Now Playing: Starfield

I feel like I could write two very different reviews of Starfield – one very positive, the other very negative. There’s not a single aspect of Starfield that isn’t flawed. It’s the game of a thousand nitpicks. A game in desperate need of a dozen or more quality of life improvements. And yet, I kind of love it. For me, Starfield is a perfect example of a game that’s far greater than the sum of its parts.

If you’re going to compare Starfield to other games in order to criticise it, then I think you should also compare those games to Starfield. Because no other game offers the same scope, variety or scale of Starfield. Very few games attempt to be this ambitious – and even fewer succeed in pulling it off. Other games may do the individual pieces better, but no other game combines them all in the way that Starfield does. As Todd Howard once famously said – it just works.

The main quest in Starfield revolves around the search for a set of mysterious, powerful artefacts. It is, I believe, the best main quest I’ve played in a Bethesda game. Admittedly, that’s not a high bar to clear, and the main quest in Starfield is certainly far from perfect – as I said, every aspect of the game has its flaws. But there’s some genuinely engaging missions to be found as you progress. And the way the main quest leads into a New Game Plus mode is both clever and exciting.

The most disappointing aspect of the main quest is – and this isn’t a spoiler because it’s in the damn trailer – the ‘space magic’ powers you can unlock. It’s not that the powers are bad as such – although how useful they are varies greatly. It’s more how you unlock them that’s the problem.

The powers in Starfield are the equivalent to the dragon shouts in Skyrim, but whereas in Skyrim you could discover shouts in various locations, in Starfield your powers are all acquired from the same copy / paste ‘temples’. I never ended up getting all of them because, honestly, it’s kind of dull and just not worth it.

As part of the main quest you’ll join an exploratory organisation called Constellation. Four members of Constellation serve as your main companions throughout the game. You can take these companions with you on any quest, anywhere, and by performing actions they approve of, you can improve your ‘relationship’ and unlock a unique mission for each.

The four Constellation companions are easily the best companions Bethesda have done, at least in terms of how much they interact with the content in which you’re engaged. I was pleasantly surprised by how many unique interactions each one has, not just as part of the main quest, but any quest. Oh, and these four companions can all be ‘romanced’ if you want to enjoy some incredibly awkward dialogue.

I do wish there was a little more – shall we say – moral variety, to the Constellation characters, but you can choose to leave them behind if you’re going to be doing something particularly unscrupulous. There are other companions you can recruit, but the Constellation four offer the most interactions.

That’s not to say that other companions aren’t worth adding to your crew – they all have a little backstory you can explore and each possesses their own unique skills and personality. Some you can simply hire, others you’ll unlock by completing various quests. Or, like most aspects of Starfield, you can choose not to engage with companions at all.

Like previous Bethesda games, Starfield offers a remarkable degree of player freedom. It allows you to engage with the content that you want to. Outposts are a perfect example of this. I’ve dabbled with outposts, constructing a few small mining operations on a couple of moons, but it’s not something I’m particularly interested in delving into – at least not yet.

But I don’t have to. I can choose to ignore the feature entirely. You, on the other hand, may want to spend hours constructing a complex network of cargo-linked outposts across multiple star systems. In the meantime, I can happily spend hours carefully designing and redesigning my fleet of ships. Hours – an obscene amount of hours. You, on the other hand, may simply stick with the starting ship and upgrade a piece here and there as required.

Don’t care for planetary scanning or exploration? Just don’t do it. Nothing is forced upon you. You’re free to try everything and stick with what you like. Speaking of exploration, I’ve seen some criticism of Starfield regarding its exploration or perceived lack of. Starfield is a game about exploration, but without exploration – at least, that’s how the criticism goes. But I can’t quite wrap my head around or agree with that assessment. There’s lots of exploration in Starfield, it’s just a different kind of exploration than you might be accustomed to from previous Bethesda games.

In Starfield you have a star map of around 100 systems and when you jump into a new system, you have no idea what you’ll find when you arrive. Some examples – I jumped into a system and discovered a space station, but the station wouldn’t respond to my hails. I docked and boarded the station only to discover it was an abandoned space casino inhabited by nefarious spacers with whom I engaged in a very fun zero-g fight.

Another example – I jumped into a system and picked up a distress signal. I followed it to a nearby planet and unlocked a multi-part side quest in which I helped a group of colonists drive a band of spacers out of their system. The point I’m making is this – I wouldn’t have seen or experienced any of these things if I hadn’t picked an unknown system and taken that jump. Exploration rewarded me with new content, new missions and new random encounters.

That said, I would agree that the randomly generated planetary points of interest are one of the weakest aspects of Starfield. The problem is – there’s too damn many of them. In my view there should have only been one or two per planet – and only the ones you can detect from orbit. Instead, the game randomly generates half a dozen or more wherever you land, all within walking distance. I assume this was done to give you that classic Bethesda feeling of exploring on foot and discovering cool things.

But, like I said, the exploration in Starfield is different to previous Bethesda games and this misguided attempt to mimic those doesn’t really work because they are generated and repeated far too frequently. There’s nothing wrong with empty worlds. It makes what you do find feel more special. But like so many features of Starfield, I can just choose to ignore it. So I didn’t bother with the randomly generated POIs unless I wanted to farm some loot or experience, or if I hadn’t seen that particular POI yet.

