With less than three weeks left of Starfields release, I thought I’d give my own personal take on what might come of it.
I’m a huge space nerd. Love Space games, and love it in real life. KSP is one of my favorite games. No Mans Sky was what I dreamed of, and then on release…it was a mess. Tried to get into it now, and I WANT to like it. It’s clearly had effort put into it. But the core problems are still there. The main one being: Procedural generation.
No Mans Sky feels like a mile wide and an inch deep even now. The planets lack variety. It’s pretty much a single biome across the entire system. The outposts look almost the same. Landmarks are the same. Creatures are the same. It makes no sense. Of course, that’s due to the procedural generation. And it shows. I could go on about how the story and side quests are uninteresting and frankly, lazy. But that’s besides the point. Even if it’s a core issue. I would rather have two or three massive, full scale solar systems with a couple of planets that are hand crafted and have a TON of work done to them. With, you know, actual biomes and some dead ones sprinkled in.
Thing is, Bethesda has been experimenting with radial quests and procedural generation for over a decade now. They have shown they care about detail and substance. They know what players look for. They’re not gonna implement a half baked system and do what NMS did. Because we all know how that turned out. And to me, it sounds like they clearly believe this system is ready now. After all, while the radial quests in Skyrim were not perfect, (Dark Brotherhood Forever), they were pretty good in moderation. And that was on 7th gen hardware. In any case, we’re still getting a full scale solar system (or at least a couple?) that are in fact, hand crafted. It’s exciting to say the least.
So while I don’t think Starfield is going to change the industry, and I fully expect bugs, I do think this is going to be the best example of procedural generation going forward and what it CAN do for future titles. Whether from Bethesda, or other developers. The main thing here I’d like to point out is that Bethesda isn’t looking at procedural generation as a core mechanic. They see it as a TOOL. And that’s what it should be across the board. I fully expect players to not go full on exploring towards other star systems until late in the game which will take a bit. Hand crafted is still the most important aspect as it should be. But if done right, I believe it could serve well for replayability for years to come.
People give a lot of shit to BGS for Fallout 76. But remember this. The game was fixed. And every game before it has been acclaimed. Fallout 4 was a bit disappointing for most and I agree, but I do think the mods made up for it and the combat was a big step up versus Fallout 3. It was the weakest title, for a BGS game. Sure. But even then, it was VERY good compared to what was out at the time. They obviously still know what they’re doing unlike other developers now.
Appreciate your optimism. I share none of it 😆
Whether I’m right or not, mark my words this will be a good game regardless. I don’t want it to be Baldurs Gate 3. Or the greatest game of all time. I just want it to be good.
You may like it, and you are priming yourself to like it by wanting it to be good, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it will be good in a broader sense than for you, and tbh even if it’s only good to you, that’s good enough if it makes you happy.
I’m sorry to be a downer, but the specific things you are hyped for are exactly the things I have absolutely 0 hope for.
For example:
They have shown they care about detail and substance.
Really? Bethesda? The people who, via Skyrim, created the now-often-used phrase “wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle”? I could see this from Obsidian maybe. But not Bethesda
They’re not gonna implement a half baked system and do what NMS did.
No. Sorry. No. Doing things half-baked is the thing Bethesda does, every single time. And players then fix it. Are you maybe thinking about modded Bethesda games? Because yes, those can be near-perfect. And modding their games to perfection is itself often a fun endeavour, it’s important to also keep in mind - and keep Bethesda accountable for - the need for players providing:
- Quality control
- Bugfixing
- NPC fixes
- NPC depth
- World depth
And players do. To an absolutely amazing degree. But Bethesda doesn’t.
People give a lot of shit to BGS for Fallout 76. But remember this. The game was fixed.
Kinda? The game was fixed from a technical perspective, yeah. And that was a first for Bethesda, instead of fully letting the players do it via modding. But hey, Multiplayer game, they kinda had to I suppose. 😅 But from a gameplay perspective the game retains all of its problems, the extreme shallowness even for Bethesda games, the lack of feeling like a Fallout game, the clear feeling of copy/past or generation.
