I Really REALLY Want to Love Starfield
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- Опубліковано 23 вер 2024
- Here's my review of Starfield, which I played on my Xbox Series X.
Many thanks to Bethesda for providing me with a review copy!
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This video was edited by the spectacular @soitssparkie!
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Additional footage provided by @GaLm, @theRadBrad, @ScykohPlays, @GameRiot, @Tomographic, @vinesauce, @FightinCowboy, @Grohlvana, @MrZebraGamer, @Olli43, @JosephAndersonChannel, and @tetraninja
"Blippy Trance" by incompetech.com
Fun Fact: early plans for Mass Effect Andromeda involved players exploring over 1000 procedurally generated planets across the Andromeda Galaxy, but the team gave up on it pretty late in development because no matter what they tried, they couldn't make the planets fun to explore.
Anyway, Starfield.
Is that why Starfield felt like Bethsda told Arcane to make Mass Effect Andromeda?
What is bethesda made an Andromeda game, people would have been unhappy as well. Because it would be too liner. People were just not going to be happy with this game no matter what.
@@Joseph-wh5ofthat's just not true. People would be way more happy if BGS decided to put quality over quantity.
@mikeryan1043 No, the most common complaint for Starfield is not its quality. It's a lack of interesting exploration as in their previous games, which were far smaller. Starfield's quality is fine.
If Bethesda had pulled an outer worlds or a mass effect, both linear exploration games, where you could only land on two spots on a handful of planets, and couldn't fly your ship, people would be complaining as well. They would say, "See that mountain over there? It looks cool, right? Well, I can't go there. In Skyrim, I could!" Or they would say,"These areas are nice, but they're very limited and small compared to the past Bethesda open world games. It loses the sense of scale, especially for a space game..."
I just think people would not have been happy with this game regardless. People were looking for a skyrim map quality on an interplanetary level. Which is physically impossible to create. There's a reason why open world space games all use a lot of procedural generation. I went into this game knowing that from playing games like no man's sky and Elite dangerous. My opinion of StarField is very fun. If you went into this thinking, it's going to be exactly like skyrim in space, and you will be disappointed.
@@Joseph-wh5of Yes, there should be a compromise, naturally. Like one solar system with 5-10 planets. All with the quality of Skyrims world. Also, what you described is the quality.
1000 planets is the quantity of content. The type of content and how interesting it is is the quality of content.
As I said, people would be way more happy with a mich higher quality of content (on a level of Skyrim) and way less quantity (10 planets instead of 1000 spread over 1, maximum 2 solar systems instead of 100, way more handcrafted content, much less procedural content).
bgs spent so much time making "a game you can play forever" but forgot to make it a game u actually want to play forever.
Remember, everyone, in order to have replay value, you must first have play value.
The irony of over a thousand planets with a fast travel system means that no matter how big the game is, it feels exponentially smaller.
"As wide as the ocean and as deep as a puddle" is how I like to describe the space in this game.
It's not just that you can hop in a few clicks, with nothing really in between. It looks like different names for the same handful of tile sets. Jon from Many a True Nerd went out of his way to pick the most desolate place on the map, and found not only a bunch of buildings right there, there was someone taking their pet for a walk - never mind the moon wasn't capable of supporting life. There's always something everywhere, and yet there doesn't seem to be more than one place anywhere. It's disjointed. Even with all that heavy NPC voice acting, none of them behave like it matters one bit where they've been placed.
As usual, there's more to the dreams than to the available products.
This game made me think of even KOTOR, where it had like 4-5 planets, but they all had infinitely more personality than most in Starfield. A game from 2003 lol.
I think it’s funny how every planet feels similar in size. No man’s sky really gives you a sense of being on a massive honker or a tiny moon. Starfield has 1km^2 zones to explore. Lol
Man’s got an early copy and still gave it an honest review…. Respect
Let's be real here. When the next Bethesda game comes out, there is a non-zero chance he will already have retired.
it's sad that the bar has sunk so low that he's being commended for this when this should be the norm
What they should have done is have like 10 planets with worlds roughly 60% the size of Skyrim. That would have solved a lot of these issues
Yeah, basically a better thought out Outer Worlds with a AAA scope. This would‘ve been pretty cool! Maybe if they kept it to one solar system, they might have been able to make seamless space travel work, too.
Wouldn't of fixed the absolute crap writing, story, dialogue. I don't know how it was so bad in comparison to Skyrim or prior games but holy cow. Some of the worst I've ever seen tbh
@@tardigrade9343 thought you stated outer wilds for a second
@@otockian I agree and its probably because their writers don't know how to write for scifi genre.
Not even, they needed 3 planets or less, I could see them adding 7 planets for the modders in a free dlc that are barren like the normal planets are right now, but even 10 planets would spread resources too thin
This game's most incredible achievement is that it managed to take the vastness of space and make it feel tiny. Truly groundbreaking.
I can feel the irony, but at the same time what you said make sense and I truly believe this is for the better, so I'm not sure how to react.
yOU ARE MY FAVOURITE BOT
My favorite thing about it is that it made every game I played after it seem really good in comparison. 😂
@@albesayz Honestly Starfield's greatest accomplishment is showing how good we had it with Cyberpunk. Sure it was buggy as shit, but at least the devs were *trying* to do something interesting. And Cyberpunk as it is now? Well it sure makes Starfield look even more embarrassing.
Tell me about it. I was hyped for this game because I figured even if most of it is dogshit, I can at least count on classic Bethesda exploration with world-building and that feeling of openness and freedom but set in space - and on paper it felt like match made in heaven.
...instead, we ended up with a claustrophobic loading screen simulator set in the most dull and uninspired sci-fi universe I've ever had the misfortune of delving into.
The really frustrating thing is: Bethesda already learned this lesson with the early elder scrolls games. The thing that set their games from Morrowind onward apart, was that they opted for a small, but lovingly handcrafted and almost infinity detailed/interesting world. But apparently they just... Forgot about that? If any studio should have known better, it's them
We were too easy on them for Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. For all the hell they caught, it wasn't enough. They know they'll always have Todd's snake oil salesmanship to ensure profit from people who are young or gullible, and too conceited to admit they fell for his shit again.
If consumers are still stupid enough to shell out their money for the dog shit copy and paste sports games and lackluster AC titles from ubisoft, I'm really not surprised they did the same with Starfield. They'll probably do it again on the next Bathesda title. Bathesda magic just pulls people... Or in some cases makes them fools. At some point people have to realize that all the memories we have of playing great games from these companies for the first time are going to stay memories, because many of them are too concerned with money to make games like that now. Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bathesda... Most of the people that worked on those great games aren't even there anymore. These AAA companies have done a good job opening things up for smaller studios, consumers just gotta wake up and stop forking over their money for subpar products.
True, it's getting really annoying that most companies are focusing on a big world map but forgetting bout adding neat identities
@@nachgeben I don't know about that. Starfield seems to be a response to all the hate 4 and 76 got. Focused more on dialogue and rpg mechanics
They learned that low effort still generated nearly as much profits. That's why they keep doing it. Makes sense for 'em, though.
Mass Effect is an interesting comparison piece because the universe didn't need to be inconceivably massive to prompt interest. What made the setting feel big were the characters. Having teammates that you actually grew to care enough about that you wanted to help them and learn about their personal place in the galaxy. It was all about the journey of all the little pictures that made up the whole, not stretching one big picture so thin that you could never see the end of it.
And because of thats it felt larger than starfield ever will. Especially with all the different aliens and their lore.
Truly, there were multiple moments where, as I was playing Starfield, I wished I was playing Mass Effect instead (and I’ve only played a fraction of the first Mass Effect). The difference in passion that went into creating each work is obvious
Yeah why did they decide to make this when Mass Effect and No Man's Sky exist? I haven't actually played it, but it just sounds like a worse version of those two games put together.
@@kode-man23 despite its faults, I’d still say that this is the best Bethesda game, but that’s only under the assumption that we’re not including the settlement system when grading Fallout 4. Honestly, the biggest problem I have is that they overdeveloped the United Colonies quest line. It’s my favorite series of quests and I bring Hadrian everywhere - it’s truly disappointing that she isn’t a romance option. The problem with the quests is that they’re only side quests so they only last as long as side quests and they have a relatively low impact on your game. They’re the coolest quests I’ve ever done in a Bethesda game but all of them fail to realize their full potential because they were all side quests. They stop the quest every time things get interesting. Meanwhile, the main quest line freaking sucks. They should have swapped the focus of the game
Actually the characters are just the tip of the iceberg, they represent the lore of everyone culture you find.
This makes ME larger because of the lore and world building, even small races like the hanar have a representative in the form of Thane, this is what makes ME larger than Starfield.
Starfield on the other hand id boring and shallow, heck the have mech war because colonies, theres a potential future war with aliens in the future, but Bugthesda thought it was a good idea make a game about multiverses and seeking space dragonborn magic.
It's lazy and lame.