There are four faction quest lines in the game and, once again, I’d say these are some of the best Bethesda have done. Like everything else, they’re not without their flaws, but they each offer a fairly extensive and engaging experience, unique characters and locations, and they all lead to some interesting choices. I’d say the UC Vanguard line was my favourite overall – and also the most consistently good from start to finish – but I also really enjoyed the Crimson Fleet quests even if I felt less like a pirate and more like a spy.

You do get the option to properly join the pirates in the end but because Bethesda seem allergic to the notion of locking the player out of other content, the choice feels rather hollow as you can simultaneously be one of the most wanted pirates in the settled systems but also easily apply to become a space cop for the UC. I think this is one area Bethesda really needs to be bold and improve upon in the future – making big decisions like the one at the end of the Crimson Fleet line should have real consequences and gameplay implications going forward for the player.

Ryujin Industries is a quest chain that feels like something straight out of Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a story of corporate espionage in the city of Neon and conceptually, it’s really quite good. Unfortunately, the first several missions are some of the worst in the game. They’re incredibly dull, simplistic, easy and aren’t really any different to the randomly generated mission board quests. Thankfully, it does pick up and the final run of missions are pretty fun and engaging and offer a few different ways for the player to resolve things.

I’ve seen people say The Freestar Rangers faction chain is the weakest in the game but I have to disagree. The Ranger quests are more action focused than the other chains and as such, they provide a welcome change of pace. I do agree though that the quest chain as a whole feels a little unfinished, as if a couple of missions or potential options for the player are missing. It wrapped up much more quickly than I was expecting. I still enjoyed the ride though, and the rewards are pretty sweet.

As far as other side quests go, these are a real mixed bag. There’s so many I lost count and some are short and easy – little more than simple fetch or delivery quests – whilst others are extensive, multi-part chains featuring multiple characters, worlds and combat both in space and on the ground. The big issue I have with the side quests is how little experience you gain from their completion.

Actually, the game as a whole feels too stingy as far as experience gain goes, even for main and faction quests. And as much as I do like the new skills system, it does feel like a real grind to unlock and open up new skills. It just takes far too long to unlock lower tiers. This could be solved either by increasing the experience gain, removing tiers entirely, or simply by giving us more skill points to spend per level up.

The combat in Starfield is remarkably solid and fun. I generally stuck to ballistic weapons and had a pretty good time with it. The AI is . . . pretty bad, but it just about gets the job done. I also really enjoyed the weapon modification system to customise how they performed to my liking. Zero-g combat never gets old, especially when grenades are involved. Watching bodies and all manner of objects bounce around a ship with no gravity should never be this enjoyable.

Ship combat is fairly simple but also fun. A big part of what made it fun for me was designing my own ships and testing them out. Ships have a shield and hull rating that you’ll need to deplete in order to destroy them, but you can also target specific systems (with a skill unlock) and disable their engines in order to board and seize them.

You have a boost ability for a temporary speed increase – but also useful for evading an enemy missile lock. And then you have ship thrusters you can use to swing around a target without slowing down. It’s a shame that so many of the main and faction quests don’t actually involve much – if any – ship based combat because it’s a really enjoyable aspect of the game once you get the hang of it.

Something Bethesda have always been good at, especially with the Elder Scrolls games, is the world building and lore and that’s a trend that continues in Starfield. I know some players would have preferred a more Mass Effect type experience with a variety of alien races to interact with but frankly, I’ve been there and done that and I’m totally okay with Starfield focusing on humans and how we can f**k things up all on our own. So less Mass Effect and more Firefly and The Expanse.

I love the setting and the history and I love how aspects of that tie into the main quest. The UC Vanguard quest line is also a great (if biased from the UC viewpoint) way to get up to speed on the various conflicts that have occurred since humans departed Earth. There’s more depth here than you might realise with both of the major factions – The UC and the Freestar Collective – not quite being the idealised societies they like to portray. Digging into both of them via quests and character conversations reveals that both have their problems.

Visually, Starfield looks great. Interior detail – particularly ships – is staggering, and I love the ‘NASA-punk’ aesthetic. Exterior locations can prove to be a more mixed visual experience depending upon the generated terrain or lighting but overall, it’s easily the best looking Bethesda game yet.

It’s also the most polished Bethesda game yet. Once again – not a high bar to clear – but worth giving praise for. That’s not to say you won’t encounter any bugs – this is still a Bethesda game after all and it has its fair share of Bethesda ‘jank’ but overall, I’m very pleased. Performance could be better, but I think that problem will solve itself when / if they patch in proper DLSS support.

With future expansions, updates and mods, Starfield will only grow and improve over time. It’s exciting to think where Starfield will be in 5 years. Starfield certainly isn’t a perfect game but I can’t help but applaud its ambition and just how successfully it puts all of these (flawed) pieces together. If you’re a big fan of ‘space stuff’ like me, you’ll probably get more out of it than someone who’s not. I think it helps if you’re also a fan of Bethesda’s previous games and their style – you’ll also likely be more tolerant of the occasional jank.

I can understand why others may not enjoy Starfield as much as I did, why they may think it dated, but for all its flaws, I still think Starfield is a pretty remarkable game and experience. It’s the kind of game that reminds me why I still love and enjoy playing video games. It’s a one of a kind experience. The kind of game that doesn’t come along very often. A game I’ve already lost myself in for 200 hours and yet, I still want to keep going. There’s a lot more space out there for me to explore.

8/10

Coming Soon: Starfield