty of people having lots of fun with the game, me on the other hand I was burned out and bored and quit after 40 hours.
I told a friend that asked me about the game that I wish Bethesda had made the game take place in a large, complex multi-star solar system (think Firefly) instead of multiple star systems spread out across a section of the galaxy - the generic, proc-gen planets/locations really don't add anything to the game. Meanwhile, the handcrafted planets and locations can be pretty great!
Except there is no "unknown" to explore in that vast black sea. You're not discovering anything. Every planet you land on, no matter how far into the outer reaches of the galaxy you go, no matter whether it's a lush planet full of (the same recolored) plant and animal life or a barren rock with no atmosphere you're going to find the same things as the last dozen planets you visited. The same abandoned mining outpost. The same abandoned science outpost. The same abandoned colony. The same crashed starship. Indicating you aren't the first person to discover a place. Not by a longshot. Undercuts the whole exploration angle and game experience for me. Overall I'd describe the game as "fine." I doubt I ever revisit it or play through it again like I have FO4 or Skyrim over the years.
I have lost all faith in Bethesda, Ever since skyrim they have been trading quality and depth for radiancy and perpetuity. And in trying to make the games last forever they have made them shorter than ever.
What happened to elder scrolls online everyone remembers fallout 76 but no one talks about ES online. I heard it’s pretty good but just a standard MMO RPG type game
ESO gets left out of the Bethesda discussion a lot because it was actually developed by Zenimax Online Studios and just published by Bethesda Sotworks. Bethesda Game Studios is the developer that has made all the mainline TES and Fallout games.
Startfield was just meh to me, it's not the dumpsterfire some say it is but it's also not the best BGS game either some fans desperately want it to be. Honestly the whole thing has me not really all that hopeful for ES6.
yeah, they make you feel excited for exploration all of about 4 hours till you actually explore and find everythings repeated. Frankly it would have been nice to have had more then a dozen or so repeated places, or instead of, or together make them modular so they cacn at least be a little different. All other elderscrolls games, exploration was half the fun, going out of town....well except for daggerfall and finding something interesting and new to find or explore dungeons.
Anyone surprised by how mediocre this game is must be blind to the obvious. Toddy's increasing control over Bethesda is directly responsible for a continuous decrease in quality. The actual creative's behind The Elder Scrolls left, mostly after Daggerfall, specifically due to Howard's interference, though enough remained to finish Morrowind, the fully realized 3D TES universe. But upon the completion of MW, the last true creative's left. As such, Oblivion is a dumbed-down version of Morrowind, and Skyrim is a dumbed-down version of Oblivion. Howard certainly didn't appreciate the mechanics of a complex, unique RPG - I'm not confident that he even understood them fully. So with each subsequent release, he removed them. He didn't rework them, or attempt to streamline them, he simply took them out, and replaced them with.... nothing. Skyrim's success was a combination of a simplified game coinciding with the massive adoption of game consoles. As opposed to devoted PC players, consoles offered access to the masses, who certainly couldn't be accused of high expectations. Not to mention that the consoles themselves had significant limitations in functionality compared to a PC. This similarly affected other IPs, such as Deus Ex, with the console-friendly sequel plagued with loading screens and a lack of controls, as consoles only had so-many buttons, and even those had to serve multiple functions. So after that single, fortuitous title of Skyrim, a case of the right place at the right time, the trajectory was predictable. The creative minds had gone, the games created by gamers - TES, Fallout - and they were replaced by an appeal to the masses, the lowest common denominator. FONV was an aberration, because it was developed by an entirely different studio who, at that time, had the same philosophy as the developers of the original games. But anyone who has experienced Fallout IV, or had the misfortune of actually purchasing Fallout 76, they know that there's no real game there. Fallout IV is pretty good - if you ignore the terrible story and just run off and do your own thing. FO76 was just another cynical cash grab trying to force "games as a service" down our throats. They were so eager to please the greedy shareholders that they released it without coming close to even finishing the game. How many "live services" did that? I lost count. So Starfield is exactly what anyone should have predicted. Actually, I'm surprised it's not another "live service" attempt, though I predict TES VI will be. Every mechanic in Starfield is from either TES or Fallout. There is not one new or creative element. The story is weak, nothing special and nothing new. There is a particular story-based tolerance for corporate abuse, how interesting... And master Todd didn't even foot the bill to develop a modern game engine. It's the same old pair of jeans since Morrowind, covered in patches. The narcissistic man-child says, "you might have to upgrade your PC". Not because the game offers anything groundbreaking. It's some seriously ugly graphics covered in piss stain. No, because the engine is crap, and either wasn't or couldn't be optimized. Zero bytes of Starfield data will ever touch my PC. I'd rather go play modded Morrowind, with infinite replayability, always trying something new. Or go play Skyrim with the Nolvus mod that actually makes Skyrim into a good game. So many people offer so much value to Bethesda games - so many people, except Todd Howard.