If instead it had like 10~15 big, highly-detailed planets with a ton of stuff to do and another 30~40 small but hand-crafted planets with a few things to do, that would have been infinitely more appealing than 1000+ empty rocks
Ironically, one criticism I've heard is that it's not empty rocks. The ancient hidden temples sometimes being within sight of random Ecliptic or mining bases are at odds with each other.
That's still an insanely huge amount of planets. After a certain point there's no difference between 10 or 1000 planets, if you can procedurally generate 1 you can procedurally generate 100000. Realistically nobody can make a game with 10-15 PLANETS full of interesting, handcrafted stuff in them. If anything you'd have a bunch of hubs, like in mass effect or towns with a limited open worlds surrounding them like in The Outer Worlds. What they need to do is they need to start reducing the scope of their open worlds, massively. Go back to Skyrim sizes, or even smaller, and work on making the actual game good.
I think they could have done something like Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, or Cowboy Bebop where you have a bunch of inhabited planets in the same solar system and the game would have been far better as a result.
itd even make sense within the lore
there was a big war, and it ended in a treaty where each faction could only have power in 3 systems each, like thats a perfect explanation for them to have only focused on a smallish amount of systems
even just having 2-3 unique points of interest on most of the planets would have been great, instead we have 1000 empty rocks, nearly empty 100 systems you have to filter through when "traveling" and theres barely even 20 real points of interest in the entire galaxy
I wish the game took place in our solar system only, their nasa punk aesthetic would actually stand front and center with that constraint. The desperate miserable existence would make sense, earth is destroyed and humanity is trapped without ftl. The lore wouldn’t even have to change much.
Starfield made me realize how incredible of a feat it was for the developers of Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky to create those games. Sure they’ve been actively developing for those games for years after they released, but that just further proves that what those devs have done is actually unfathomably impressive.
I could've created something better because I am not restrained by capitalist idiocy, but then again I'm not paid to do it so fu, I won't do it :D
@@angrypidgeon1714 sad...that both "the capitalists" and "the workers" both
will not do good things, things that help society, just for the sake of helping...
the world of Star Trek heck any Sci Fi world at all, will never, ever be real, if all humans continue to be like this
@@Munenushi capitalism isn't about helping others, is all about helping yourself to other's stuff :) capitalist mode of production is expropriation of the masses
Starbound and Starlink Battle for Atlas are both much better space exploration games
@@Miperzfed starfield is suppose to be just a story driven rpg, but the story sucks and its got nothing else to show for. Rarely moments of up to date graphics, and pointless mechanics. The last of us is a much more restrictive story driven rpg and is much more fun. Goes to prove where corruption (soulessness) goes. Good luck supporting capitalism, the root of this evil and decay
I thought I was going crazy because I love Skyrim and Fallout, but I'm struggling to get into Starfield, but Arlo perfectly articulated why the worlds of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout are just so much more interesting.
The game sucks
Same boat as you man. I just can't play this empty ass game.
Yea I have like 80hrs in and I like it but the story just isn't interesting.. nobody is memorable and there's nothing that really stands out
Totally. In Fallout I met that talking tree and that kids town. In Starfield I found some grandma in a spaceship with nothing to do and some party spaceship with nothing to do. lol
@@thedonofthsht76-58the dialog is so boring. They talk so slow and robotic that I skip alot of voice acting because I already read the subtitles. Where in cyberpunk people have emotion, move around when talking and has something meaningful to say.
You completely read my mind with this one. It's so dry I just cant finish it no mater how hard I try. So many hours in FO and TES games but I cannot get over the setting and lack of world building/immersion here.
Also: If you are going to go "no aliens", you have to do something like Dune and have many more dramatically different cultures.
Exactly...both TES and FO have multiple races and it contributes greatly to the lore, it's so lazy that this is absent in Starfield. There's not even sentient Droid characters aside from Vasco, are you kidding me?
@@zubirhusein Cyberpunk is all about humans and yet they have more cultures in a single city than Starfield has in an entire galaxy
The gangs would be like the pirates in Starfield (wich are basically the only enemies in Starfield) and yet you have way more variety than Starfield, the Maeltrom is completely different from the Animals, both in tactics and behaviour, and this are just TWO of the many gangs in C77.
You should quit Starfield. Try Avorion and Space Engineers if you feel like you need to explore a galaxy.
@@Shorty_Lickens i would recomend Empyrion, is more about actually explore a galaxy.
@@efxnews4776 I have it. I played it. It felt mostly like a digging simulator cuz you have to constantly dig to get resources to make stuff to explore further, but I felt like I didnt get much exploring in.
"See you in 14 years" really hits home, because the world is severely lacking with anything that approaches Elder Scrolls or Fallout style gameplay and scope.
That was the line that made me giggle!
I mean the gameplay is antiquated, so its good Nobody copies it in 2023
@@Shyftus Depends what you mean by the gameplay. Is open world, attention to detail, RPG mechanics, various joinable factions, character creation, and things to discover by exploring antiquated in your eyes?
@@moonie9000 every modern RPG has a detailed character creator, the bethesda Open worlds are better than the Ubisoft Formular, but lag behind new titles Like Elfen Ring severly, and the Combat system in elder Scrolls and Fallout is atrociously Bad. Most of the time its Just statchecks with no Skill Expression opportunities. So yes, its antiquated and the Combat was already bad in 2011.
@@Shyftus oh so you mean the combat, okay. And you'd prefer a world with nothing but combat such as Elden Ring, where combat means learning boss moves so you can roll on the floor twenty times. Which to me is antiquated AF gameplay from the late 90s, but okay bro.
very nice to hear Arlo still speak freely about Bethesda's controversies even though they provided him with this review copy. Real display of integrity
It’s fine, but it was barely mentioned and Bethesda/Todd themselves acknowledged FO76 on stage years ago. So it’s by no means poking the hornet’s nest.
yes because any youtuber getting a review copy means that they are a shill
@@user-gu7me6hy6hThis is so sad, no TES6 review from Arlo in 15 years
@@splat-a-tat6780 I kind of wanted to be upset at this comment, but ended up laughing hard enough that I coughed instead so I changed my mind.
@@iampfaff Some definitely are though.
I really wish they followed No Man's Sky's lead of having both a jump drive & warp drive, where you jump from system to system and then you initiate the warp drive to jump between planets. I feel that would've been more immersive than the fast travel system they have.
There's a lot from No Man's Sky this game could've adapted imo
@@blackcowboymusicthis
I didn’t even notice that but you’re right. So many things that are problems that didn’t have to be. There are solutions that exist now that could really polish this thing. Can never fix the writing tho.
At the bare minimum they could have done what Star Wars Fallen Order and Survivor did and allow you to walk around the ship while its traveling to another planet. Its still a loading period technically, but its a playable loading screen you can actually do stuff in. Just keep the ship loaded while the planets are transitioning and let the player pace around or sit down and enjoy the view of space as they travel.
But at the same time, there's only so much this ancient game engine can do. Its older than a lot of people playing this game
I really wish Bethesda took some time to develop a modern engine for their games. I feel that would give them a lot of wiggle room
You can feel the age by the number of loading screens you need, while still having fairly poor performance
A lot of positive feedback I heard about the game is “it reminds me of No Man’s Sky”, “it reminds me of cyberpunk”, “it reminds me of Skyrim”
The things people liked were things done better in other games, I never heard anyone praise a particular part of the game
It's so impressive to me how Arlo is so expressive despite never blinking... it's really amazing
That's Muppet power right there.
obv arlo blinks everytime you do
That's Adam Kreutinger power right there.
/unArlo I guess but Arlos "helper" i think is a real puppeteer whos actually good at "Helping" Arlo
@@warriorseamonkey1693yep! All the result of careful and exquisite craft on their part.
I remember getting Oblivion at a local game store without knowing anything about it.....came home and entered a massive world and got lost..... truly an insane experience for the time
@@henriksandbacka9442 Yeah okay, buddy 😂
@@henriksandbacka9442 Not really because there are other games that do this better. That wasn't the case with Oblivion. Bethesda were the go to guys for open world games. They're not anymore.
@@henriksandbacka9442 Nah, morrowind and Oblivion were genuinely impressive for their time. Starfield is not todays equivalent of those
@@henriksandbacka9442 This is cope. Even compared to Skyrim, Oblivion is a MUCH deeper and better made game. BGS seems to be getting worse and worse with every entry, and thats objective fact.
@@thefilmdirector1 Lol you're the one thats coping bro. Mad your computer can't run it??
This game was just everything that drives me crazy about Bethesda games crammed into one. I was bored and annoyed after 8 hours.
Made it to 9 hours and couldn't go on.
As t least you quit fast. I've seen people say they didn't like the game but played 100 hours of it.
yea but u didn't play at least 12 hrs for it to get gud
Like Diablo 4?@@bugzbunny109
@@Pontif11 That was me, even though I fully agree with all the major criticisms. Sunk cost fallacy, a lingering Bethesda fanboy-ism and a completionism compulsion.
"Let's make a space exploration game where it's pointless to explore space." -Todd Howard
Its a shame they went lazy bro...
Navigating the galaxy in Mass effect had a nice rhythm to it, including exploration. Beyond that, everything tied together as part of the wider experience, whereas Starfield is disjointed, and that's a nightmare in such a big game.
