Starfield: First Impressions

I was wary of Starfield. I had two key concerns – bugs and writing. The last major Bethesda game I played was Fallout 4, a game that was broken as all fuck on release. Crashes. Bugs. Broken quests. Would Starfield do better? I mean, how could it do worse? And then we have the writing – Bethesda have always been good with their world building and lore (at least as far as the Elder Scrolls series goes) but their quest and (most notably) character writing has always left something to be desired.

Even Skyrim, a Bethesda game I have a lot of love for and sunk 600 hours into – not to mention 100 hours in the (heavily modded) VR version – is plagued with some very mediocre writing. Bland characters. Bland quests. Fallout 4 wasn’t just bland – it was bad. I’ve heard some of the DLC was an improvement, but I never gave it a shot.

I’ve now played Starfield for 30 hours and I feel ready to share my initial impressions. In terms of bugs, I’m pleased to report that Starfield may just be the most polished Bethesda game yet. That’s not to say my experience has been entirely bug free – oh no, this is still a Bethesda game, after all. But thankfully these bugs have been minor and easily resolved with a simple reload. Nothing broken. No crashes. PC performance is good but not great so there’s certainly room for some improvement there.

The opening few hours are slow (gameplay) but engaging (story). There’s a lot to learn, but I don’t think Starfield does a perfect job of managing your progression through the early content. It doesn’t explain everything well, and some things it doesn’t explain at all. This is a game where you’ll need to be willing to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.

To address my other key concern – the writing – Starfield may be Bethesda’s best work yet. Once again, they nail the world building and lore. I love the history, the factions and the style. But the quests I’ve completed have also been really engaging and, somewhat surprisingly, the main quest (so far!) has been too. In previous Bethesda games, even when the side / faction content has been decent, the main quest has been terrible (Oblivion is a perfect example). Starfield – at the moment – feels like it’s knocking both out of the park.

And the characters! Actual characters?! In a Bethesda game?! And not just main / companion characters – even minor characters feel well written and are interesting to interact with. Even random, ‘radiant’ quest characters I’ve encountered have a remarkable degree of thought put into them.

Facial animations are good – for a Bethesda game. I mean, this ain’t exactly Cyberpunk 2077 quality, but given how many characters there are, I’m still quite impressed. And the VA, right across the board, has been excellent. And ‘impressed’ is how I’d sum up my time with Starfield thus far. The more I play, the more impressed I am.

The scope of the game is massive. The attention to detail is staggering. The combat is really good – even if the AI (and pathfinding) could use a little more work. I can spend hours customising my ship and I’ve not even touched outpost building yet. I understand some people may be disappointed that Starfield isn’t as seamless as something like No Man’s Sky but to be frank, I don’t see the two as remotely comparable.

In fact, there’s nothing that’s really comparable to what Bethesda have achieved with Starfield in terms of the sheer amount of content, quests, characters, combat, customisation, RPG mechanics and locations. Nothing even comes close. Such ambition – and the fact that they appear to have pulled it off – is to be applauded.

No, it’s not perfect. Yes, there are limitations. And I’m already making a list of quality of life improvements / mods I’d want. But I’ve never played a game quite like Starfield. It feels like something special.