**looks at runtime** Man - dont get me started on a new BGS game. I promise the followup will be shorter haha. What are your thoughts on Starfield?
really boring, big letdown, doesnt capture the same sense of awe from older games. This is the first time i ever uninstalled a Bethesda game after a couple weeks of trying it
So excited to see you make a video on Starfield, thanks!
Glad to hear it! Hope you enjoy 🙏
Made it to the end, couldn’t agree more with the points you brought up. Really looking forward to your follow up video once you beat the game.
Ayeee congrats on making it to the end! Glad you enjoyed the video 🤘
"Starfield - The Game of Fast Travel and Loading Screens...."
The year is 2502 and Bethesda has still not managed to make a game equaling Morrowind, but surely next time they bring Tod out of cryosleep will be the game to do it *copium*
*2502, Bethesda execs wake up Todd*
"Release Skyrim again"
"Yes, m'lord."
*back to cryosleep for 100 years, fandom cries out in pain*
2502 and Bethesda is still using the same old engine of course.
Honestly - I wouldn't be surprised lol
I agree that the interiors are great. The problem comes when you realize that the interior of the "Abandoned Mining Outpost" that you're inside is exactly identical to every other Abandoned Mining Outpost in the entire galaxy.... For me that actually made the intricate detail of the interiors have LESS impact. And once I saw that they were all copies of each other, I couldn't unsee it.
True - I actually can't believe they didn't procedurally generate SOME of their random buildings. We've seen a million rogue like games do it. And the cell-like, snapping nature of the space buildings feel like it would be really easy to do...
Your talking videos are the best second monitor videos for me :D Thanks bro
Glad you enjoy them!
Really great review, watched the whole thing. You got a sub from me!
Glad you enjoyed it! Congrats on surviving the marathon 🥇
I hate farming rpgs. You're definitely right, those fast travel loads and 90% bullsht planet spawning is so cringe
They nailed the theme of exploration, but not the execution of exploration.
Completely agree - great vibes, poor execution
I found myself nodding in agreement all throughout the video.
Im enjoying my time with Starfield, but the longer i play, the more glaring the problems become.
The Main Quest is just...awful. This points to a greater issue Bethesda has had in its writing for the past few games, but Starfield's MQ-and by extension Constellation-exists only to supply a rationale for porting Skyrim's dragon shouts into Starfield.
I find myself struggling to like any of the companion characters. Where is my Nick Valentine, Paladin Danse, hell, even Lydia?
The faction questlines are quite good, easily one of the most enjoyable parts of the game-credit where credit is due. The problem are the factions themselves; you can tell someone on the Bethesda staff was really a fan of Starship Troopers and Firefly, because the UC and FC are those two franchises.
Starfield's biggest overarching problem is its essentially a skeleton or a framework on which Bethesda intends to hang future content. So much feels unfinished.
The procedural generation was not a success; when your brand is built on handcrafted, well-designed worldspaces to explore, having X number of planets to explore means very little if theres no reason for the player to want to explore them.
The factions questlines are good; shipbuilding and starship combat are good-maybe my favorite part of the game. Gunplay and crafting are both fine, with the exception that encumbrance seems especially harsh in a game where you'll be lugging tons of resources around to build outposts and decorate your home(s).