Mass Effect also didn't need 500 boring planets. They just stuck with the ones the artists created, and it works infinitely more so than this game.
Anything you didn't explore in the mako was a small map with a handful of people to talk to and 1 or 2 missions to complete.
@@jynxycats Did we even play the same Mass Effect? It had TONS of generic boring planet with nothing to do on them.
Mass Effect at its core is driven by fantastic narrative content. Most of your gameplay consists of combat, or dialogue. Whereas in Starfield you mostly just kind of wander around and the narrative content is not even close to ME. The uncharted worlds in ME1 was a fun idea but the fact they just dropped them completely says a lot. It wasn't the point of the game
@juantsu2000 it also came out almost 2 decades ago, so why you hating?
I love how Arlo got a free copy of Starfield and his response was
"..Oh well! Better luck next time"
Fr love the honesty
All the resources to make any game they wanted, and they made a game about exploring places humans have already been, warping around the galaxy to a distant planet to talk to Sarah and Mike.
all the ressources in the world can't make talent. Lets hope some people open their eyes to bethesda now.
@@FalkFlakBethesda games studios has plenty of talent. They're not hurting for goos designers or artists
Their issues stem from poor production decisions. A producer *cough* TODD *cough* keeps trying to prop up features that distract from their teams strengths like world design and game loops
You know what's ironic is Constellation is all this talk about exploring the cosmos and yet everywhere you go humans have already visited...so that's utterly pointless then.
Don't forget Sam
To talk to more humans. The entire galaxy is just humans. My favorite space-based sci fi experience.
Arlo being disappointed he couldn't find a fun friend is the most wholesome burn
I've enjoyed these critiques of Starfield more than the actual game
Same but thats because i dont own a xbox or a pc
@makkarakeksi you aren't missing much. I have an Xbox and played it day one and was quickly underwhelmed. I'll try it again after a year or two of updates
Same, it was the same thing in for me fallout 76 and anthem. I feel like that's very telling,
No, you haVE NOT, LOSER
I like the game I have 80 plus hours into it right now but there are so many little things that wasn’t done well or at all.
I’m hoping more things are added in with patch’s or dlc in the future.
I would have been totally fine with like one solar system of interesting planets ...give us like 9-12 fully fleshed out planets for us to explore. most of the temples and ruins and caves we find can have cookie cutter content that is reused here and there but sprinkle in some hand crafted dungeons and locations for us as well....kinda like how skyrim was broken up into different zones that all felt different and had a vibe to them....Starfield missed this big time
as I've gotten older and wiser I've started to appreciate that bigger does always not mean better-in fact, it usually doesn't. tightly packed, refined worlds with specific constraints are usually far more enjoyable to explore. I think the reason that stuff like Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3, FONV, and FO4 really hit the itch for exploration IS the fact that, while big, they're (compared to Starfield) WAY more dense. It's the reason that indie titles with shoestring budgets but really honed gameplay loops (think your Super Meat Boys, your Ape Outs, your Hollow Knights, your Dredges, FTLs, Gungeons, etc) are so impactful and fun. They don't try to be TOO BIG. They create small worlds and focus on the important part: the gameplay. Prior Beth RPGs really hit the sweet spot of size - they were big enough to give you a sense of wonder, and small enough to make exploration really rewarding. You could just pick a direction, walk 30 seconds, and find something new and exciting. Starfield just doesn't have that.
Make sure you try Armored Core 6. I bet you'll really appreciate the linear mission focus with things hidden throughout.
Agreed. Kingdom Come Dliverance had only about 40 square kilometers. But they were REAL, directly put out of real Bohemia. And although you visited some places very often it never felt boring because they were full of events and stories which also changed with time.
Rare was the developer that made me realize that. Even comparing Banjo-Kazooie to Banjo-Tooie and replaying those recently.
It's kind of sad that we have so many companies who haven't learned that lesson this many years later. Wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle. It fits so many games - why I thought I didn't like open-world games at all, with so many devs this century using the tag as an excuse for such bad design. Bethesda is a prime example.
What makes it worse is that you can fast travel basically everywhere, at any time, from the pause menu, with no immersive aspect. You can play 90% of the game without ever seeing the inside of your ship. Let's just fast travel back and forth to turn a 60 minute quest line into a 5 minute menu simulator.
Pair this with endless non-bespoke locations and cookie cutter content... Man. I really loved the game at first but the nostalgia factor quickly surpassed the interest and wonder.
Everything about Starfield just makes me want a space rpg where we can travel a well-crafted galaxy encountering all kinds of fun and unique aliens (even _as_ aliens) that isn't bogged down by a shallow sense of size and grandeur.
Quality over quantity everytime.
Silly us for thinking the "body type" option could have made for interesting xeno's
The travel thing is spot on, if I can step into an elevator and be given a hidden load screen why can’t the warp speed loading screens be from the pilot seat and just be a skybox outside to make it look and feel like I’m traveling same with landing on planets give me a entering the atmosphere burning that blocks my view from the windows while my ship lands
all small details that make you feel like starfield was made over a year of developpement. Seems like game dev ( and their higher ups of course) doesnt think of thing like that.
Because that takes clever game design
That takes effort. Bethesda has learned they can get away with the bare minimum and still have people vehemently defend their obviously lazy design choices.
Just like in almost any other space games ? xD
Bethesda x'D
With you on that "tedium can be fun" thing, if a game really immerses me in its world and how it feels then really just about anything it does can be super fun. Shame Starfield is way too big for that
honestly a great example of this is Minecraft. One of the biggest parts of the game is just mining and exploring areas that have pretty much no life. It's technically a "tedious" game but it doesn't feel like it because the game's formula works and its just fun. It's a game you can get lost in. Starfield just feels barren and half of the game just feels pointless. I played 60 hours and I never felt the need to build a single outpost, its truly useless. Money isn't hard to get and you can just buy every resource you can mine for.
There is a reason one of my biggest highlights playing Dragon Quest 11 was farming liquid metal slimes and fighting them in such a way that I got over a million EXP from each encounter. All that setup and practice was tedious, and figuring out which party members got the best results took a decent amount of time, but it was all worth it to see myself and my party members reach almost max level in so little time! It was so satisfying!
Red dead redemption 2 is a perfect example
The disgaea series I feel is this to a t. Grind levels, explore items and improve you gear, rinse repeat. But it’s fun to do, and I’m enjoying it so it doesn’t feel tedious to me, even if you could argue it is tedious.
@@teamalice115 well, disgaea is putting 9999 level on every damn object or character in the game.... the grinding is the point of the game. basically the diablo of the strategy rpg.
There was a reddit post that really explored how a lot of this game changed during development that arguably made it feel hollow. Here is some text from the post:
"I didn't know exactly where to start, but I think it needs to be with Helium-3. There was a very important change to fuel in Starfield that split the version of the game that released, from the alternate universe Starfield it started as. Todd Howard has stated that in earlier iterations of the game, fuel was consumed when you jumped to a system. This was changed and we no longer spend fuel, but fuel still exists in the game as a vestigial system. Technically your overall fuel capacity determines how far you can jump from your current system, but because you don't spend fuel, 1 jump can just be 2 if needed, rendering it pointless. They may as well not have fuel in the game at all, but it used to matter and even though it doesn't now, it's still in the game. Remember the vestigial aspect of this because that will be important.
So let's envision how the game would have played if we consumed fuel with jumps. The cities and vendors all exist relatively clumped together on the left side of the Star Map. Jumping around these systems would be relatively easy as the player could simply purchase more Helium-3 from a vendor. However, things change completely as we look to the expanse to our right on the Star Map. A player would be able to jump maybe a few times to the right before needing to refuel and there are no civilizations passed Neon. So how else can we get Helium-3 aside from vendors? Outposts.
Outposts in Starfield have been described as pointless. But they're not pointless - they're vestigial. In the original Starfield, players would have HAD to create outposts in order to venture further into the Star Map because they would need to extract Helium. This means that players would also need resources to build these outposts, which would mean spending a lot of time on one planet, killing animals for resources, looting structure POIs, mining, and praising the God Emperor when they came across a proc gen Settler Vendor. In this version of Starfield these POIs become much more important, and players become much more attached to specific planets as they slowly push further to more distant systems, building their outposts along the way. Now we can just fly all around picking and choosing planets and coming and going as we please so none of them really matter. But they used to.
What is another system that could be described as pointless? You probably wouldn't disagree if I said Environmental Hazards. Nobody understands them and they don't do much of anything. I would say, based on the previous vestigial systems that still exist in the game, these are also vestigial elements of a game that significantly shifted at some point in development. In this previous version of the game, where we were forced down to planets to build outposts for fuel, I believe Hazards played a larger role in making Starfield the survival game I believe it originally was. We can only speculate on what this looked like, but it's not hard to imagine a Starfield in which players who walk out onto a planet that is 500°C without sufficient heat protection, simply die. Getting an infection may have been a matter of life and death. Players would struggle against the wildlife, pirates, bounty hunters, and the environment itself. Having different suits and protections would be important and potentially would have been roadblocks for players to solve to be able to continue their journey forward.
