Starfield is one of the biggest releases of the year. Ten years in the making, the anticipation and hype was immense for the next big RPG from Bethesda, billed to be Skyrim in space.
Man this game is bad. Ten years in the making and it shows - Bethesda's Creation 2 game engine (an upgraded version of the engine used to make 2011 Skyrim and 2015 Fallout 4) is old and crumbling. For a modern day RPG it is not seemless open world but every single action is instanced with a loading screen. The graphics are really bad - they look 15 years old - even Mass Effect 2 which came out in 2010 (13 years ago) looks better. Character models look ugly, environments have static foliage, really Bethesda should be ashamed charging £60 for this game when compared to older games like Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, GTA and Red Dead Redemption. In order just to make the game passable players are having to install tonnes of mods to make the game look better and also remove the horrible green tinge the game has. For a modern game it is missing loads of standard features such as brightness controls, HDR and a FOV setting. The game also does not have DLSS (only AMD FSR which isnt very good). Thankfully a modder has made a DLSS3 hack which improves my frame rates from 65 to 115 FPS. Due to backlash the devs have now said they are going to put these settings into the game in a later patch. (Edit: 2 months after release the devs have implement DLSS and frame generation and HDR - Now I am getting 145-160 fps over the previous 115 fps with AMD FSR )
Character creation has a lot of options, but the character models are ugly and I found when I created my toon, the character in game looked completely different.
In addition to the bad graphics, the interface is incredibly clunky and difficult to use. The map is useless. The quest log doesn't indicate which of the 1000 planets that the quest is on - you just have to rely on the hud quest marker which leads you back to your ship so you can fast travel to the quest location.
The inventory is terrible and its difficult to decide which items are good and which are not.
As for combat it is reasonably easy and space fights aren't too hard compared to some space games. Unfortunately when fighting npc's they are all bullet sponges.
With regard to gameplay generally, the game is boring. I'm about 20 hours in and it's mostly fetch quests - eg go speak to A to get the laser weapon that will save humanity. You fast travel to speak to A but he says the laser weapon needs a battery so go speak to B on another planet. You fast travel to go speak to B and it turns out the battery needs acid so go speak to C - you get the idea. All the quests are like this. There is just no excitement in the game.
Most of the game is taken up with long lines of dialogue when talking to NPC's and I end up just skipping through it.
The game doesn't have any mounts - it really could do with a space buggy when landing on a planet, but it's all on foot to your quest objective. Most planets are sparse so you can find yourself simply running for 10 minutes.
The game also has far too many keybinds to master.
I've come across a few bugged quests (including the main quest) where you just can't complete it.
The game has shipbuilding where you can modify or design your own ships. This sounds great in theory but it's so badly implemented it seems most people aren't bothering.
The game has to be installed on a fast SSD/NVME otherwise on a HDD there is massive hitching and framedrops. It seems incredible that an offline single player needs an SSD.
I have experienced lots of crashes, although some of these are likely to be mod related.
Starfield has no level cap and it feels like there is no progression. It never feels like my character is getting more powerful. There is an ability perks system which is needed for many things like lock picking etc.
As for value for money, this is likely to be a very long game that will get DLC and expansions and mod addons which will probably give it a longevity of 10+ years for fans, but given the state of the game in terms of poor gameplay and graphics , it does not justify its AAA £60 price tag.
The only redeeming feature of this game is its epic music score.
Lot's of people will love this game simply for being set in space and for the fact its a Bethesda title, but looking at it objectively this is a poor game for 2023. If it had come out in 2010 it would have been considered a masterpiece. However technology has moved on and largely left behind Bethesda's old Creation game engine.
With the DLSS3 Mod I get 115fps at 4k. (Edit now get 145-160 fps with proper DLSS3 and frame generation)
Graphics 5
Sound 10
Gameplay 5
Story 7
Stability 7
Value for money 7
Fun Factor 5
Overall 6 - Fair
Review Deck:
4k 120Hz 55" Samsung Q95T QLED screen
Ryzen 5800X3D CPU
Noctua NH-D15 Cooler
Zotac RTX 4070ti Trinity 12gb gfx card
MSI B450 Pro Carbon mobo
32gb DDR4 Patriot Viper 3200mhz CL16 Ram
2TB WD SN770 NVME
Razer Nari Ultimate wireless headset
Logitech G13 Gameboard
Red Dragon M811 Pro mouse
Drevo 60% wireless RGB mechanical keyboard
EVGA 650w GQ 80+ Gold PSU