When you mentioned that Starfield NPCs behave just like Oblivion NPCs, the first thing that popped onto my head was "...without the quirky charm of Oblivion." I've been waiting for half a lifetime for a spiritual successor to Morrowind to come out, and Starfield doesn't encourage me for TES VI, which will likely mark Todd Howard's retirement. I hope Bethesda proves me wrong and TES VI blows us all out of the water. At least we still have Morrowind and Oblivion.
Very well put! Super interested to see how this game grows over time from mods and Bethesda support. If the community takes to it like they did Skyrim we could be in for a very interesting time. If they dont...well it will stay a game that's just good enough
I'll listen to your thoughts later, just dropping you a comment now for the algorithm. My take after having completed the free copy I got of Starfield, as a "fan" of the Daggerfall type Bethesda gameplay, is an arbitrary 2/10. To the people who think it's too much like Daggerfall I can only assume they've been dropped a few too many times as children. I'm of the opinion that Starfield would be a much better game if it had fully embraced a more dynamic, generated world (and here I mean more than just a bunch of boring planets, I'm talking factions, warfare, world-simulation type stuff), rather than shoving the Todd Howard experience on top of a bunch of barren worlds, and mixing in some Skyrim shout mechanics for your amazing STARBORN protagonist (excuse me while I go hurl in a corner).
I agree! A more simulation style experience definitely would have been intriguing. It's basically just the gameplay of Fallout 4...but in space. Which some people will love and others will hate...for me it's just, decent.
Bethesda content getting in the way of Bethesda's content. seems to about sum it up.
I enjoy the content and feel that they are leaning to heavy on both the new game plus option it is a cool concept but not very well implemented as after the first lap I was able to refinish the game in 30mins.. (not fun) but! I do enjoy how it definitely feels like the left the door open on a lot of things.
Finished the video lol! Definitely agree with most of what you've said. Got about 65 hrs in and my interest has slowed a lot. It just makes me more impatient for ES6 for sure. I've redownloaded Oblivion again to mod and enjoy to scratch the ES itch some. I don't regret buying the game at all. I had a feeling it wasn't gonna be that great based on the marketing. Also with Todd saying that they were trying to make that game that keeps people engaged for a decade like ES5; that just has to happen, you can't make that. I think the only reason ES5 has been so relevant so long is because they haven't made anymore also. Thanks for the video Coffee
Congrats on surviving the marathon! Glad you enjoyed it!
And I agree...what does making a game that lasts a decade even mean? Does that mean having a really open engine and platform for modders? Tons of AI generated, radiant content? Games as a service content support? (Eww) I'd be interested to see Todd dive into topic more as we learn more about ES6
The core problem of this game is that Bethesda is stuck in the past with no fresh ideas, no risk at all 100 % on safe and the worst thing to me is the fact that Beth exluded their best gaming skill: the REAL world exploration. Fallout 4 had its flaws but I loved the game for its world when doing a quest along the way there was plenty of new and interesting things to discover around practically every corner, the surprise fact was always there.
Starfield sorely lacks the immersion (Bethesda's soul) of previous titles what makes this game a huge dissapointment. I know there are plenty of people having lots of fun with the game, me on the other hand I was burned out and bored and quit after 40 hours.
I told a friend that asked me about the game that I wish Bethesda had made the game take place in a large, complex multi-star solar system (think Firefly) instead of multiple star systems spread out across a section of the galaxy - the generic, proc-gen planets/locations really don't add anything to the game. Meanwhile, the handcrafted planets and locations can be pretty great!
Except there is no "unknown" to explore in that vast black sea. You're not discovering anything. Every planet you land on, no matter how far into the outer reaches of the galaxy you go, no matter whether it's a lush planet full of (the same recolored) plant and animal life or a barren rock with no atmosphere you're going to find the same things as the last dozen planets you visited. The same abandoned mining outpost. The same abandoned science outpost. The same abandoned colony. The same crashed starship. Indicating you aren't the first person to discover a place. Not by a longshot. Undercuts the whole exploration angle and game experience for me.
Overall I'd describe the game as "fine." I doubt I ever revisit it or play through it again like I have FO4 or Skyrim over the years.