This Starfield would have been slow. Traveling to the furthest reaches of the known systems would have been a challenge. The game was much more survival-oriented, maybe a slog at times, planets, POIs, and outposts would have mattered a lot, and reaching new systems would have given a feeling of accomplishment because of the challenges you overcame to get there. It also could have been tedious, boring, or frustrating. I have no idea. But I do think Starfield was a very different game and when these changes were made it significantly altered the overall experience, and that they were deep enough into development when it happened, that they were unable to fully adapt the game to its new form. The "half-baked" systems had a purpose. Planets feel repetitive and pointless because we're playing in a way that wasn't originally intended - its like we're all playing on "Creative Mode"
Thanks for this. I wouldn’t mind trying a survival “mode” like this. But if it was the base game, that would be super hard because of the extreme tedium.
Wow and ALL because Helium-3 doesn't even matter. Who would have thought such a tiny change would have made the game break apart at the seams.
Amazing comment, thus needs to be talked about more
I WAS wondering why Starfield feels like "big empty procedural world" when that's kind of what Minecraft is. It's cause none of the terrain, resources, or building matters. I think you're right, SF would feel so much different if you had to actually, you know, explore via outposts to move forward
Cool and all, but if the exploration itselft were still boring as it is and with nothing really meaningfull to find, after a while people would just give up without even going to those places, becasue they would have way more work to go to the other side of the galaxy only to find the same cave and a diferrent collored monster they already saw 50 hours before. That is probably why it was taken out of the game, it was even more "work" and "check listing" to get far into the universe, and people were not liking it. What solves every single one of starfieldproblems is it having meaningfull exploration, be it in space with our ship or in the planets. Even not in every planet, but if just a good amount had things to offer it would already be enougth
For those with sleep issues this is a great game. Puts tou right into sleep. I fell asleep right at the beginning when the quest was mining and blah conversation. Its teuly amazing feat of accomplishment
Yeah I went on the high seas for a copy and played it for an hour, I'm not gonna buy it, I'm not even gonna steal it, not impressed at all
no offense but holy crap thats a short attention span
@@Abykitty06 I'm 60 hours into Baldur's gate 3 in two weeks and 55 hours into divinity original sin 1. Both games are terrifically good and not a snore home work fest like starfield
@@fieryfirevivin idk, i just really like that ebthesda game goodnes
@@Abykitty06what goodness?
I'm glad you said something about the "all humans are bad" narrative that I see way, way too often these days. It really is such a tired, boring, and soul-killing theme. There's always been a present air of positivity in your vids - I appreciate that.
It's a nice setting when it's counter-balanced with good people and hope. Like in Cyberpunk, it's a terrible dystopia where people are crushed by corpos, nobody seems to care about each other, high crime rates, lots of murders and suffering every day. And yet the game is about a few people who learn to care about others, through Judy, Panam, River, etc.
Sometimes, I wonder if the fact that game development is a terrible and toxic work environment (not every studio, but most of the big ones) has an influence on this "all humans are bad" narrative.
Surely, if your day-to-day life is full of petty manager and coworkers harassing/bullying you, while being overworked and force to rush games, and all of that within your "dream job at your dream company", this might influence your views on mankind, and it might transpire in the games (or films, or etc) you create.
The thing is, even if you want to do a dark narrative, you still need moments of levity and hope, and likeable people. Wall-to-wall bleakness and petty nastiness where everyone's just as bad as each other (because that's "morally grey", right?) just makes the viewer disengage.
They are trying to program people (ex: get used to life getting worse/more bleak). They've been doing it via movies for year.
Ikr? What happened to the noblebright vision of the future? Oh well, we can still rewatch Star Trek I guess.
This review is 100% reflective of everything I think and feel about the game.
But Arlo, you have to either love this game unequivocally or despise it with all your strength. Nuance is not allowed.
to be fair I'm seeing a ton of "man I hate this game" and "I like this game despite its faults", not a lot of "I LOVE THIS GAME 100%!" lol
That’s the internet for you
what if i just genuinely found nothing to like in it
@@internetguy7319then you’re obligated to spend the majority of your time online talking abt how much you despise the game and will never shut up abt how much you despise it
You wouldn't get it, starfield being mid MAKES it shit
You should never feel bored getting from point A to point B in a video game. Fast travel is to cut down on time so you could focus on other aspects of the game you haven't experienced yet. It's not meant as a replacement or the ONLY means of travel!
Arlo's got balls of steel for calling out Todd despite them giving him a review copy. You're a real one
Dude called this garbage his "magnum opus"
He deserves it.
A appreciate how real his reviews feel. He admits to getting a review code, then jumps into what he honestly feels about it. Poirfect!
I gave him shit in the past for making reviews that were obvious paid ads, but I'm glad he's keeping it real again.
@@katakis1examples?
@@jclkaytwo His World War Z: Aftermath video was really off putting in my opinion
@@jclkaytwo The lego star wars one, Nick racing game, and the TMNT beat em up. I know he says they are his real opinions, but it's funny how he's always super positive about the games in sponsored reviews.
20 hours in I was trying to go to Akila city (a place I had been a dozen times) and realized I didn't know the name of the star system and would have to look it up or check every star system to find it. Making so much of the game fast travel mandatory causes it to loose so much sense of place.
Yep, that's an issue. Need a location tracker to fix this in the current game, but also something they need to think about in future games and what kind of scope they should go for. Would actually be kind of interesting to see a less-than-expected map size for ES6 with a different level of content density or complexity. I think a limit like that could lead to interesting results.
SF lost me when I tried to use the grav drive in space and it didn't matter where the ship was pointing. I don't know where the system I'm traveling to is, and the game doesn't care. It's just a grav drive warmup delay before an animated cut scene teleport, that I had to use the map to setup.
I spent two days trying to find what planet I had an apartment on
@@jasonbow1926 Well technically, it really wouldn't have to matter which direction you point your ship. The grav drive folds space-time, creating a small wormhole. It's not faster than light travel like star wars.
@@kennykenevil57Oh? I thought I heard some notes or audio from when it was first being tested, said something about how it reduced the time to get to Jupiter (i think?) ... so it sounded like an accelerator/hyperspace instead of an instant wormhole/teleport.
Either way, for me it helped to break the feeling that space had context and location. Instead of the skybox showing where I was in the universe, I'm just in a generic spacebox with planet image close by.
You hit the nail on the head with the writing thing. Current western fantasy has an addiction to gratuitously miserable situations. It's like they can't help themselves.
Thing is, good writers can make a dystopian place believable, by exploring why a certain conflict can't just be sorted out by talking, why an irreconcilable issue has created a situation with no easy answers, how the dysfunctions of a certain system create systematic oppression or poverty, etc. Iain M. Banks and Alan Moore spring to mind as writers who can present systematically effed-up worlds but still make them compelling and give you protagonists that you root for. If you just do it thoughtlessly because dark = mature and because George R.R. Martin made a pile of money, you risk just alienating your audience, especially if the dystopian world doesn't hold up to close examination.
ah yes, pretty much the same as the eastern stance on "this is all a dystopia, tyrants rule the world and the population can't escape its impending doom"
It's just their usual methods are based on conflicts, and gritty situations create more impressive conflicts but they're also not that talented at it .
Cyberpunk has a very dystopian world but it's writing is very good, so it feels believable and authentic
its that meme
jrpg: with the power of friendship we can kill a god!
wrpg: theres the guy who stole my poop sandwich, get him!
And I should say there's plenty of good writing in western games that use dark worldbuilding very well. It's just they use that kind of tone very hap-hazardly. They also want to throw in little quips and jokes constantly no matter what's happening. The quality of which varies WILDLY
I literally fell asleep walking from point A to point B on one planet. The repetition of each planet and cave was torture to me. I didn't finish the game. It felt like a chore to me.
I can never fall asleep sitting in chairs on long plane rides or cross country road trips, yet Starfield put me to sleep too. How did BGS think this was good and ready to ship?
Sounds like me playing No Man's Sky. Even managed to fall asleep in VR lmfao. Think I'll pass on Starfield until the sales come.
These glorified walking simulators that take 80 hours to finish are never fun
@@Bingo_the_Pugdeath stranding was amazing to me but this game had me snoozing dreaming of a better game
I have so many streams of me walking in to walls, in straight lines on planets, etc. because I fell asleep on stream while playing Starfield so many times.
I just appreciate having a UA-camr I love who isn't human like so many others. Thank you Arlo. You work so so hard.
I love the example of exploration in ME1. The biggest thing that was lost in ME2 was an understanding of the size of the galaxy. Roaming in planets in ME1 gave the players an understanding of what worlds could exist in the galaxy, Habitable or otherwise. Some were easy to traverse, some were hilariously difficult. Also the Thresher Maw appearing as an invasive species on multiple planets was really interesting for how explorers change worlds in ways they don't intend, which informs intergalactic policies on what worlds can be interacted with.