Now, for all my negative things, I do expect Starfield to be Elder Scrolls: Space Edition. And I loved playing Skyrim, utterly shallow as virtually all of it was. The breadth still made it a load of fun. And Starfield - because if Bethesda has shown one thing it’s consistency - will naturally share both the good and the bad parts of previous games, again being incredibly wide, incredibly free, superbly pretty, but also laughably buggy and shallow.
I’m not 100% sure it’ll be as good as Skyrim, or even Fallout 4 as contentious as that game is. It feels like a lot of the reason why Skyrim works is bc they put some amount of thought into framing a world; there’s some semblance of reality there with farms, history, characters with motivations even if it’s all extremely shallow. Starfield looks like it’ll cast even this aside and fill it in with randomly generated slop.
At best the main story planets will be a similar quality to Skyrim, but that still leaves everything else and a very distinct question of “why” for me. The game is also not my style as I was hoping for something a little more creative? The aesthetic feels really restrained and basic, but not to the point of minimalism since everyone is a visually noisy amongus man with shiny gubbins and gizmos on them, with weapons looking like the artists were challenged to add as much ribbing and 45° angle corners as possible. I hope the game is good and I am interested to see how it’ll represent the way Bethesda intends to treat modding and monetize their games in the future.
I don’t get that “shallow” part.
In Bethesda’s worlds there’s always something going on, something new to discover, something new to learn… Providing you put an effort to pursue that. These games don’t force themselves upon the player, they leave helluva room for breathing, caring about whatever small goals you may set upon yourself, but that’s not “bad”, isn’t it?
That’s not depth though, that’s more the width. Bethesda worlds are full of things in a vast open space, yes. The space isn’t empty. It’s shallow.
All these interactions are tiny. They’re copy-paste (or clearly autogenerated) NPCs, linex, fetch quests. Everything is just the same content repeated ad-nauseum, like an Assassin’s Creed game.
Of course, the flipside of this is that this shallow content allows them specifically to make their worlds this wide and open. It’s a trade-off, as always.
I honestly don’t get it.
What we’re seeing in Bethesda’s design are more and more vibrant worlds - modern NPCs walk around, sit on whatever benches they see, react to day/night cycles, use the objects around them, comment on how you’re looking, what you’re wearing (or not), hear about your exploits. Not every NPC is ready to break to you his sad story worth a doctorate in psychology, but which one does?
Even in games one may consider deep you will still find shopkeepers with same lines, or NPCs standing there, in the same spot, no matter whether it rains or not, ready to give you what is essentially a FedEx quest, no matter how many sentences they are going to express it with. You can break a fight in many deep games, and nobody around will mind it - attack a villager in Skyrim and guards and other denizens won’t take this shit kindly.
Heck, the lore is vast, even since Daggerfall or Morrowind you had in-game books to find and read, stories to pursue, myths and legends to learn.
The style, the tone, the predictability are things that definitely might use more attention, but I definitely wouldn’t call it a shallow design.
Not all NPC interactions are tiny. I’ve discovered some absolutely insane shit just from talking to people, or just observing. The haunted Molag Bal house? Didn’t discover that until a couple years later. Terrified me. The fetch quests? Yeah I can understand. Don’t like those. But if you can provide some variety and rewards for them I can tolerate them, which they did in Skyrim.
But again, don’t understand how that makes the game “shallow” lmao. And please don’t compare it to Assassins Creed. We don’t talk about that fucking franchise. I have such a love hate relationship with it. It’s a shadow of its former self.
And even if Skyrim was shallow, at least it’s a story I can remember and argue about with others. How many of the “deep” RPGs’ stories made that impact and / or became memes with a positive connotation?
Btw., I still don’t like Ulfric Stormcloak.
I was team Ulfric until I found out about the shit he did, and what the Thalmor did to him.
I had an hour long conversation about the civil war with my brother. That is how much of an impact this game had to us. I will never understand how people can sit there and say Skyrim is boring. It’s boggling.
Anyway. For the Empire.
