Starfield, is it getting review bombed?

People like to claim any big ticket game that doesn't get like 8/10 or higher is being review bombed. Seems as if people have legit criticisms of the game and it's pretty fairly reviewed.
- Metacritic's user rating system is just shit. You see the game rated higher than deserved and you can either
  give it an honest rating resulting in the total score dropping by 0.01
  give it a zero rating and have the score drop by 0.1
  Of course most people chose to rate it in a way that has more impact on the total score, so it's no wonder we see 0/10 and 10/10 more than anything else.
  This phenomenon will be even more exaggerated if critics ratings are undeservedly high, as is the case with Starfield.

This game is just ridiculous. Overhyped advertising, terrible optimalization, 10 years old graphics, so many loadscreens, plain story, no real space exploration, perk wall to do anything, horrible UI and they call it next gen open world space exploration RPG. I stopped playing after 10 hours so I can make a good assumption but it got only worse and worse. I don't have time to waste it on this. Even if it starts being more enjoyable later it doesn't excuse all the issues.
- I feel you. The first 10-15 hours did feel like kind of a slog. I will say, I hit a point where I'm legitimately enjoying the game and things seem to have coalesced in a way they just don't in earlier game. I'm 20 hours in though. That's a slow starter if there ever was one.
  
  You're a patient man. If you enjoy it, that's good. But that game is not for me. Last game I enjoyed from Bethesda was Oblivion so I'm not much surprised. I'm quite picky..

From Metacritic
Metacritic user ratings have literally never mattered and never been an indicator for anything. I'm pretty sure every relatively popular game on it gets "review bombed", because anyone who actually wanted to review it wouldn't review it there. This is non-news.
- Doesn't metacritic aggregate reviews from other sources on their review scores as well? I havent really considered any of the big name review places a reasonable source for a long time anyway.....
  Everyone expects the next big game every game. How often can a studio really live up to the hype people create?
  
  Everytime if they just listened to a guy on the internet who has no clue what it takes to create a game.

Why? It's a pretty bad game in many ways. Also good in other ways. I can totally see why it's polarising
- To me it was a disaster because I expected it to be way more next gen after all these years. And it was very expensive compared to the quality I got.
  Meanwhile my friend was all like "Eh, it's fine. Pretty much what I expected."
  So I think people had very different expectations.
  What I absolutely cannot comprehend is those who say "10/10, game of the century!"
  Come on.. No way. If you really think that, you have really low standards or haven't played a new game in 8 years.
  
  I expected it to be way more next gen after all these years
  It is "next generation":
  It's the next generation of huge.
  It's also the next generation of empty.
  It's the next generation of pretty.
  It's also the next generation of soulless.
  I mean, it basically heightens all previous design parameters for open world games, does it not?

I watched some streams of Starfield, and I just can’t understand how they made a game that looks so dull and boring. Skyrim had some soul to it, I remember being wowed by the trailer. The world and music in Skyrim are really beautiful too. Yeah it’s a janky Bethesda game in many ways, but it is also more than that.
- My thoughts exactly. Whatever issues were in Morrowind, Oblivion, New Vegas, Skyrim etc there was still a uniquely engaging game there.
  I've been poking around and their lead concept artist died before he got to work on Fo4, and the two main writer producer guys Emil & Pete(?) have basically admitted on game dev talks that they're no longer trying to tell a coherent story or create a world anymore, just keep a player playing. Maybe this is why?
- I think you can't see starfield the same way you saw skyrim is because several years past and this level of dullness and jankiness is unacceptable
- For all the Bethesda games I've played (barring Starfield), I've been instantly hooked and wanting to play more. There's always been something to keep me playing. But in Starfield I feel like there's just nothing there, I'm not feeling any sense of wanting to explore and find out more. I'm glad I didn't pay for my copy, would have been a waste of money imo

No, it's just an overhyped game that doesn't deliver.