Yeah I do agree with you but ME2’s story was incredible and it’s considered one of the best sci-fi RPGs of all time…we won’t talk about ME3
When I first played Mass Effect at a young age, I could barely comprehend the dialogue spoken but was completely blown away with the planet exploration, which was my favourite aspect of the game.
People hated the exploration in ME1... I was like, yeah, the worlds are pretty empty, but going to planets is cool. Why can't they take this and build upon it, then? Instead, they scrapped it for some other tedious nonsense.
I just found ME2 to be vastly overrated in general. It felt like it took so much out of the player's hands like that.
Mass Effect's world building and lore is God-tier, so far the only other that is comparable is the headfuck of the Elder Scrolls lore.
@@davis6449 we will talk about ME3 because ME3 is a MASTERPIECE until the last 10 /15 minutes of gameplay, but until that point ME3 is a masterpiece it delivers everything folks expected trough out the trilogy, the repears arrival., the characters, the genophage cure, the conciliation of geth and quarians, it's only the ENDING that sucks in ME3 and mostly because Bioware wanted to close the game as the ending of a movie, not a game of multiple choices.
The point about no aliens is so true. Thats one reason i love mass effect, it also had space politics and tedium but the fact that there were alien races their own history, culture, politics etc and we can have them as companions . That made the game so much interesting and amazing
This has been incredibly vindicating for me. I can't believe BGS' epic space adventure main quest was about collecting rocks and evading _not_ aliens.
Spoiler alert?
@@furrystarcatdon't read comments, loser
Sci-fi without all the dumb sci fi stuff lol
@@furrystarcat spoiler alert, the game really isnt good. if you love bethesda games, this will feel incredibly subpar.
@@Mike_Dubayou i love the game as a fuck around and just do your own adventure sorta deal but in terms of the main story? im still yet to even attempt to give a shit to finish it or even really start it...... though i feel with the modding community allot of really good conversions can be made with it. as a side note i do know the main story as a friend of mine was playing though it while in chat and yeah nothing about the main story was interesting
Your statement about quantity over quality made me think of Elden Ring and honestly I think that game straddles the line excellently. The majority of the dungeons are simple but I enjoyed doing all of them way more than I did when attempting to explore planets in Starfield.
Elden Ring is one of (If not the only) recent open world game that balances out quantity and quality incredibly well (I would say perfectly if there was a little more variety to side bosses and side dungeons). Even the most acclaimed open worlds ever felt way too tedious for me sometimes with their boring side content that litters the minimap, like The Witcher 3 for example, yet in Elden Ring I just naturally found myself wanting to find everything there was to find in its world, even the most mundane catacomb dungeons.
Not to mention, Elden Ring probably has one of the best implementations of a map in an open world game too. Not only do you have to explore on your own to piece the map together, it also functions as a tool that aids organic exploration. In games like The Witcher 3, the map and minimap are there to make sure that you can never miss a piece of content, so they take away your sense of organic discovery because almost every single interesting thing you could stumble upon is already marked for you before you even know of its existence. Elden Ring instead chooses to give you an incomplete map you don't understand at all and teach you through experience how to read it. By the middle of my first playthrough with ER I already knew how to identify an Evergaol, a church, a possible city, a mage tower and a bunch of other stuff in the map even though there were no icons whatsoever to aid me, only the drawings.
Elden Ring really was peak open world exploration, and Starfield looks even worse because now I'm reminiscing about a better game.
Elden Ring is about three times too big for its own good. No way it should take over 100 hours to level up enough to take on mid level bosses
@@thequinlanshow3326 ... What mid level bosses are you talking about? LMAO
@@thequinlanshow3326 I don't normally say this because I hate the phrase but if it takes you over a 100 hours to get to a point where you can take on "mid level bosses" I think that's a skill issue. I beat the game in under 100 hours.
@@thequinlanshow3326bro if the game would have been 1000 hours, and fun every hour, thats the dream. Its not too long, its long but every second and every inch of the game is amazing
“I just wanted a fun friend and I couldn’t even find one.”
Feels bad man.
I don’t even understand the appeal of huge open world games. Give me a tight, crafted experience every time.
Should have limited the game to a solar system with several habitable planets and moons. Then they could actually have you fly around if you want and maybe include some static jump gates or something to unlock or build.
Agreed. 1 fleshed out solar system with an asteroid belt, a few gas giants, a few rock like and 2 habitable planets. 1 earth like one and one or 2 with maybe some domes connected with a mass transit system with the option to walk between the domes if you want.
@@Isengardtomit would’ve helped a LOT with the believability of the setting as well. I still have trouble buying that a near future humanity would sprawl so quickly so fast, but heavily populating the solar system and terraforming a couple moons? that’s a much easier bridge to cross.
yeah limit the scope of the universe in favour for a much better exploration and quality content over quantity
It really should have been Warframe, yeah
I like this idea a bunch
Back in the 90s, it was a technical marvel that they were able to procedurally make all of Tamriel walkable in TES Daggerfall. It was one-of-a-kind, and it didn't matter that the landscape was empty and pointless because it was _there._ It was a novelty.
In 2023, however, No Man's Sky has been out for 7 years, and has pretty much blown every other attempt at making large-scale procedural universes out of the water (especially when it comes to actually making those procedural worlds... _fun?)_ Starfield wanted to compete with that by doing the same thing Bethesda did back in the 90s: an empty world with sparse content that sounds impressive but isn't very fun to actually play, only this time it's not even that much of a technical achievement because "boring and empty but immense universe" was accomplished by like 11 people in a basement in the UK the better part of a decade ago.
It's honestly shocking how much Starfield apes modern No Man's Sky, too. Procedural planets? NMS. Modular base building? NMS. Flying around in space scanning for distress beacons and stuff? NMS. Even the central plot around these anomaly people who were granted power by an unknowable alien god-machine in a previous universe is ripped _straight_ from NMS. Except worse, because at least NMS has interesting, satisfying answers as to what this god-machine actually is and what's really going on. Oh, and also _spectacle?_ Even at launch when NMS was boring, at least going inside an Atlas station and bearing witness to this eldritch apathetic cosmic entity was _memorable_ and _evocative_ and _atmospheric._ Whereas the whole thing in Starfield is just... forgettable.
Bethesda really is a different company. _None_ of the originality and creativity that originally created the Elder Scrolls universe is present here anymore.
Then you take the same kinda consept but shrink it down to one planet and you get subnutica a much better based building game with a story that makes you actually care but This is the first game that just game me choice anxiety I kept feeling like this could be fun but do I want to explore for another 3 hours and maybe find a good mission?
Another bullshit comment that is ridiculous. You can't compare two different games that have nothing to do with each other. Starfield is an RPG while No Man Sky is just an empty space simulator without quests lol.
@@samuelklar3133"you can't compare the 2 games set in space where you do quests to explore in said space"
One is a game with RPG elements while the other is just an empty simulator. But apparently people like you don't think about the bullshit you post lol.@@gamermanh
@@samuelklar3133you said NMS doesn’t have quests, which is patently false
I enjoyed Starfield at the beginning, but over time I realized it really didn't have anything new to offer. Surprisingly, it drove me to give No Man's Sky another try, which ended up being an incredible experience! they've really done some work on it the past few years, it's a whole new experience these days!
Starfield is a 70% complete game.
It’s still in Beta.
Yeah, I ended up getting on a bit of an NMS kick after Starfield as well.
Before the game came out i was Desperately hoping that starship travel would be a long process that you could do whilst wandering around your ship, upgrading, repairing and interacting with crew whilst random events or sights would happen, alternatively you could simply sleep to speed up the process creating a “fast travel” the current system pulls me out of the game and the loading screens are just painful
Star citizen has that alpha or not I jump in every now and again the progress in just a year has been awesome
I'm in the "Really don't like this game at all" group. You hit the nail on the head with the art style being boring and not having aliens. I want my Sci-fi to be fantastical, not "realistic". That's just me though. Really wish there were aliens too....
It can be realistic, I just want it to be FUN.
@@cortster12 it’s literally called science fiction, realism is this is actually an excuse to provide less content
@@cortster12 This. Tapping more into reality can bring fun. When Star citizen works (which i know isnt often) its simulations can be the exact kind of grounded sci-fi fun i desire, that doesnt require anything outlandish like crazy planets or races. Just the intricacies of operating a space ship can be really fun/exciting when theres loads of systems all running concurrently.
Sounds like Star Trek provides a more engaging backdrop to make a game for. Countless known races and locations, and enough canonised map date to know the general positions in relation to each other. Seems like they should have applied for a licensed game :P
I think it's... fine? But I outright hated certain parts, I don't want to replay it, and I'm not going to think about it again. Maybe see what some of the special NG+ things.
On the other hand, Fallout 3, NV, 4, Oblivion, Skyrim, all things I'd play twice or more (or have), with maybe something to speed up the fluff. I'm really looking forward to Fallout 4's update that will hopefully give me fast loading times. They have interesting societies and factions and stuff. In Starfield, I don't believe there's any value in that.
This game did more to make me want to play Phantom Liberty than CDPRs entire advertising budget.