I don’t personally understand how you can say Bethesda games are incredibly shallow. I’ve put HOURS into Skyrim for years now and yet I keep finding new things in vanilla. I haven’t even done all the quests, and the list just goes on and on. IMO the world building and attention to detail they do is amazing. Yes I think Obsidian in general does a better job, especially story wise, as I played The Outer Worlds and it was incredible what you could do, especially with the variety of story elements. And I’d be lying if I said there weren’t anything that frustrated me that they did in Oblivion or Skyrim story wise or player choice wise. But to say it’s shallow? I don’t get it.
And personally I feel the only thing TRULY half baked that Bethesda does is the stability and bugginess of their games. Skyrim was a mess on release. Fallout 4 was better but still pretty buggy. They do fix bugs but yeah I get it. They do sort of leave it all up to modders and personally I believe that was a big reason why they tried so hard to get mods on consoles.
Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda come to mind when talking about shallow games, heaps of shit to do but most of it meaningless or like Ubisoft content.
I still and will keep preordering their games though but I liked FO76 aside from bugs on launch, game was hard.
There can be lots of content, but still be shallow.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing.Yeah, I agree. I feel that way about No Mans Sky though, and it creates a scenario where you are entertained for a couple hours and then realize there’s nothing to do anymore. It’s just a loop. For all that they’ve added, and as much as I commend them for that, the core mechanics are still flawed.
With Skyrim I don’t get that. I’m always finding shit. Something different. Cutting off fast travel was a game changer.
Bethesda has a lot to prove these days. BG3 just came out, featuring an openworld with depth and freedom like never before. Cdpr made the witcher 3 a decade ago, and CP77 version 2 will be out in a few months. There was elden ring and a new zelda. The competition for open world is huge.
They have one selling point for starfield: it’s a space sandbox. That will give them some tolerancy for lower quality. But the cyberpunk debacle last year and BG3 success this month will make a tight space for starfield to fit in.
From what you’re writing, Bethesda can still rely on its fanatical fanbase. The last success of Bethesda was skyrim. How long will it go like this?
I am properly amazed at how people are forgiving with Bethesda compared to how ruthless they were with CDPR.
BG3 just came out, featuring an openworld with depth and freedom like never before.
Hmmm, but is Baldur’s Gate 3 actually Open World though? It’s multiple different Acts with pathways leading places. I feel like something like a GTA, Minecraft or Skyrim / Legend of Zelda more qualifies as Open World than the world of Baldur’s Gate 3.
It depends on what you call an open world. If you take the most restrictive definition, then it is not an open world.
But that would be dishonest imo. There is a large difference between BG3 (or bg1 and 2) and mass effect for example. Is the witcher 3 an open world?
Somehow I feel like this is what bioware forgot along time. How to make open world.
BG3 just came out, featuring an openworld with depth and freedom like never before.
I mean… There were the previous 2 Baldur’s Gate games. And actually quite a few RPGs from the same time period that were exactly like BG3 where it really matters in the scope and size of the world, and the depth of choices you had.
BG3 doesn’t do anything new. It just does something that nobody has done since the fucking 90’s, and did it with amazing graphics and voice talent.
I would argue the older ones are even just a slight bit more in depth, since they are entirely text and contain much more dialogue than 3, and more choices to match.
Besides, if you’re comparing a Bethesda RPG, with their action-focused almost arcade version of an RPG to a classic D&D style CRPG like BG3… What are you even doing? They aren’t remotely similar styles, and both can be fun for different reasons.
Like never before might be exaggerating. There were games even more recently. But not many. And not Bethesda games. And cdpr rpg are better action rpg in the recent years.
Bethesda did good games. But the last really good one was skyrim. And people often talk about morrowind as their best.
I don’t doubt Bethesda can still rely on its fanbase, but I wonder why at this point.
Because Skyrim wasn’t delayed 15 times or wasn’t so buggy it was unplayable.
CP2077 was BAD. It was worse than Skyrim on release.
Hahahaha. Did you read that in the news? Or did you tried to play on a 10 year old console? Maybe you wanted gta12?
…What?
They mean to say: Skyrim was so buggy at release, it was definitely close to unplayable. Even the latest patches don’t fix some issues from day 1. (BUT: it’s the only game from its era I can go back and play now and still be completely immersed)
Nah, I remember playing on day 1 and while it was really bad, it was still playable. But that’s just me.
Another star system needs your help…
Preston Garvey, is that you?
