"playing it for an additional 30+ hours and trying to absorb everything Starfield has to offer... I think I dislike this game even more"
INTRODUCTION
I reviewed Starfield on my X (Twitter) account when it first released, and I was sorely disappointed. The game was PLAGUED with bugs, from NPCs displaying abysmal AI to characters getting stuck in walls and level geometry. The main storyline, touted as a Sci-Fi epic, fell flat, lacking the grandeur of say Star Trek or Star Wars. The enemy variety was minimal, featuring repetitive "Pirate" NPCs and uninspired alien cockroaches. Space battles felt unmotivating, inferior even to Star Wars games from two decades ago.
Overall, my initial experience with Starfield was a huge letdown, and I was not convinced by the usual defence of "But this is a Bethesda experience!"
ORIGINAL SCORE — 54/100
FAIR
This is a screenshot from an old version of the review system.
WHAT'S NEW?
Since my last review, Starfield has received several updates, including new features, improved graphics options (adding DLSS), and additional adjustments that improves gameplay with quality of life options.
I have also upgraded my personal PC with a new CPU (Ryzen 7 7800X3D) and DDR5 RAM. Still rocking my RTX 3080. But with Bethesda adding DLSS to Starfield, I am hoping for a better PC experience with my rig.
REVISED GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE
During my initial playthrough, I was so uninspired that I skipped almost all the side content, focusing solely on the main story missions. I completed the game in under 17 hours and never looked back. Critics of my initial review argued that skipping the side content meant missing out on the core experience of a Bethesda game, a point I remained skeptical about. So, I decided to give the game an honest second chance. This time, I created a new character, delved into side missions, and explored all the game’s mechanics. And I played for an additional 30 hours, when my original playthrough was under 17 hours total.
HOW I PLAYED
I played on PC via Xbox GamePass PC. I was able to run the game at 100fps + with max settings at 1440p and DLSS "Quality". My gaming PC has a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5 6000mhz RAM and an RTX 3080.
STORY — 12/20
INTRO
Nothing has changed here, you go through the character creator and wake up as a miner. I really think this intro is a let down for the kick off of a Sci-Fi game. I don't know if this is the same for other Bethesda games, but the intro just felt sloppy.
CUTSCENES
Do I count the totally NOT loading screen ship take off and landing? The cutscenes in this game are just dialogue moments between NPC's. I am happy that Bethesda updated the game so you can turn off that cutscene ZOOM IN camera. But the cutscenes are very bare minimum in this game.
WORLD BUILDING
You discover more about the world through notes you pick up and NPC dialogue and side quests. I did about 15 hours of side quests and it did not add ANYTHING to my experience of Starfields main story.
OVERALL STORY
I don't like to be so negative, but this story is a giant letdown. It boils down to being a safe and boring linear story where you collect the magical items and put em together to discover a "secret". For the amount of time spent on this game and how large of a team they have at Bethesda studio, you would think the story writing would be super next level. It always amazes me how a small studio like FromSoftware can continue to put out amazing and creative new stories.
GRAPHICS — 9/15
CHARACTER MODELS
I have seen Fallout 4 and the NPC's and characters look pretty good there for the time. The NPC's and general character designs in Starfield are just laughably bad. I am seeing a trend in modern mainstream games (mostly ones made in North America) where character designs are "less visually appealing". And I don't understand it, I know in real life not everyone is hyper attractive ... but gaming is a form of escapism and players want things that are more visually appealing (Or is it just me?).
ENVIRONMENTS
There are definitely some area's in Starfield where you can see they put time and effort into. All of the major cities (New Atlantis, Neon, Akila etc). And you can get some pretty decent shots from these locations. But A LOT of this game is just empty baron space, there is a HUGE divide between the specific curated content and the procedurally generated content. I really think Starfield would have been much better if they kept the scale to 1 solar system with curated content on each planet. Rather than 1000 planets where 990 of them have rinse repeat bare minimum procedural generated dull content.
SPECIAL FX
The weapon FX and some of the FX in game are cool. Nothing amazing, but they all look very polished.
AUDIO — 9/15
AMBIENCE
The ambience and subtle music that plays in the background is pretty good. It is just noticeable that you know that it is there, But it also doesn't get repetitive.
BOSS MUSIC
There basically is none, there is just generic "combat" music. Which is fine with smaller titles, but for a huge AAA game I expect more from Bethesda.
SOUND DESIGN
I remember when I first played the sound would go out of sync or there would be weird sound issues. Those are no longer here but the sound mixing is not amazing in this game. Playing with headphones does not add any immersion. It just feels very bland IMO.
PERFORMANCE — 8/10
FRAME RATE
The fact that this game released at 30fps on Xbox's flagship console (Xbox Series X), and everyone was told this was done to keep a "consistent experience" was ridiculous. And shows that this game suffered from optimization issues, likely due to the game being rushed out the door and that step totally skipped just to get the game completed. I am happy to say that now with better integration with NVIDIA technologies like DLSS and even other AI upscaling and frame gen techniques that the performance is much better this time around. Previously I was struggling to hit 60-70fps at 1440p, but now I was easily in the 100's and could go above 120 if I set DLSS to performance. I am also told that the 60fps patch still doesn't hit a locked 60 on Xbox Series X.