I enjoyed the outer worlds more than starfield, in the outer worlds every world you visited had a good size map with a good amount of hand crafted interesting areas.
Obsidian > Bethesda
Yep, this is what Bethesda should have done, with more fleshed out space flight and space missions and combat similar to Freelancer. If they couldn't do full planet exploration, they DEFINITELY shouldn't have faked it. Starfields planet exploration is legit a time waste after you've seen the first few "Abandoned bla bla bla facility". It legit copy and pastes the same 10 facilities on every planet.
The outer worlds is a nice ol game. not the best, but it’s got a warm and wholesome feel. it’s not dog sh*t like starfield
The Outer Worlds not having any proper ship mechanics (can't fly it, can't customise it) was the only real drawback for me and that was the real thing I was looking forward to the most about Starfield, but having now played 100 hrs of Starfield I realise how OW got so much of the other stuff right. I will always recommend OW to a friend, but I can't recommend Starfield.
the outer worlds or outer wilds?
Cuz outer wilds is *peak* space exploration
The saddest part is that I don't see Bethesda intending to pull a Cyberpunk/No Man Sky stunt with this one.
Starfield is just a generation behind the stuff we’re getting this year and it shows. Bethesda needs to rework their game design to match the current state of open world games. In a year that has given us Baldur’s gate 3, TOTK, and Lies of P, Starfield just doesn’t stack up.
What they should've done with Starfield is like how the Firefly universe is set up. They are in one solar system that has something like 15 planets and about 100 moons. Then you can do the whole dynamic of having the "outer rim" and the "inner rim" of the solar system and then you also don't have to talk about the "FTL" travel 'cause it's all in the same solar system so people won't question travel times as much.
Much better idea
Let this be a lesson to the gaming industry as a whole: bigger isn’t always better.
If star field does well financially I don’t think the industry will give a crap about the issues tho..
@@xadadax1 Short-term income doesn't spell long-term ignorance for the industry, especially in RPGs. This genre is so depleted of new content by AAA standards that they're losing a whole market of players after the fact.
can this lesson apply to women?
@@montruo000000007 LMAO
@montruo000000007 it can hurt if it's too big.
This is one of the most realistic reviews for this game. I wanted to love it so bad. SOOOO bad.
I'm buy it when it's $5. Lol about all its worth 😅
I feel Starfield suffers from scope creep just like the launch of No Man's Sky. It wants to be a space RPG and space and planetary exploration on a thousand planets while dealing with the constraints of the engine.
I’m just shocked that BETHESDA of all companies hasn’t figured this out yet. They stated this game had 8 years of active development and Bethesda isn’t a small studio. It’s a shame because I have loved some Bethesda games but they refuse modernize their games and it’s really starting to show.
@@davismorgan99 i thought starfield was fire for about 50-60 hours then i felt like i ran out of things to do and started exploring planets randomly, but the loading screen exploration started getting to me and i dropped it. if they just abandoned the creation engine and built a new one for next gen instead of spending years trying to work with it I think starfield would have been much better. this was the last creation engine game so things will get a lot better .
@@novathepug6692 What makes you think this is the last Creation Engine game?
@@novathepug6692we know that elder scrolls 6 will still be on the creation engine. Unfortunately
@@olegshkurenko-0448 i thought I heard sum where they were moving to a different engine. if i find where, ill comment again but I might b misremembering sumn.
I didn't realize how much not having gore in Starfield was such a turn off. Being able to lob off body parts and such makes gameplay a lot more fun
What a bizarre choice on their part.
Could've had breaking the environmental seals on suits and rooms to cause decompression.
they probably leave it to modders... as usual
Not havinh gore made the gunplay so much worst for me. Replaying cyberpunk has great gore that helps with the gunplay. Throwing grenades or shooting people with precision rifles to see their body parts flying is very satisfying.
I’m ngl I really dislike gore. Unless it’s got a point, like to reflect on the reality of violence, I find it uncomfortable and unnecessary.
Had to immediately think of windwaker with the great sea and the many small Islands. Traveling the distants yourself, waiting it out, is a part of Immersion you cannot not have
Even when i unlocked the fast travel in wind waker i still sailed most places because of the immersion and the possibility of a small island I'd not discovered before.
Its instant gratification vs build up and pay off.
"Way too much work" translation being the Creation Engine even in it's sequel form probably could not handle flying around the planet because of the cell based way they construct environments.
It's probably a bad sign when the sales pitch alone has been a turnoff for two Bethesda games straight: "It's fallout but real players are the NPCs!" and "There are 1000's of planets to explore!"
It feels like ideas that inherently don't sound great if you've played enough games for comparison.
I haven’t look at it through this lens but I absolutely agree! When the sales pitch (where they are making an active effort to sale the game to you) sounds bland and boring, the game is destined to fail. Maybe not miserably but it will fail.
I played a whopping 50 hours of this game, and boy, did I mildly enjoy it! This game has the skeleton, the foundation, the start of something truly amazing. It feels fun when it’s at the higher points, and then drops below expectation spectacularly without warning. I ended my last play session going “When the creation kit comes out, this game will be awesome!” No game should ever make you think that. Just because mods make a game more enjoyable doesn’t mean mods should be required to make your game playable. I’m disappointed because I love the little things in this game. It’s the bigger issues that really bog it down.
The other part about that, is that if a game needs mods to be actually good, the devs are more or less banking on people performing unpaid labor in order to "finish" their game for them.
I love modders, they are absolutely amazing and dedicated. But at this point Bethesda just expects them to work for free to make their games actually interesting
I just can't see this greatness beneath. All I can find is mediocrity. Not being able to pilot your ship besides in orbit, only to dock a station or land on a planet is such a waste of a spaceship. Every location being a closed off cell kills any sense of place or exploration. Everything being procedural removes any uniqueness or intrigue. The only thing that has a chance for greatness here is if modders can make actually good quests and fill out some worlds densely with interesting things to do and see and lots of space to explore
I hope the modders don't fall off that ledge
I didn't even expect Starfield to be as bad and as tedious as it is. Like you said, Bethesda forgot how to capture the feel of a location, but they also seemingly forgot how to make interesting worlds. Every Bethesda project I've played before this had memorable worlds. Very little of Starfield is memorable. DLC is going to have to be amazing to save this game as I also REALLY wanted to love this game but I don't.
Hey bro, I spent years as a puppeteer. Great work on your puppeteering skills! You got the lip sync and head movements down. I see so many people with a "detached jaw" or they bite their words or their head is cocked in a weird way. You definitely have some experience. Looks good!
I grew up loving Star Trek and games like Morrowind and Oblivion. The concept of combining "Bethesde-style Exploration" and "Space" should have been everything I ever loved.
Instead, it feels like we're getting our first real look at what "Games Made by AI" are going to be like, and it's... not great.
I really appreciate that you spoke your mind freely about the game and Bethesda as a company even though they gave you a free copy to review. Always love your honesty!
Yeah. Bethesda was once known for being accepting of critiques and legit feedback while still giving review codes to people. In recent times, like with Ubisoft, they've withered and essentially stopped doing that, blacklisting nearly everybody that's willing to be fairly unbiased and not pander to the developers/publishers. Kinda surprising they gave Arlo a review copy.
Listening to Arlo talk about the space stuff I was thinking “y’know Starlink did all this in a cool way” and then boom he mentions Starlink haha
Here's interesting idea for Bethesda :
1. Build high quality small world
2. Expand the world for each Patch / Season Pass
3. Profit, you just made Genshin in Space
Loading screen simulator. Respect to you arlo for not holding back the criticism even after getting a review code!
To this day it drives me wild that we have Cowboy Bebop, one of the greatest science fiction works of all-time, in existence for everyone to see and influence their work, and nobody has managed to recapture its sense of scope and environmental variety within the confides of outer space. Even the Netflix series wildly failed in recapturing what it means to explore space, explore nearby planets, and discover unexpected corners of the solar system.
I recognized Steve Blum's voice for the leader of security on Neon and that interaction made me wish they used the good voice actors more.
Hey!!!......I loved the Netflix adaptation
@@inorite4553Ew
I think they should have implemented fast travel in a way that emulates the Gates from Cowboy Bebop or the Columns from Xenosaga. Fast travel through hyperspace that still takes time, has some understanding of (fictional) physics, and feels like you are still actually traveling in the world. And if they wanted to emulate Xenosaga wholesale, have it so enemy ships could follow you into the hyperspace columns and you can actually have battles while traveling. If I were to make a space exploration game, that is probably how I would attempt it.
Yeah that’s exactly why I don’t understand the counter argument of ‘why would you want to actually manually travel somewhere it would take literal lightyears’ when there are so many other ways they could have made travelling interesting
The 'manual' travel of Skyrim is what gave rise to exploration and discovery. Starfields fast-travel-by-menu kills space exploration, discovery, and the feeling of knowing where you are. Even spinning up the grav drive, you don't need to point towards where you are going. Just magic-techno-teleport, engage!