Man some people just can't be pleased. I've been playing the game all week, and it's fantastic. It delivered exactly what I thought it was going to be.
Sure there are some bugs, and some complaints about a few minor things, but as a whole this game is spot on.
I'm just not sure what people are expecting. It's Fallout/Skyrim in space, and it's exactly what I thought it was going to be.
- I agree that it's a fun game – about what I expected as well (no bugs for me, though) – but my major issue with the game is that the lore is so damn boring. Unlike in past titles like New Vegas and Oblivion, I find myself skipping through the dialogue in this one so that I can go back to enjoying the game. The game doesn't give me any reason to care about these various factions and their internal drama. Nobody ever has anything interesting or funny to say in Starfield ever. I never once felt the need to dig deeper into the lore like I do with Fallout, reading timelines and listening to developer insight and whatnot. I just skip skip skip.
  Also there's the fact that space travel is done almost entirely through menus. The only time you actually have to fly your ship is during dogfights.
  If it weren't for those two things, this would be a 9/10 game for me. I love the massive cities, how many mods there are already, and gunplay is satisfying once you tweak the damage values to make everyone less of a bullet sponge (Including yourself). Can't wait to see what the future holds for this game once we start getting DLC and story mods.
  
  tbf this is pretty par for the course with Bethesda, the writing just isn't good. The people that wrote Morrowind and most of Oblivion left half way through Oblivion, from what I remember Todd Howard did not get along with the writers at all.
  Everything ever since has been just, well it's been there. Todd is more interested in spectacle and exploration than writing. And unfortunately that's been incredibly successful for him
  
  I just did a quest where the New Frontier and the UC put aside their differences in war to fight a common enemy. The dialog was all touching and mused on the equality of each soldier in a war.
  Meanwhile I'm over here like "Dude, I have no honest idea what dumb reason there is that you two idiots are even at war with each other, and you're writing the dumbest WW1 Christmas story I've heard."

I can't tell if I don't like Starfield, or playing games anymore. I got it on September 1st, and played it for a few hours that night. I played it for a couple hours the night after that, and then I played it for like 30 minutes yesterday. I haven't really been hardcore about any game since before the pandemic. It's not the same now that my gaming machine lives at the desk that is also my home office. I've typically wanted to just get out of this room when work is done, so a game has to be really good to keep me sitting here.
- I can't tell you how much I need a separate office space to separate work from play.
- Not that buying more stuff is ever the answer but... As someone who also spends way too much time at the same desk, getting a Steam Deck has totally revamped my love for gaming. Most of the time I'm not bringing it out with me (although I have traveled with it), but just being able to play PC games from bed, on the couch, or even outside in the back yard has been a ton of fun for me.
- I'm with you. The intro was pretty lackluster, the main campaign doesn't interest me at all, and new Atlantis kinda sucks imo
  Then I joined the crimson fleet and suddenly 50 hours was gone.
  
  Huh. I was just watching a review for No Man's Sky that made virtually the same point about that game, down to the 50 hours. The review said that the first couple hours were very boring, but once the intro and early game was out of the way, it got way more interesting. His pinned comment reads "I have now sunk in 50+ hours into this game. It keeps showing new stuff. Please help me. My family hasn't seen me in days. "
  Maybe open-world game developers need to see if they can streamline the intros somehow. Even if the intro isn't a large percentage of the time you play the game, it does make the first impression.
- I'm considering moving my PC to the living room for this exact reason.
  
  I did, and it's great. Really helped to have it somewhere I don't also work.
  
  It's a good idea, but my eyes aren't good enough to read my screen if I park my ass on the couch and need to view the TV to read dialogue text :(
- I can't tell if I don't like Starfield, or playing games anymore.
  I don't know your tastes, but it's probably the latter if you only stick to the AAA realm of games. I sure as hell have burned on them - the indie and mid-budget space is where you'll find games focused on simply being fun. Hi-Fi Rush, Pizza Tower, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to name a few that came out this year.
- I feel you. I just started spending my work day in bed then playing games at night.

I don't like it, so many loading screens, the faction bounties are copy/paste, the space combat is awkward, neon was a huge disappointment to me being just one long corridor with neon signs, the main quest railroads you like no other Bethesda game before it and it's just not fun to me. I've come to the conclusion it's just not for me and moved back over to baldurs gate 3 and recently started another new run in the outer worlds.
- I'll keep plying the low atmo worlds in Elite until the game for me comes out, I guess.
  