STABILITY
In my initial playthrough there were many graphical glitches and many issues with NPC's clipping through level geometry. I will say a lot of these have been improved, but I still encountered random cosmetic glitches from time to time. Another big disappointment from a supposed AAA studio, who had access to the massive resources from their multi trillion dollar publisher to ensure this game was the pinnacle experience on their current gen hardware.
GAMEPLAY — 24/40
CONTROLS
Revisiting the controls after getting more experience with FPS and 3rd person FPS games, Starfield does have pretty consistent controls. There are some messy control combinations for the MANY mechanics in this game, but I touch on this in my UI/UE breakdown.
MECHANICS
Starfield has MANY mechanics which I think a lot of players don't even use. In my first playthrough I probably did barely any, I didn't even build a habitat or edit my ship. In this new playthrough I totally customized my ship and purchased new ones, I also made a habitat on a planet that was rich with multiple resources which I experience farmed. I made a bunch of stuff at my outpost, I crafted weapons, spacesuits, health items and random materials. I also levelled up my skills to be a master thief so I could crack difficult safes. I levelled up my persuasion skills so I could get out of most combat situations if I wanted to. After spending all this time doing all of this, I left feeling like "A lot of cool ideas, but not implemented well and became too busy".
PACING
You can move very quickly in Starfield if you just stick to the main story missions. There is only one mission that I find "fetchy" or fatiguing (Neon). But collecting the artifacts does get really repetitive, as most of them are the same copy and paste cave system. Same with the temples in the games, they are all copy and paste and have almost like for like experiences.
UI/UE
The UI is very clean and sterile sci-fi aesthetic. But the UE is terrible in this game, just look at the experience to travel from one planet to another. Let's say you are in a perfect scenario and you are within fast travel distance to your ship and you are not overburdened. The steps are
- Press Start
- Choose the top left planet option
- Press B to zoom out of the current solar system you are in
- Press X on the solar system you want to go to
- Press X on the planet you want to go to
- Hold X on the specific landing spot you want to go to
- Loading screen
- Arrive
You have to choose a separate menu to store items in your ships cargo, and the ships cargo has very limited space. Even with cargo upgrades I found the space to be ridiculous. It was way easier to just physically drop the items in the hull of the ship than to put into cargo storage. And there are many examples of how the UE is just bad in this game, If you go to Nexus Mods you can find a ton of PC mods that massively improve the UI and UE of Starfield, and MANY of these have been available since week 1 of the games release.
BOSS QUALITY
There are no real bosses in Starfield IMO. The "Bosses" are just regular pirate NPC's with double health bars. They don't have any unique attacks, it's just NPC's with weapons that you use in the game. There are some "hidden bosses" which I went out of my way to find, and instead of regular NPC's with double health bars. They are just random Alien enemies with jacked up HP. I know this game is trying to have a sense of "realism" but I just really feel like these games NEED larger than life boss battles with unique move sets and weapons. I had the same complaint in Cyberpunk 2077, but even CP has some bosses like that.
ENEMY VARIETY
Same as the bosses, just regular NPC's and random alien creatures that have almost 0 incentive to kill minus some crafting material you can just buy from a vendor. I think Bethesda really missed out on designing some amazing unique enemies in Starfield.
GAMEPLAY VARIETY
This is actually a "highlight" of Starfield is how much there is to do in this game. You can join different factions, you can do random missions at random outposts by looking at mission boards, you can mine materials and craft items and sell them or just grind EXP (this is what I did). You can craft new ships or buy new ships and explore planets, You can build outposts or habitats for you and your crew. There is so much variety in Starfield but with this much variety comes a problem... none of these things are done amazingly well. So instead of having a few focused items in the game, you have many sub par or mediocre items.
REPLAYABILITY
Hardcore Bethesda fans might find replay value in trying different activities, but the core story remains unchanged. The "infinite paths" touted in marketing are more of a gimmick than a reality.
BONUS — 1/4
The ability to remap controls is a positive for accessibility, but it’s a small consolation given the other issues.
OVERALL — 63/100
Starfield Was a giant letdown at launch, being one of the most hyped games of 2022-2023. After revisiting it and playing it for an additional 30+ hours and trying to absorb everything Starfield has to offer... I think I dislike this game even more. The game has a bland, stale Sci-Fi story with uninteresting characters and a multitude of uninspired tasks and mechanics. While the score improved after the revisit, Starfield is still far from deserving the 9/10 or 10/10 ratings it received from some reviewers.
TLDR: 63/100 (FAIR) Starfield remains a disappointment despite numerous updates and a more performance modes. The game suffers from a bland storyline, uninspired characters, and repetitive gameplay. Improvements in graphics and performance can't compensate for its lackluster mechanics and poor user experience. After an additional 30+ hours of play, my opinion hasn't changed much—Starfield still falls short of the high expectations set by both Bethesda and its hype.
Play it on GamePass if you are really bored...
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