Or hell, to use Arlo's example: the mass relays. Maybe FTL travel using nothing but your own ship would work something like Arlo's description of how _Starlink_ handled it, where you still have to put time and effort into your piloting and open yourself up to pirate ambushes, but, as a complementary treat, taking the trouble to journey to one of these special FTL-aiding landmarks dotted around the galaxy would let you warp near-instantaneously to one of the others without any of the risks and hassles that the process of intragalactic travel would ordinarily incur.
Exactly. Space travel doesn't need to be completely contiguous as long as it *feels* contiguous. Don't mask your loading screens with a cutscene that takes me out of my character, use moving through planetary atmosphere or ftl travel as an excuse to warp the space outside the view screen in first person, or the space around the ship in third person, so you can load in the destination. Have it take a few moments and let random encounters pull you out of grav drive travel.
@@Nodiee1EXACTLY! Even NMS or Empyrion has a break between planet and space flight. It's a distinct stutter & game pause, the skybox changes, etc. But it's close enough that it doesn't break immersion.
One of the most level-headed Starfield videos out there.
And it's a puppet hahahaha 🌈
even daggerfall's procedurally generated dungeons, there was not one like the other, there were some "modules" that were the same, but the overall layout was always different. in starfield i visited outposts on different planets with the same layout and enemy and item container placement. and where daggerfall's approach would be terribly outdated and really not acceptable today, starfield did it even worse somehow.
Not sure if you’ve played Outer Wilds Arlo but that is the space game of my dreams. It’s a relatively small galaxy but with so much depth so you still get the feeling of space exploration and discovery (and even scale without spoiling anything) without the tedium of fast travel or an overwhelmingly large universe to explore.
I'll second this ^ Arlo, if you've played it I would love to hear your thoughts (though I'd feel bad for the people who haven't played watching your vid and getting spoiled on the unique mechanics), and if not, I cannot recommend it enough. Based on everything you've said in this video, I think you will love it too.
It's the type of game that's best going in as blind as possible, btw!! Just know you will absolutely feel the joy of being the pilot of your spaceship, exploring fascinating planets with transitions from surface to space being as seamless as your skill level, flying from planet to planet with or without autopilot at your preference, and go play it. It's a mystery game, everything is a spoiler lol
Edit: OH- also, the SOUNDTRACK: Breathtaking. Heartwarming, Tearjerking, Vibe-Setting. Composer Andrew Prahlow completely nailed it.
Yes! Please Arlo, if you have not played Outer Wilds, please do!
YES! Definitely play Outer Wilds, it is without a doubt one of the best games I've ever played and is Space But Good.
I came here to post this- I’m
Curious what Arlo would think of Outer Wilds
What I loved about Skyrim and Bethesdas Fallout games was the enviromental storh telling. They seem to have lost that.
Yeah there's almost no environmental story telling in Starfield which is so disappointing. I remember in Fallout 3 how many buildings would have environmental story telling.
I agree. It's painful to admit their beloved devs have changed but at least we have the older games that embody what is so memorable
This game totally gets going at 450’ish hours.
wow they finally made a proper one piece game
@@ctpp64 One piece is already good in the first few episodes, the live action people are praising is just a few chaters. It gets more impressive and set itself apart from others after that many episodes, but it is already very good. Starfield was only good before starting it, when people are just thinking about what it could be
Which makes me glad it only cost me $18.99 as opposed to $69.99 plus DLC and special editions.
@@FelipeFerreira-wk5nvthe first maybe 50 episodes of One Piece is genuinely horrible lol
@@thequinlanshow3326that’s like your opinion dude
They messed up the moment they decided not to have aliens. Open World RPGs hinge on the idea of exploring, finding new, non-mundane things, and then having interesting story elements come from it. You cannot have a good RPG without conflict between different factions, and those factions have to be well defined.
The game is about exploring something others have already explored. There is no real grand mystery to solve, because others have already solved it in the story. There aren’t any big moral dilemmas, because nothing is really at stake. A space exploration game set on humanity finding new things works well in the sandbox genre, not so much for RPGs.
If you think about what are some reasons franchises like star wars,halo, and mass effect memorable? its their aliens and interesting factions halo has the elites, star wars has wookies among many others, mass effect has the krogen and geth and all these franchises have interesting factions or conflicts like the CIS vs the republic (CIS FTW) Humans-covenant war and for mass effect something like the genophage or the geth-quarian conflict I look at starfield and I cant really see anything that interesting or makes me ponder deeply
small thing on the ship combat, it would’ve been so cool if you could tell your shipmates to divert power while you’re in a firefight, so they can take care of it while you’re focused on fighting. with the function of having a ship crew in the first place, it’s wild how useless they actually are other than skill buffs.
I like the space combat, I just feel it's too rare. Like one in 15 jumps I see a pirate or something. Unless you specifically take on radiant bounty missions and pirate hunting tasks. But these generic terminal quests I avoid like the plague.
They had these in skyrim too, the generic "go kill bandit leader" jobs. While they were just as generic, these jobs could actually become an adventure in themselves. Because Skyrim is actually a REAL open world unlike starfield. On the way to go do your lame filler quest you can encounter new interesting quest npcs, encounter highway men, civil war conflict, more caves or ruins that have cool stuff to find within, gorgeous scenery, and more. Starfield takes the generic "kill bandit" quest and removes any and all excitement and adventure you could find in between. Starfield is all the tedium of Bethesdas quantity over quality approach to quests with none of the charm or fun. Even some main questlines feel this way too.
A game called Faster than Light (FTL) manage that in the best way possible, actually the spaceship managment and space traveling in Starfield looks like downgrade from that game.
Is a 2d game, simple but way more complex in mechanics, parts and how you use them in combat and traveling.
@@Vernnellman Starfield just takes concepts from so many other space games and makes them boring.
I discovered that fairly quickly when I found out I can't fly a Class C ship (Keplar R) despite having Sam as my travel companion and on the ship... I thought that was the whole point? He has max flying skill, which should mean I can fly a Class C ship without investing in that perk. But I guess not? Doesn't matter now, I begrudgingly invested in that perk and maxxed it out.
the crimson fleet questline broke my heart, because there was _almost_ something great there. And then like the rest of the game, it was hollow in the end. Made me put it down altogether. Side note, the game is very, very playable while under the influence of mind altering substances. Just, I open the game back up again with no memory of how I got to where I am and trying to remember if space fus-ro-dah was something I dreamed up while high or an actual ability they thought was appropriate to put in the game.
Lol facts, my mind has definitely been "altered" through most of my playthrough.
I'm of the mindset personally that worst thing a game can be is boring. A glitchy terrible game can be more fun than a below average game. With Starfield, I have no desire to engage with the world or game because it's just so bland.
I felt that "see ya in 14 years"... the wait for Elder Scrolls VI has been absolutely excrutiating. I never wanna see major release gaps like this again.
Same here. It feels like Bethesda just counts on endless loyalty from fans of their good games to wait forever. I know we're not entitled to new games from them or the continuation of a series, but then again when they release Skyrim 14 times instead, I start feeling cynical and unappreciated as a customer who is not taken seriously, ykwim?
Plot twist: they haven't even started making it yet lmao
Elite has a good travel system where the jumps between stars is fast travel but you always end up near the sun then need to fly to the planets. That way the instantaneous FTL makes sense, but then intrasystem travel between planets and moons could take the form you suggested and it would be more fun.
Agree so much on the land exploration. I’ve got two kids and a super busy job! If they had just given me a land vehicle and 12 interesting planets, where, after the kiddos are put to bed, I can turn my brain off and explore…hey….great!
I think sci-fi can get away with not having aliens, but there has to be something in the setting that's weird and cool and conceptually interesting (usually the technology if it's not aliens).
Adding non humanoid models would have taken work. I'm gonna guess that's why they weren't included. Like most unfinished things in the game.
@@jynxycats I'm pretty sure they actively didn't want aliens in the game. They were going for a more grounded, hard sci-fi vibe, and that's fine. They just needed... something interesting. A few examples of no-aliens sci-fi that work:
The Expanse barely deals with aliens at all and that show is great.
Isaac Asimov wrote novels upon novels of classic sci-fi that didn't have a single alien. He had a series called Foundation where it's about a super advanced field of mathematics that can predict the evolution of societies. And his most well-known series is 100% about robots and AI.
The Xeno games have badass mechs and androids and godly machines that warp the fabric of reality.
I'm sure they could've come up with something interesting and had the writers handle most of the heavy lifting (the main quest feels like their attempt at this). They either weren't creative enough to pull it off, or they just chose to make a very standard hard sci-fi setting.
I wish they explored the ethical implications of futuristic technology and space travel. Like having a tribe of people who worship an AI God, or ask question like if its really ethical to claim a whole planet for yourself when you're only using a small piece of it, etc.
I'm reminded of an argument I read recently regarding A.I.-generated stories: Why should I read something that no one could be bothered to write?
I feel largely the same way about procedural generation in video games, particularly over the past few years: Why should I play something that no one could be bothered to design?
Really really well said.
That's kinda ignorant. There are many many amazing games that use procedural generation. It's a tool, you have to use it right. Also, surprise! Almost every studio uses some amount of gen ai.