  I mean, my opinion is anecdotal I suppose. I have friends that like it and some that think it's just okay. For me, I just wasn't having fun and that's the point of games, to have fun. I also don't really think their whole "NASApunk" style is very good. It doesn't feel like it has any unique style or identity. It's honestly baffling to me how it's gotten some 9's and 10's for scores. It's easily a 7 out of 10 for me, maybe even a 6. It's definitely not the game Bethesda sold everyone on with marketing IMO.
- Are you on an HDD? new PC, new SSD, haven't sat in a loading screen for more than 3 seconds but usually less than 1.
  
  Nope, running off a series s which uses internal nvme SSD storage.
- I don't even notice losing screen. They are almost instant for me.
  
  It's not that loading screens are slow (I run on SSD), it's that it's loading screens everywhere. Want to enter a building? There's a loading screen for that. Enter your ship? Loading screen. Launch to orbit? Loading. Travel to another planet's orbit? Loading. Land on a planet? Oh loading, again.
  At least in Skyrim and Fallout 4, you can have a seamless overworld experience. In Starfield, it's all loading screens.
- Skip the loading screens and just jump the walls or off balconies. Duh.
- I thought the main quest lines were pretty great.
  All the side content is pretty bland though.
  The loading screens aren't bad if you're properly using fast travel.
  
  The loading screens are atrocious even for a Bethesda game. Walk up a ladder, loading screen, open a door, loading screen, dock with another ship, loading screen, travel to another planet in the same system, loading screen, land on a planet that's already loaded, loading screen, exit the ship, loading screen. Maybe it's different on PC, but I'm playing on a series S that has pretty fast read/write speeds and that's just absurd. Pretty sure if my character could use the toilet there would be a loading screen for the bathroom.

I'm enjoying the game and having fun but I also have a long list of complaints. #1 for me right now is not having the right dialogue options. First bethesda rpg where a character can ask me if something is a good idea and there is no option to tell them no!
- Damn even the outer worlds had that.
  
  I got Outer Worlds because of all the talk about it having more choice than Fallout 4 and didn't find that to be true at all. It was largely the same with nothing but Yes, No, and Not Now options.

Somehow they made a shittier NoMansSky.
- I have tried to play NMS four separate times now. I just cannot get past a certain point where it feels like repitition towards some kind of story line that is always one stept away of "something interesting". The mechanics of the gameloop are maybe a bit too obvious, which takes away form the immersion. I end up shelfing it because something else catches my goldfish like attention. Then a year later a major update comes out, and I think "maybe it's good now"?
  Am I doing it wrong?

Starfield has fantastic art direction and ambience. The gunplay is really good, perhaps the best gunplay of any RPG, and a surprise coming from Bethesda. Story hits some good beats, and exploration is rewarding, though repetitive about 50% of the time in the typical Bethesda fashion (remember Draugr crypts?).
That being said, the game has some shortfalls, primarily in the roleplay aspect. The ship building and crew management is good, but it doesn't feel great, and is sometimes just frustrating, so you never feel truly immersed in your own ship. Lack of low earth orbital and terrestrial flight is immersion breaking (even if players might opt to skip it if it were present) along with the fact that the ship is relegated to being a flying mule and most transportation is basically instant teleportation via menus, which IMO hurts the isolation and exploration RP and challenge. Ship combat is straight up mediocre for a space game in 2023. Gun selection and modding is decent, but far from top tier. I would describe the apparel as a bit on the bland side, few of the clothes and armor pickups made me go: I want to put this on, I'll look badass (Cyberpunk 2077 syndrome).
In fact I think starfield shares a lot with Cyberpunk 2077: massive budget, AAA art direction with gameplay spread across so many systems and features that a lot of them leave you wanting more.
- The gunplay is really good
  Is it really though...?
  
  I was just thinking this. The gunplay is serviceable.

