Starfield, Bethesda’s latest first-person sci-fi RPG, is under a lot of flak on Steam. Read on to learn more.
Starfield Ends The Year On A Bad Note
Starfield Under Fire
Starfield is under a lot of player criticism on Steam, dropping to "Mostly Negative" in its recent Steam reviews. It has an all time "Mixed" review rating of 65% and a recent review rating of "Mostly Negative" at 28%. Comparing the rating on Metacritic, the game has a Metascore of 83 and a user score of 7.0 which IS a decent rating, but not exactly stellar for a game that was continually touted to be one of Bethesda's new flagship games.
Starfield was released last September 6 and was hyped up to be Bethesda’s next big thing while their other franchises are still being developed. Its release was met with plenty of criticisms and many labeled the game as mediocre and boring. Many cited that the game doesn’t innovate or build on top of its previous big releases like Skyrim and Fallout 4, and just uses the same formula they’ve had for years.
When Hype Does Not Meet Expectations
Starfield is by no means a bad game. The negativity surrounding the game is more of a by-product of the hype not meeting expectations, or not blowing Skyrim’s release out of the water. Bethesda released Starfield as their most stable product on launch. Sure, it had a couple of performance issues, but it wasn’t to the level of bad as the release of their older titles. It also has tons of content with branching questlines, a pretty well-written story, and a great innovation to its New Game+ feature. The hate also seems to stem from people who enjoyed Skyrim a little too much and are maybe looking at Starfield with rose-tinted glasses with their unrealistic expectations thinking that Starfield was gonna be the next game of the decade.
It features a fully explorable galaxy filled with planets and such, but this is where Starfield falls apart. It has a lot of things to do and explore, but they’re not exactly deep, rewarding, or interesting. Many of its criticisms are also towards the reliance on loading screens, making it feel like Bethesda’s Creation Engine is leagues behind in terms of performance as compared to other open-world games that have seamless transitions when traversing through their fast-travels. Ironically, the game feels dated. In a game where it’s full of technological advancements, it feels like Bethesda lagged behind everyone else.
Starfield’s Future in 2024
Bethesda CEO Todd Howard mentioned that the game was "made to be played for a long time," and yes it does have the means to do so. However, the interest in the Bethesda formula with their releases has drastically dwindled, and players are looking and expecting for something more. Bethesda promises that there will be updates coming in 2024, as well as the "Shattered Space" DLC. But whether or not the game can pull off its own redemption arc and turn it around similar to Cyberpunk 2077 with their latest updates remains to be seen.