That’s CAPTAIN Garvey!
NO! GOD! PLEASE! NO! NOOOOOOOOO!
It sounds like you’re a fan of Bethesda games so I think this game will definitely be great for you.
Personally, I’ve really struggled to enjoy their games because they just feel a bit shallow for reasons that I can’t explain. They just don’t engage me at all. New Vegas was the only one that I completed and I think that is likely due to a difference in game design that I enjoy more.
I want to like Starfield and I will give it a try when it comes out, but I’m just worried it will leave me with an empty feeling like their other games do.
New Vegas was one I desperately wanted to like as from what I’ve seen, the story looks fantastic. But I’ve tried to like it for years now and just can’t get into it. Everything about it that I’ve played is great, but the setting itself is just so boring to me. It feels like the majority of the map is just desert. It doesn’t feel fun. It feels like a chore. Maybe I’m playing it wrong. I hope I am.
I don’t personally get that empty feeling you do. I played Oblivion in 2010 and then Skyrim on release and have fallen in love with those games. So much to do it feels like.
I think what it comes down to is how much you enjoy the freedom of the games. A lot of their games kinda just let you loose with a story that you can build over the course of the game, whereas New Vegas has a goal in mind that it is constantly pushing you towards.
Again, I don’t think either preference is better than the other. I just think they are two very different play styles that are suited for different experiences.
Yeah, that’s me. I don’t like being pushed towards a goal. I want to explore and let myself breathe. What I feel Bethesda is good at is the tutorial.
They tell you, “Hey so here’s the story. This is the game. Alright now go do what you want, up to you.”
I love that. I don’t feel pushed to perform a specific task. New Vegas definitely felt that way for a long time during my playthrough.
New Vegas was developed by obsidian.
Yes…I know that
I prefer Fallout: Tactics to vanilla F:NV.
If not for DLCs that offer something wildly different in their own separate maps, I’d call it the worst Fallout game I’ve been playing…
No. It’s a static universe, and there are only so many systems (they’ve mentioned how many but I can’t remember).
They mentioned there’s HUNDREDS of procedural planets. I didn’t say or imply it was infinite.
The real issue is how much of that procedural generation can be explored? It’s one thing to be a nice piece of randomly generated set dressing but another to be interacted with by players.
You’re right that Bethesda has over a decade of experience with procedural generation but they haven’t done anything with it in any of their games except modify loot tables and create weather. What evidence is there that they will make explorable worlds that can be landed on anywhere? So far Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, and Star Citizen have attempted it and only NMS has the ability to land anywhere on any plane then, get out and explore.
Pete Hines confirmed you can explore planets in their entirety on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/1693878589303738591
So I don’t see why you COULDN’T land anywhere, but yeah…I guess that remains to be seen. We know there is a loading screen between landing and taking off but that was implied heavily anyway, and ultimately not a big deal to me. I suspect someone will “try” to make a mod that does this.
You know what? That’s fucking great and hype worthy. I’m now interested to see what happens with Starfield but, ultimately, I don’t trust Todd Howard to fulfill his promises. He’s spoiled fallout by making grand promises and then undercutting those expectations. There’s no reason to think he won’t do the same to Starfield.
Fair, but a lot of the promises he made in Skyrim were fulfilled. I think we’ll see some promises come to fruition in Starfield while others are sort of half promises.
He’s not a flat out liar like the internet makes him out to be.
In that regard… Most terrain in games is already procedural. They don’t hand craft every dip and rise of the terrain, or hand place every rock, shrub and tree. They use some procedural generation for most of that and then tweak what they need by hand. If you’ve ever messed with the toolset for Skyrim or Fallout and added more landmass, that’s likely what you can expect with Starfield. Just, more.
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I’m sure starfield will be awesome.
The only thing that bothers me in No Man’s Sky is sometimes finding the exact same life form on different planets.
The rest is beautiful.
I hope it’s good but won’t but it right away. It’s on my wishlist but we will see.
I never understood the hate Bethesda’s open world sandboxes get. Give them a few months of time for patching & modding and they become rock-solid games to enjoy for decades. I don’t expect Starfield to be anything less and I hope it will be far more than that.