It's janky as hell, but the game I've played the most this year. Take that for what you will.
- I mean... Have you played many others?
  
  They played some minesweeper for 10 minutes.
- It's crack for my brain

I was so prepared to love this game today. Woke up early and fired it up almost two hours ago. It's crashed 5 times and I've only made about twenty minutes worth of progress into the intro.
I'm playing on a Series X. There's no reason for this type of bullshit.
Sure, it's a first world problem, but this has really set a bad tone for the day and this game in general.
I might try again later, but I'm probably already over it.
- I've been running it on my series S for hours without a single crash - sounds like that might be something to do with your console
- Where did it crash? I've been playing for 5 hours on a SX and it's been rock solid (of course usual Bethesda visual glitches slightly happen).
  It sounds like your xbox is overheating or needs to be cleaned
  
  But the Xbox OS isn't crashing. I just suddenly go back to the home screen, but trying to go back into Starfield relaunches the game. My kid said it was happening to him when he played earlier this week, but I thought he was just exaggerating because he's like that.
  Here's where it crashed: #1: Saying goodbye to Lin. #2: Space pirates land (no combat yet) (I decided to quicksave after talking to Barrett) #3: Conversation after the pirate fight #4: Spaceship combat tutorial (2 ships)
  And that's as far as I got in 2 hours.

There's something I'd like to call "the Bethesda" bar. It's basically an industrial bar lower than most. Let's define what that means:
releasing the same game over and over
make games so buggy that a release with only a couple hundred of glitches is deemed "polished*
ignore progressive development for things like NPC AI
put all the money in marketing and hype
make the user think they're getting something new, rather than just another boilerplate game
I'm sure the story writers did some characters justice, but I won't be playing this game - especially since Bethesda claims it "can't run on older hardware", despite the fact that modders are proving them wrong.
The Betheada bar is a cancer upon the industry and I view it as consumer facing psy-ops, relying on brain-dead fanboys with nothing going on in their lives to squeal with glee as a new AAA-title is released to fill that void.
- Ah yes the "everyone who likes something I don't like is a brainless zombie" argument, coming from someone who doesn't like Bethesda and hasn't even played the game.
  
  It's the same game as the last several Bethesda games, no need to play it to criticize it.
  But even watching a few streams and videos is really enough to see even the harsh criticisms are putting it mildly.

Didn't watch the video, just wanted to know if the unofficial law works again and every title that contains a question can be answered by "no".
- Well it's click bait, so... lol

I'm 20 hours in and not having a good time. Feels like I'm forcing myself to play instead of looking forward to it.
It's just... bland. There's no memorable characters, no breathtaking worlds, no addictive gameplay loops or memorable story. Just go here, fight pirates, click on one thing, 30 seconds cutscene of talking, repeat.
I really, really want to love Starfield but I just don't get it.

I'm having fun zooming around the galaxy as a tough bounty hunter/vanguard. Has all the good bits of Fallout (exploring abandoned buildings, weapon variety, base building etc). I swear people are not even playing the same game with how they describe it.
- I think you mean pressing buttons in menus to teleport across the galaxy
  
  Yeah, you're right, they need a "fast travel to tracked quest next location" button so I don't have to futz with the menus. But at least I'm not arbitrarily waiting several minutes to get to fun whenever I have to go somewhere.

Totally, Starfield pretty much pissed off 3 different groups at once.
You have anti-woke people losing their minds over pronouns in the character creator.
Playstation fanboys since the game is not on PS5.
The usual Bethesda haters that have been saying Skyrim sucks for over 10 years now.
This was going to happen whether Starfield was a masterpiece or complete garbage.
- This was going to happen whether Starfield was a masterpiece or complete garbage.
  But as expected it wasn't either just a subpar game that a large number of people think it's a 10/10 GOTY contender
  
  A lot of people seem to love it and reviews are excellent, if that is subpar then we are getting some damn good games lately.

