After five long years of waiting and rampant speculation, Starfield finally released this year on September 6th. Was it worth the wait?
Positives:
Starfield has some of Bethesda's best cities out of all of their games, New Atlantis, Akila City, Neon, Paradiso, Cydonia and New Homestead are all extremely interesting areas with tons of side missions to do.
The combat in this game is very easy to get used to and is extremely fun.
The amount of content you get in this game is what you expect when you pay £70/$70. It's truly a testament of how much bethesda love making video games and their passion for them.
Faction quests are also fantastic in this game, the UC Vanguard quest line being my favourite had an incredible movie like story with great action set pieces. The Crimson Fleet storyline was so much fun playing as an undercover agent trying to damage them from within. The Freestar Collective quest line has this awesome mandolorian feel to it as you become a space ranger. The Ryujin Industries quest line is probably the weakest of the bunch but still has great moments as you climb the slippery corporate ladder to get to the top.
Negatives:
Starfield feels extremely outdated. Facial animations and controls are very early 2010s and the game just doesn't flow very fluidly. The bethesda "jank" is just unacceptable these days.
The abundance of loading screens is ridiculous, it is so immersion breaking when you have to load everywhere.
Starfield unfortunately suffers from the typical bad bethesda main story. It is extremely uninteresting and the amount of missions that are just fetch quests is ridiculous and time wasting.
The companions in the game are just flat out boring, there are no companions with personalities (except Andreja) everyone is just objectively good and morally righteous, it's so annoying. If you had bad karma in fallout 3, you would attract companions that were also scum bags, why not bring this back?!?
Exploration outside of the main cities is really disappointing. There is absolutely nothing to see and do, no interesting planets or Easter eggs. It makes the game feel so small and artificial.
Lore in this game isn't that interesting either, it's not bad but nowhere near the level of elder scrolls and fallout. It is very generic.
Overall Starfield is a good game that is held down by Bethesda's outdated game design, mediocre writing and old engine. Here's hoping Bethesda listen to a lot of the criticisms for Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5.