Well the POIs are handcrafted.
I think the worst part about the game to me is the companions (or lack thereof). Bethesda *said* that there's 20 companions, and sure that's *technically* true, but in reality there's only 4 who actually do and say things and react like people, and they're all SUPER goody two-shoes. There's not even a real morally gray companion, let alone an EVIL one. Even when traveling with a companion the game felt so lifeless. Really disappointed me.
I actually think it was one of the few good decisions to reduce the quantity of companions and in turn improve their quality, so to speak. You can have real conversations with them now and they can engage in your conversations with other NPCs, which is a clear improvement for a Bethesda game.
I agree though that they aren't too interesting. I've started playing the Cyberpunk DLC just recently and man, the plot, dialogue and characters in the first few hours are already more engaging and exciting than anything I've seen in the dozens of hours that I wasted on Starfield ("wasted" because I'm not going to finish or continue playing Starfield, at least for the time being).
Then again, Starfield doesn't have to be like Cyberpunk. I think the main problem is that the game has too many dialogue screens and options for its own good. You spend a lot of time on stuff that is just not interesting anymore after the first few times you've seen it. And that is unfortunately true for other aspects of this game as well.
So few of the "main" characters seem really relevant to the story, and the game design makes it so they can only react properly at certain times. One situation that really got to me was in a big moment of the game when bad things were happening all around, and Lin (who I set as a crew member at the beginning of the game and never bothered to swap out because does it matter?) said "you're looking well" as I walked by... I wanted to punch her in the face for being so oblivious, but then that game design part of my brain realized they aren't going to program a proper response to every possible situation for every companion. Because they don't do that though, the world falls apart in so many ways.
@@tzatziki41 bro improve the quality? where? take a game like the outer worlds, it does companions WAY better than starfield in every way possible, and it has MORE than 4
@@Jeanssj98 I explicitly said it is an improvement when compared to older Bethesda games. If you compare it to Cyberpunk (which I mentioned), Mass effect, dragon age and others, it obviously doesn't stand a chance. I didn't play Outer Worlds, so I'll take your word for it. No game can be perfect at doing everything and no game has to be, depending on what it is trying to achieve. Some of the games I love are completely broken in a couple of aspects. The problem with Starfield is that it is doing nothing exceptionally good or exciting, so there is no real reason to put up with the mediocre stuff (which is pretty much everything) for 200 hours. At least that's how I feel.
@@tzatziki41 outer worlds is a compact and way better one starfield, it didnt go for quantity over quality as starfield, its a better game
if you want a space exploration, building, combat point game. that doesnt really have a main quest. its more about journey and making awesome massive bases and ships, with great space and ground combat against massive factions. And dont mind graphics being top of the line; id suggest Empyrion: Galactic Survival
It was a game first released in 2016 in Alpha. and has alot of what No Mans Sky is, but with free ship and base building using block systems rather than prefabs. It also has a large steam workshop. And its singleplayer, co-op, or multiplayer.
Oh. and where starfield has 'over 1000 planets' Empyrion has over 1000 galaxies. But the first few galaxies are enough tbh.
A thousand planets is right in the bad zone, where it's high enough to seem overwhelming but not high enough to really seem impressive, particularly when No Man's Sky exists.
But no man's Sky planets were legitimately just empty rocks and tiny
No man's sky's planets are bigger and with more variety than what I have seen from starfield, even at launch. However even if you won't admit NMS did it better the point is a thousand planets is too many to be interesting but not enough to be impressive because other games have done infinitely more. @@ViridianFlow
@@modelmajorpita Sure sounds like you haven't played it if you think NMS with their single biome planets with no differentiation are more varied that Starfields with multiple biomes per planet each with their own fauna, flora and environmental factors like weather and temperature.
@@ViridianFlow Nah Starfield's planets very boring. New Atlantis even less variety than Microtech from Star Citizen, and SC doesn't even have fauna, just rocks and plants and trees, so when it's a more interesting and diverse ecosystem than your game, then you know you screwed up.
@@ViridianFlow Starfield's planets aren't even that though. They're basically presets for terrain generation. In a game about exploring different planets(Starfield), you can't do that at all. Tell me, what's the difference between "flying to a spot on a planet" in Starfield, and choosing a preset for terrain generation from a text-based menu?
Functionally, Starfield is a few hand crafted citied, a low-tier spaceship dogfight simuluator, and a menu for base/dungeon generation.
Oversimplified, but I'm not wrong lol
35:40 - 36:12 Perfectly describes my own experience with Starfield. I actually went back to Mass Effect for another playthrough after I put down the controller for Starfield.
Seems for a lot of people Starfield just made us want to play other space games, myself included. It takes a lot to take something as awesome as space travel and Sci-Fi and make it boring. I went one day without playing Starfield and that one day became a whole week and most definitely not playing that one day made me stop caring about the game. I have several better space games I own and could play, why subject myself to continue to play a game that's inferior to the other games I own?
@@FurryMcMemesexactly what happened to me. Didn't play for a day and I never played it again
@@matthijsweststrate5552 on another note I think only one streamer I followed played Starfield initially and even he just up and abandoned it. Like him I'm waiting for a major update that maybe could iron out some of the flaws of the game. I haven't completely abandoned it but the game has no real hook to keep me playing it, as Arlo says the game plays like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout but that gameplay style doesn't really work in this new world they built. Logically it doesn't make sense how they built it, why don't vehicles exist? You're telling me in this universe that we've mastered space travel and abandoned land vehicles?
@@matthijsweststrate5552I hope you got your money back
Hearing about the lack of maps was when I decided this didn't just seem like distinct creative choices - it just sounds like an unfinished game.
It seriously feels unfinished, it's just ugh.
The real ick for me is Bethseda was trying to do everything. They wanted to keep the space things grounded and somewhat realistic, but then they add space powers. Every uncharted planets there is no sense of danger or crisis that you need to prep for in advance to land safely. The space section imo could had some sort of tow assistance for those chased by pirates or board a ship and find out you have to finish the delivery.
Starfield feels like Skyrim but instead of starting getting sucked between a political execution and you have to unite the nine holds, you start out as the Greybeard's errand-boy and you have to collect every Word of Power. Like, they wanted so bad for Constellation to be like the Federation from Star Trek (which Star Trek's Federation works because it is set in a post-scarcity society; where money does not matter in the grand scheme anymore; Starfield's setting is not like that, money makes things move, the corporations have pull, money talks and bullshit walks; something like the Federation would not function well in a society like in Starfield, or in our world as it is now with the three richest men on Earth doing donuts in the sky, as we see here with Constellation), but they just don't do anything without the player's intervention. Like, all the companions with personalities that are romanceable are locked behind doing the main story and they're all such goodie two-shoes, two of them are retired space-cops but in different flavors (one is a space fighter-pilot from the faction that is one step away from becoming fascist, the other is a space-cowboy from the faction one step away from becoming feudalism); don't get me wrong, I like being nice in role-playing games but when every character you interact with for the majority of the story is in the square of snooze (lawful good, neutral good, true neutral, and lawful neutral), it's just boring frankly. There's not even a space-dog companion. The robot with sentience and opinions doesn't even get his own side-quest or question his existence. Like, it sucks that there is potential with all these factions and brewing conflicts and such, but instead the main objective is to go escort these nerds. As interesting as these space-powers are (there's essentially magic for those of you unaware), I don't want to be another chosen one, that was one of the biggest flaws in Skyrim IMO; you don't get a say in any of this, if you want to play the game you have to be this chosen one on an epic quest, there is no refusal to the call to action. This had the potential to be One Piece in space; space pirates, space cowboys, just put "space" in front of something cool-sounding and it had the potential to be that here. But it's just dry-fi instead of sci-fi.
Talos 1 from Prey was a much better “NASA-punk” setting. It blends fancy art deco but with inner guts that look like they were ripped out of the ISS. Pair that with psychic aliens and Arkane studios classic immersive sim design and you have an actually interesting setting.
Could not agree more. Bethesda really should stick to publishing games at this point. I find the games they publish orders of magnitudes better than the ones they’ve been making themselves in recent years.
@@williammorales1984since Skyrim they've been on a downward spiral with their game development. Fallout 4 was good but had a lot of flaws that dragged down the experience. Fallout 76 being an utter disaster at launch, and now this. I have absolutely no hole for TES6.
Thanks for keeping it real Arlo.
20:09 I would also argue that so many story NPCs and party members are marked as essential. Even so- with a game where it's main facet is centered about "multiverse", it removes the stakes and the desire to do it more than once.
Imagine how much more incentivized the player would be if characters could straight up die. How many side quests and storylines would just end, but the devs were crafty and intelligent enough to find a way to direct the players towards the multiverse point so they could go again. Maybe save the npc that died in the last run, and all that stuff.
But it's just shallow. You can't even go in water in some city areas. You just walk on top the water.
And there are people at bethesda spending their time arguing with and telling players "no you're wrong" instead of working on fixing and making the game enticing and fun. That suggests there's something not right going on in the studio; and that makes me incredibly nervous with how the next elder scrolls game will be.