Most of the negative commenters I've heard from have been reactionary. Most who play it say anywhere from pretty good to amazing.
For the record, I'm a Playstation fanboy who thinks Bethesda's best work is Morrowind and Fallout 3.
- I really dislike most of the games Bethesda makes . Skyrim I found glitchy and the sword play felt really bad . Fallout 3 the gameplay seemed like walk backwards and shoot. I did like death loop thou
  
  I did like death loop thou
  That would make sense if you don't like the games Bethesda makes since that one was Arkane.
  
  I felt the same until I modded the shite out of Skyrim this year and now my mod list hit critical mass and I‘m having an absolute blast with it. Starfield runs worse and looks worse for me so that game needs some time in the patch and mod oven before I dive into it… I‘m patient.
  
  You should try Prey if you enjoyed Deathloop, it's DLC "Moon crash" was made a few years prior to Deathloop and incorporates similar mechanics except the map is randomized on each playthrough so it's always a little different.
  Same company, but it feels like Moon crash was a more interesting version of what DL did. Plus Prey occasionally just goes on like 90% off sales (one time I snagged it and the DLC free on Epic Games.)
- Morrowind and Fallout NV are incredible.
  Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Skyrim are great.
  Fallout 4 is bland as hell.
  Fallout 76 and ESO are hot garbage.
  I'd put Starfield in the great tier.
  
  I would rank Fallout: New Vegas more-highly than Fallout 3 too, but it wasn't developed by Bethesda. They just published it. Obsidian developed it.
  
  ESO is great, though? It just has a shitty combat system with attack weaving. Even 76 isn't that bad anymore. Honestly just seems like you get your opinion out of gaming journalism.
- Tbh, me and at least 2 other people I know bounced off it hard, even after giving it multiple chances in 10+ hours of playing. Some people just aren't jelling with it even with playtime.
  
  I personally like to explore barren world's and drift around the galaxy but I can see how boring it would be for alot of people.
- It might be my new favorite game. I am absolutely loving it. And once there are more mods, it's only going to get better.
  I really want a mod so vendors have more money. There's no skill to increase it in this game. Idk if there's another way to do it, but right now it's just too low.
  
  Agreed. I am having a hard time offloading all of my loot because the vendors can’t afford it all!
- What did you like about Fallout 3 that makes you put it in their higher tier of quality?
  
  Liam Neeson was my daddy.
  
  Early Bethesda games in general focused on giving you more freedom and the tools to do what you want. Where later games tried to give you more cool things to do. I think the quality decline is obvious from the change.
- I played it and thought it was mid. Didn’t hold my interest at all. I’ve haven’t played a Bethesda game since oblivion though.
  
  I can see why the reviews are between 'Best game ever' and 'worst game Bethesda made' and it's so strange. I personally love Starfield and it's universe while my friend hates it because it's boring for him.

It would seem so to me. When there’s a big disparity across the ratings - positive and negative are similar on metacritic with little in between - it raises a lot of red flags to me.
- I dunno dude, I've heard a lot of people have legit complaints about the game, especially on PC.
  
  For PC, game optimization is very inconsitent. When I'm in a smaller space like a dungeon or the Constellation Lodge, it's actually pretty great and runs smoothly. When I go into the city though, the framerate is terrible. The graphics also become significantly worse. So yeah, wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those negative reviews are from PC players having to deal with Bethesda jank again.
  
  Oh I know there are, I’m not saying otherwise.
- Not sure if it's evidence of organized review bombing. but yeah, it seems like most people are just being as extreme as possible because they know it's a scale of averages.
- Nah. There are good reasons to love and hate the game.
- That seems like a standard reviewing to me. Now go look at The Last of Us Part 2, now that game is truly review bombed.
  
  I dunno, TLoU2 definitely got it harder but there’s still that massive gap in middle range reviews (see image) that made me question it with Starfield.

I am really enjoying it. The emergent story-lines that have cropped up just from me doing stuff is great. Having to really focus my skill points into perks forces me to stick with a play style and the gunplay and upgrades are fantastic. I love just fucking off to some random corner of the galaxy and finding a whole entire storyline to explore. Yes, the lack of low orbit flying is glaring since I played a lot of NMS but the story telling here is top tier and I just keep wanting to go back and play. Even now, I am just writing this one comment and then I am off to betray the Crimson Fleet >:)

To me it's less about the user reviews, and more about how as now some time is passing, listening to professional reviewers in podcasts etc, more and more the mood turns... tepid?
It's not that anyone is underwhelmed. More just... whelmed.

