Bethesda Game Studios’ starfield is his first new IP in over 25 years. It is a huge effort, it will consume your whole being and so on. While some were no doubt impressed by the reveal on the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase last June, there are several concerns about the space RPG heading for its release next year. Let’s take a look at 10 of them here.
Bugs, bugs, bugs
Around 2012, na Skyrim launched, it was funny to joke about how many bugs Bethesda developed games had. Then Fallout 4 was released in 2015, which was out of place among all the visually stunning titles at the time, and the sheer amount of bugs wasn’t that funny. Then came Fallout 76which seemed to have more bugs than both games combined, and it was a disaster.
So to say that bugs are a problem with starfield, with a much larger in-game world with a thousand planets, shipbuilding, crew management, tons of NPCs, and so on would be an understatement. A delay can help polish things up, but given that Bethesda titles have never really experienced a delay, the fact that starfield legitimate that everyone should be concerned. Reports from developers calling it the following cyberpunk with the original November 2022 release weren’t very reassuring either.
Lifeless Planets
While the scale of starfield sounds impressive on paper – and even more so when it comes out of Todd Howard – there’s still plenty of reason to be skeptical. You can’t have 1000 planets all offering something interesting. There’s a lot of procedurally generated content, but even among the handcrafted stuff, don’t expect a lot of unique dungeons, detailed regions, or incredible sights. Howard has indicated that some things in starfield, like giant ice balls in space, are just there for the cool factor. Even if that sounds exciting, I doubt even half of the planets will have anything along those lines and just exist to farm resources.
Number of cities
Bethesda has confirmed there are four major cities to explore starfield, which sounds good. Judging by the concept art, they seem big enough, but how much you’ll discover as you play remains to be seen. There is also the question of what is “big” for Bethesda. Are these cities as big as Diamond City? Fallout 4? Sure, if the content in each turns out to be hefty then this is all debatable, but four cities among 1000 planets certainly doesn’t feel like much.
fights
Whether melee or ranged, fighting in Bethesda titles has been a decidedly awkward affair. It’s especially notable with first-person shooter mechanics, as seen in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 (the latter more than the former). Starfield’s demo looked a little nicer with additions like sliding and a jetpack, but it still had that signature pomp and whine that fans will love or hate. Things may change at launch – it may feel better to check than it looks, but it’s still worth keeping in mind.
Performance issues
In terms of performance, the June demo is…interesting, if one is nice. Certain sections seemed to work well enough, but the first combat gameplay section had several frame drops. Of course, this is nothing new for a Bethesda game – go back to the launches of Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 — but seeing something like that, especially in a relatively small skirmish, is still crazy. Even if the launch performance issues are mitigated for combat scenarios of this scale, framerate drops can occur in many other places.
Mods and the Creation Club
Even before it made Private Servers and mods part of the paid Fallout 1st service in precipitation 76, Bethesda has been pulling some shenanigans with modding. It introduced the Creation Club in Fallout 4, which acts as a platform for adding and managing mods. This was fine because it was free, but in Skyrim, some “official” mods – like Survival – ended up paying. You even had Creation Club items that served as the main selling point for something like Skyrim Anniversary Edition. Will the same business practices be repeated throughout? starfield? Or will Bethesda venture into even more egregious territory?
Gathering Resources
When Fallout 4 introduced settlement building and management, the response was somewhat mixed. Some liked it and dived in. Others (like me) did not, while some remained indifferent. The fact that so much of the game focuses on settlement building – collecting junk and tearing it down to upgrade a settlement – didn’t feel right. Of course it got all the more annoying when Fallout 76 launched, as clutter collecting was the core of the gameplay loop.
With so much to craft and build in starfield, such as ships, weapons and armor, hope resource grinding isn’t too crazy. It can work for something like No Man’s Sky, a sandbox title that has received numerous updates to make resource collection intuitive. But for a role-playing game with a strong emphasis on story? It’s hard to tell unless it’s relegated to the post-game.
Mediocre post game
In a precipitation title, the post-game usually involves exploring all the areas you missed during the first playthrough, completing any side missions and so on. That’s just the game itself and not necessarily a special “post-game” activity. This is where Radiant Quests came in. They served as repeatable missions with simple objectives (such as killing X number of enemies) and were useful for accumulating XP. Unfortunately, they quickly become repetitive to the point of annoyance. Most players usually rely on mods for their post-game fun, but here’s hope starfield has some endgame mechanics like quests and high level areas, super bosses, bounties, some sort of Paragon system and whatever.
Benefits and Skills
While previous games kept them separate, Fallout 4s Perks are merged with the Skills. As you level up, you’ll get a SPECIAL point to spend on increasing one of the seven stats (which gave different benefits) or unlocking and upgrading benefits. The problem is that most of the Perks went into “X percent more damage”, access to certain sets of mods, deal more damage with specific weapons, and so on, which felt a bit stale.
starfield offers skills and traits, the latter offering up to three unique quirks, such as “Introvert” for increased stamina when venturing alone. However, skills seem to fall into the same trap as: Fallout 4s Benefits, which serve as increases in accuracy, range, reload speed and all. It’s still early, so there may be more unique skills to be had, but the current direction feels just as boring. In any case, skills are upgraded by completing challenges instead of just spending a Perk point.
Role Play Elements
starfield does offer something unique from Fallout 4 – Wallpapers, which essentially provide three starting skills depending on the profession. For example, the Chef can craft special food and drink items, deal 10 percent more melee damage, and have an extra 30 HP. Combined with Traits, this sounds good for those looking for nuanced builds. But how the different choices are presented and whether the game facilitates your build in different ways is also important.
Fallout 4 didn’t offer the most impactful choices (although things have improved in the DLC), and considering how much larger the scale is in starfieldI hope it’s more imaginative with its role-playing scenarios. As always, time will tell, but Bethesda’s track record precedes it and saying this is a more hardcore RPG than their previous efforts doesn’t help, Todd.
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