By the way… OSIRIS: New Dawn and SpaceBourne 2 - have you tried either?
The problem with the open worlds is that they’re huge areas with barely anything in them. The NPCs, quests and locations have been dropping in quality since Morrowind. The prime example of this are the dungeons. They’re all so very similar and forgettable. Bethesda open worlds tend to be very copy and paste and that’s why they get criticism.
What would you require of plain, simple dungeons?
I would expect the dungeons to have some character at least. They have the manpower to make the dungeons feel different and allow there to be a build up towards the boss. Like if it’s a Draugr Overlord, let me learn about this guy and his life before I’m facing off against him.
Edit: to further develop this idea, what we learn of the Overlord’s backstory tells us how to best defeat them. Say, if their shield arm is weak then shield-bashing them would knock them off-balance. Or stories of them using various spells so you’re aware that they might use these spells while fighting.
Ah, I see. You’d want more diversity or substance to the dungeons, not length, or puzzles.
Would you exchange it for less dungeons? I mean, smaller number of them, but each distinctive?
And if so, how would you predict it’d change the dynamics of the game? Because now dungeons are pretty much “loot trips”, or locations required to solve some quests only. You know, "Oh, I need me some good weaponry, I’m gonna raid a few tombs and see where it’s going to get me.
(Asking as a worldbuilder).
Bethesda’s approach is more functional and it allows them to throw in like a hundred odd dungeons but that’s a ton of work to make all of them unique and interesting.
I would slim down the number of dungeons to maybe around thirty to forty. Means that each one becomes more memorable and seeing one inofitself is eventful. By cutting down on the dungeons, you get a few more bonuses, you can put more thought into what kind of loot you would get from it. You can frame everything around the dungeon; what kinds of enemies you’d face, the armour they’re wearing, the weapons they’re using, the spells they’re casting, the items and furniture dotted around or even the environment itself.
In that way, each dungeon becomes its own self-contained experience rather than the _n_th iteration of the same experience. Once you’ve done Bleak Falls Barrow, it’s unlikely the rest of the dungeons will be any different (aside from dwarven ruins which are different to Nord ruins but they suffer from the same issues).
There’s no reason you can’t flesh out a dungeon based on hints given in a quest. So Bleak Falls Barrow would probably be the most boring dungeon of the lot but to someone who’s never experienced Skyrim, it’s new and it sets the stage for other dungeons. There you establish who might be buried in those tombs or if you don’t know, then you can go down and maybe read old books that talk about who was buried there. Say one Draugr has a little diary on him, talking about a thief that left him for dead. You might find that thief later down the lane but he died from walking into a trap which can also serve the dual purpose of teaching the player “hey, there are traps to prevent people from coming down and looting the place”. You can also look at adding a couple of dead grave robbers who allude to the Draugr Lord at the end of the dungeon.
These are a couple of things I’ve just come up with off the top of my head but the TLDR is: "Ask yourself the questions, how can I make this dungeon feel different? Who might be down here? Why are they down here? What did they leave behind? What was taken?
I have not tried those games. I’ll look into it.
I don’t understand the hate either. I think personally Fallout 76 was what caused the Bethesda hate train. I was there when Skyrim came out and it was universally acclaimed. I mean hell, there are crazy bastards that actually think Oblivion is superior. Which, I’m okay with. We SHOULD argue about that as it shows how good Bethesda is at creating living, breathing worlds. Fallout 4 with all its shitty flaws, does feel alive for the setting.
You will not believe the hype Fallout 4 got too. Even if it was one of the weaker games Bethesda put out.
OSIRIS is pretty much what you described, Starbourne 2 I know only from gameplays on YT, but I’m planning to try it “later”. 😉
In the meantime, I already think about spaceships I’m gonna build in Starfield.
Oh my god yes this. I have no doubt the ship building will be fantastic. I personally really enjoyed the base building in Fallout 4. Only issue I had was the power system which felt tedious, but I do think Bethesda will learn from that. If not, no big deal. Wasn’t a huge turn off. I think that definitely is subjective.
I’m gonna spend an hour building my ship lmao.
Only one hour?
HEATHEN! PHILISTINE! 😉