I don’t know why but the game is not fun, I was bored in like 2 hours… the controls were a mess and everything looks tinted and hard to see.
Add to that the poor optimisation on PC. I’m going to pass on that one
- My first few hours weren't fun, and I nearly stopped playing. It started getting fun when I abandoned the main quest and went out on my own.
  
  this is the way
  
  Exactly what I experience in every Bethesda game. Boring ass main quest line where a bunch of British people telling me about starsigns or some shit and then I joined the vanguard and never touched the main plot again because exploding pirates and space hobos while exploring planets is where it's at.
  
  I can echo that sentiment. The MQL starts really slow and has a lot of exposition overlord as is normal for Bethesda games. Once I started doing side missions for the UC Vanguard and "pimped my ride" xzibit style I got hooked.

The game is a solid 7 maybe 8. The performance is absolute garbage, but the underlying game is pretty good. Mods will do the heavy lifting as usual.

It's it bombing of it's a bad game?
- But it’s not a bad game
  
  Being middling is worse than being bad. At least bad things get remembered for their badness. Nothing mediocre gets remembered.

Are user reviews on places like Metacritic or Steam ever relevant? Review bombing happens consistently any time anyone is slightly miffed at something, which in gaming is literally all the time.
I'm not exposed to that many "gamer takes" lately, luckily. I watched a recent dunkey video on Starfield reviews, that had some thumb-headed idiot screaming in falsetto about the pronoun switch (oh, the horror, for such a thing to exist! oh, the humanity!). Other than that I haven't seen that much complaining about that specific thing. While it could still be about that, I also think it could easily be getting underwhelming scores because it's... a bit underwhelming. (So far, anyway, I haven't played a lot yet)
- I think you need to own the game on steam to review it so there's some gatekeeping there at least
  
  I hate Steam's review system, though. Binary yes or no is not useful to me. I want to know if a game is good (maybe a play eventually) vs absolutely amazing (where I might prioritize playing it right away). Such granularity is also useful because a 10/10 might be worth it even if it's not my favourite type of game, but a 7/10 can be very worthwhile if it is the type of game I adore.
  It's a shame that user reviews on sites like Metacritic are just consistent trash. Too many users only know 0 or 10 and the user reviews are often review bombed. I wish regular users could at least give numbers like critics. No professional critic is gonna give a game a 0 because of a handful of problems, for example, but average people will totally give a game a zero for that. Only problem with critics is that they often have a perspective that makes them detached from the average person, since they spend all their time reviewing. Ideally user reviews would fill that gap, but users are incredibly fickle.
  
  That should help in theory, but Steam is infamous for this problem, too, so it can't be helping all that much.
- Yes, just look at what's going on with the Warhammer 3 controversy

I would guess that any platform-exclusive game is going to have some level of that, just because you've got fans of Platform A and fans of Platform B. And Starfield was purchased by Microsoft specifically to have an X-Box (well, and PC) exclusive, so...
Go back to the 1980s, and it was "Mario sucks" or "Sonic sucks".
I play games almost entirely on the PC, so the Starfield acquisition (as well as the other recent acquisitions by Microsoft or Sony or whoever that have been driving the antitrust concerns) haven't really been on my radar, but if I had a popular game coming out on my platform and then someone paid to ensure that I didn't get it, I'd be kind of irked.
I did use a Mac, many years back, and I remember being annoyed when Bungie -- then a major game developer for the Macintosh, in an era when the Mac wasn't getting a lot of games -- was purchased by Microsoft in 2000. Halo did come out for the Mac, but Halo 2 didn't, and I imagine that a lot of people who were on the Mac then were probably pretty unhappy about that.
- I don’t think BG3 got review bombed, and that one is not available on Xbox.
  