I have lost all faith in Bethesda, Ever since skyrim they have been trading quality and depth for radiancy and perpetuity. And in trying to make the games last forever they have made them shorter than ever.
What happened to elder scrolls online everyone remembers fallout 76 but no one talks about ES online. I heard it’s pretty good but just a standard MMO RPG type game
ESO gets left out of the Bethesda discussion a lot because it was actually developed by Zenimax Online Studios and just published by Bethesda Sotworks.
Bethesda Game Studios is the developer that has made all the mainline TES and Fallout games.
Startfield was just meh to me, it's not the dumpsterfire some say it is but it's also not the best BGS game either some fans desperately want it to be. Honestly the whole thing has me not really all that hopeful for ES6.
Couldn't agree more.
yeah, they make you feel excited for exploration all of about 4 hours till you actually explore and find everythings repeated. Frankly it would have been nice to have had more then a dozen or so repeated places, or instead of, or together make them modular so they cacn at least be a little different. All other elderscrolls games, exploration was half the fun, going out of town....well except for daggerfall and finding something interesting and new to find or explore dungeons.
Anyone surprised by how mediocre this game is must be blind to the obvious.
Toddy's increasing control over Bethesda is directly responsible for a continuous decrease in quality. The actual creative's behind The Elder Scrolls left, mostly after Daggerfall, specifically due to Howard's interference, though enough remained to finish Morrowind, the fully realized 3D TES universe.
But upon the completion of MW, the last true creative's left. As such, Oblivion is a dumbed-down version of Morrowind, and Skyrim is a dumbed-down version of Oblivion.
Howard certainly didn't appreciate the mechanics of a complex, unique RPG - I'm not confident that he even understood them fully. So with each subsequent release, he removed them.
He didn't rework them, or attempt to streamline them, he simply took them out, and replaced them with.... nothing. Skyrim's success was a combination of a simplified game coinciding with the massive adoption of game consoles.
As opposed to devoted PC players, consoles offered access to the masses, who certainly couldn't be accused of high expectations. Not to mention that the consoles themselves had significant limitations in functionality compared to a PC.
This similarly affected other IPs, such as Deus Ex, with the console-friendly sequel plagued with loading screens and a lack of controls, as consoles only had so-many buttons, and even those had to serve multiple functions.
So after that single, fortuitous title of Skyrim, a case of the right place at the right time, the trajectory was predictable. The creative minds had gone, the games created by gamers - TES, Fallout - and they were replaced by an appeal to the masses, the lowest common denominator.
FONV was an aberration, because it was developed by an entirely different studio who, at that time, had the same philosophy as the developers of the original games.
But anyone who has experienced Fallout IV, or had the misfortune of actually purchasing Fallout 76, they know that there's no real game there. Fallout IV is pretty good - if you ignore the terrible story and just run off and do your own thing.
FO76 was just another cynical cash grab trying to force "games as a service" down our throats. They were so eager to please the greedy shareholders that they released it without coming close to even finishing the game. How many "live services" did that? I lost count.
So Starfield is exactly what anyone should have predicted. Actually, I'm surprised it's not another "live service" attempt, though I predict TES VI will be.
Every mechanic in Starfield is from either TES or Fallout. There is not one new or creative element. The story is weak, nothing special and nothing new.
There is a particular story-based tolerance for corporate abuse, how interesting... And master Todd didn't even foot the bill to develop a modern game engine. It's the same old pair of jeans since Morrowind, covered in patches.
The narcissistic man-child says, "you might have to upgrade your PC". Not because the game offers anything groundbreaking. It's some seriously ugly graphics covered in piss stain. No, because the engine is crap, and either wasn't or couldn't be optimized.
Zero bytes of Starfield data will ever touch my PC. I'd rather go play modded Morrowind, with infinite replayability, always trying something new. Or go play Skyrim with the Nolvus mod that actually makes Skyrim into a good game.
So many people offer so much value to Bethesda games - so many people, except Todd Howard.
Im so glad i didn't buy this game and its not about the money it sounds like this game would have crushed my spirit