Starfield is finally here, and it’s the first new IP that Bethesda has developed in quite some time. Is it any good though? Well, I think so, but it’s definitely not going to be the perfect masterpiece that some may have been expecting.
ONE LARGE SANDBOX
As one would expect, Starfield gives you a lot of freedom to do pretty much whatever you want right off the bat. Once you get through the surprisingly quick and straightforward intro bit, you are immediately given your own ship and will become a member of Constellation, a ragtag group of explorers hunting for mysterious artifacts.
While I don’t want to spoil too much, I can tell you that it’s worth doing a decent chunk of the main quest as soon as possible in order to unlock what I can only describe as this game’s version of Skyrim‘s dragon shouts. One of these abilities helps a lot with traversing the game’s vast open areas, which can either be incredibly dull or full of amusing random encounters.
The handcrafted locations, such as Neon and New Atlantis, feature a lot of interesting characters and quests scattered all throughout. This much I expected from a Bethesda game, and you can sink countless hours just getting lost running into one side activity to another. With around 40 hours currently clocked in, my main questline has completely come to a halt as I keep doing all of the other stuff that I keep encountering.
Unfortunately, a lot of the actual planet exploration can get as dull as No Man’s Sky in that you’ll be spending most of your time running around scanning things and visiting procedurally generated points of interest. For the most part, you kinda have to make your own fun while going through such areas, as there isn’t much to do between marked locations aside from building outposts and occasionally fighting hostile wildlife and pirates.
Luckily, the game throws just enough side quests your way to distract you from wandering around planets aimlessly for hours on end. Even with as many hours as I’ve played, random NPCs in hub areas I’ve already visited multiple times will blurt out something about somebody else that initiates another new quest. Occasionally, you’ll also hear distress calls or have humorous exchanges with random ships hailing you whenever you enter a system.
A FEW ISSUES
Although I am enjoying my time playing Starfield, there are a few glaring issues that affect my experience. For starters, the game’s performance leaves a lot to be desired, as even with an R7 5700X and RTX 3070, I’m still struggling to run the game at even just a stable 60 fps in crowded hub areas.
Even with a few performance-enhancing mods, it still dips into the high 40s while I’m in places such as Akila City or New Atlantis. In areas with combat, though, it easily ranges from 70-100+, particularly in indoor encounters. It’s not a deal breaker, though it is visually jarring whenever it dips. Hopefully, future patches or driver updates will help with this issue, though I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Apart from the occasional performance hiccups, however, I haven’t really encountered any major bugs. Most of them have been quite amusing, honestly, and they serve as a reminder that this is indeed a Bethesda title with their signature “jankiness”.
The few glitches I’ve run into mainly just range from a handful of NPCs slowly clipping into the environment to ragdolls flying off into the stars, which are all pretty harmless and hasn’t really ruined my progress at any point.
Some people have complained that there’s too much fast traveling in the game, though I don’t really mind as I never expected the game to be a space sim in the first place. They do have a point in that there’s too many menus and cutscenes involved whenever you want to go to another planet or system, though I prefer this system over something like No Man’s Sky‘s way of taking off and landing, as the novelty wears off after a while.
There’s also the encumberance system that I’ve never really been a fan of, and managing one’s inventory (and ship inventory) can be a bit frustrating with how the menus in the game work. It’s just a pain to keep juggling equipment and junk with my companions whenever I want to offload all my loot, especially since every vendor only has a limited amount of credits every time their store refreshes.
STILL A BLAST
Even with all of its issues, the game itself is insanely fun. The gunplay is a slight improvement from the Fallout games, and the addition of ship combat is just icing on the cake. Being able to disable another ship’s systems and boarding them is quite exhilarating, and it’s a nice way to make credits, especially if you’re playing as a pirate (though my first playthrough has me roleplaying as an absolute boy scout).
The story itself is pretty good, and it really picks up after you acquire the first few artifacts. Again, I don’t really wanna spoil more than I already have, but it really went into a direction that I didn’t expect, and all of the side quests have me so distracted that I haven’t even continued it as of writing this.
I suspect that, once I’m done with the game, I’ll be coming back to it every now and then just like I do with the studio’s other titles. Hell, I still play Oblivion to this day, and I’m having a blast just messing around in a heavily modded Skyrim and Fallout 4.
On that note, mods will also likely bring new life to the game and possibly even further expand the vast open world areas to the point where it won’t feel completely dull and repetitive after a while. For now, though, what we have is completely serviceable and is bound to give Bethesda fans tens of hours worth of enjoyment.