  It's apparently coming out shortly (like, this month or next). But, more to the point, the delay apparently wasn't because a platform vendor purchased it to be an exclusive, but because the dev team hit some kind of technical problems with the port. That is, it's not in the group of "Mario and Sonic" exclusives used to sell a platform, and Microsoft's acquisition was to make Starfield one of these.
  https://www.techradar.com/gaming/xbox-series-x-s/baldurs-gate-3-will-release-on-xbox-between-september-and-november-according-to-swen-vincke
  EDIT: Split-screen on the XBox Series S is apparently where the problem is:
  Larian has been struggling to get Baldur's Gate 3's split-screen co-op feature running smoothly on the Xbox Series S. Despite the feature working as intended on Xbox Series X, Microsoft policy demands that Xbox Series X versions of their games cannot have any features that Xbox Series S editions lack. This means that canning the feature on Series S simply isn't an option for Larian.
- Both Sonic and Mario sucked. Alex Kidd rocked!
  Nah, not serious. I, like everyone else, wanted a Nintendo.

metacritics users score being as low compared to Steam's user score, which actually requires having played the game iirc, is pretty telling

It just a bad game

Gamers love to throw tantrums lol
- Truth.

When is the next Mass Effect coming out?
- Not soon enough 😭 Probably won't be what we want from it anyways, they'll take all the worst parts of Andromeda and leave the good on the cutting room floor, somehow.
  
  I fear you're right, but as long as the franchise is alive there's a chance they make it right some day.

- I've played about 40 hours so far on a Series X. It froze on loading twice in that time, but otherwise I've had no performance problems. I even tried remote play streaming from my Series X to my PC and it worked well also.
  That said, Starfield is fine. It's not great- I don't think it would be considered GotY even if BG3 and TotK hadn't come out this year- but it's otherwise solid. If you like the Bethesda formula, Starfield plays it absolutely straight (for better or worse). The usual critiques of Bethesda games in general apply- it has that look of a Bethesda game, the NPCs have the facial animation range of a post-botox Barbie, Radiant quests abound, the exploration gameplay loop is pretty shallow, etc.
  Don't get me wrong- there's a lot it could do better, much of which other games already do. It's a sci-fi fi version of Skyrim, and that's good enough for me, but it probably won't live on in the gaming zeitgeist.
- Just tried starting it this morning on a Series X. It crashed 5 times on less than two hours. The last time, I was barely into the "learn how to pilot a ship" part of the tutorial, and I'm already over this. I'm so disappointed. I was really looking forward to getting sucked into a new game.

I can’t play it because I own neither.a gaming PC nor an Xbox, but the impression I’m getting from all the reviews and reactions I’ve seen is that it’s basically a good game, if it had been released in 2008.
It looks like they did the best they could, but they did it using an outdated engine that simply cannot be used to make a modern game.
- I would take the whole "old crappy bethesda engine" meme with a grain of salt.
  IMO it is a good engine, it is getting updated by them on every new game like any other engine. And there are a lot of changes all over. For that reason modders have to develop new tools to create meshes, reverse egnineer the changed data formats, etc. Saying that it is the same engine as Skyrim or Fallout 4/76 is just not true.
  It is also one of the most mod friendly engine. The content creation tools from Bethesda and modders make it really easy to work with, even for people not able to code themselvs.
  And personally the game looks and works fine. Of course you can critique the game itself, but attacking the whole engine is exagerated. Sure it has bugs, and you can attack bethesda about not fixing them, but suggesting that they throw away the whole engine because of a couple of bugs or subjective "looks bad" opinions is ridiculus.
  Also, I don't think just using Unity or UE4 (where bethesda devs first need to learn them first) magically fixes every complaint and bug. But it might make the game not as easily moddable.
  
  Is it just an exaggeration, though? It is old. It is... kinda crappy. I've played and loved a bunch of Bethesda games, but they do tend to fuck up in some pretty characteristic ways. So characteristic that they happened in Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallouts 3, NV and 4, and now apparently Starfield. In my hour or so of gameplay I already encountered the "corpses somersaulting around" thing, a tradition since at least Skyrim.
  Creation Engine... Creation Engine never changes.
- I’ve been seeing similar, with people saying they would have liked Starfield more if they hadn’t played Baldur’s Gate 3 first. That’s where I feel like a fair number of the “meh” scores are coming from. It’s like people are saying it’s really good, but not mind-blowing.
  
  I played BG3 first. Near the end of it now. What could Bethesda have done to measure up to BG3?
  Be less buggy? SF is a more complicated game than BG3. More stuff than can go wrong. Also BG3 has a lot more bugs later in game, in the part that hasn't been out for early access for years now.
  Have more story branches? If ME didn't convince Bethesdas earlier games to put in more choices, why should BG3? Most people know what they get from these games.
  Better writing? Thats a very subjective thing. And BG3 have a lot of already existing lore to build on top of.
  Some times the quality of a game comes down to luck, timing, and what skill you got available. And trying to figure out which of two good games is objectively the "best" is a waste of time. We should be happy we got two good new games. In two different genres. And measure them against their prequels instead. Has the game evolved since the last game? BG3 has two parent games, BG2 and D:OS. It has improved on them both in combining them. Starfield was born from Fallout. Definitely an upgrade too, while staying true to what we expect in that line of games.
  Thats my take on it. If a new XCom came out tomorrow, I wouldn't be disappointed it wasnt BG3, I'd be happy and hope it had improved on XCom 2.
- I told my wife I'd have been thrilled to get this game in 2016. In 2023 it does feel dated though, If they don't update the engine significantly before their next game it may actually hurt sales.
- 2008?! Nope. No. Not even close. 2015 maybe.
  True, it doesn't have raytracing, like most big game engines now. And the first city you come to is VERY plain and clean and oversized and underdetailed. It would probably be better if one started out in Akila or Neon or The Well somewhere with more details. But not every game, particularly one as open and customizable as this, can have EA level models or Cyberpunk level details. Nor is it the engines fault. Seen the Unreal Engine? How old is that one, 1998 i think? Nobody complains about that.
  It is the fault of what they want to create. They want an engine that can do big open worlds, with interactable and persistent junk of all kinds, but that they can also very quickly create new content for. And is easily moddable with as little risk of mod conflicts as possible. And a very simulated AI, one that doesn't need handhelding through pre-placed paths, but can navigate freely even through user-created buildings and chaotic situations. They end up looking dumber than other games AIs, but thats only because other games rely more on the illusion of a smart AI.
  
  I agree! The content of the game is the issue, not the engine. Bashing Bethesdas engine is just a meme, at this point.
  Linux is 32 years old, people wanting to throw everything away and start new, just because they don't like certain aspects of it, are crazy.
  Personally, I don't really care about raytracing, or even improving the graphics that much, IMO they should reuse assets and code if that will make them invest more of their time to improve their writing, quests and let people go their own paths through the quests instead of just having 2 or 3 options (do the quest, don't do the quest and sometimes rat the people out to the authorities). So that we have BG3 level of writing and quests, in different kind of game.
  And for god sakes, do simple things like let companions whisper when sneaking.
  Also, New Atlantis doesn't look build for Humans but for giants, too much scaled up.
- That doesn't sound like they did the vest they could. They did the vest they could without putting in any effort.

Someone took whelming and placed it above the game

Modders could make starfield in skyrim and imo it'd be a better game.
- Doubt.

- I agree that 76 sucked. SF is pretty great though.
- Screwed over? What promised stuff didn't 76 deliver on?
  For me it seemed like Bethesda wasn't entirely sure what they wanted from 76, except that they wanted to create a multiplayer version of Fallout, and make money on micro-transactions. Todd tried to drag it in the PvP direction, which was ridiculous when its their first multiplayer and fallout haven't exactly been known for being balanced. Someone internally dragged it in the coop PvE direction, someone else towards roleplaying and building. And after a backlash, they reacted by focusing on getting NPCs in and on PvE coop. And house building because that sold.
  I liked the initial story personally. The changed story with NPCs became too disjointed from the world already built. And had no driving force in it. No reason to care except seeing one faction win.