Windows Central Verdict
Reviewing Starfield was a mission.
It’s unnecessary to emphasize how big it is.
Starfield pushes its Creation Engine to the absolute limit, and cracks of age are indeed beginning to show.
Neon City is a stunning and dense example of hand-crafted goodness in Starfield.
Our Starfield review is here.
This has been one of my most grueling review cycles in recent memory.
My body also decided to contract some kind of space virus, with a fever triggering auditory hallucinations.
In reality, my girlfriend was sadly not offering me a sandwich.
But why are we using two writers for this review?
I beelined into the much-advertised piracy with Crimson Fleet, indulging in exploration gameplay and ship-to-ship combat.
Everyone on our team has spent over a hundred hours on the game and had wildly different experiences.
Those who stick with the experience may discover it as their next favorite game.
Starfield is a thought-provoking, daunting, and landmark experience for Bethesda Softworks, with a bright future ahead.
Other stories: 100-200 hours.
Given Bethesda’s notoriety for glitches, I figured it was probably a good place to start.
I’m pleased to report that Starfield is Bethesda’s most immaculate game launch to date.
Neon City is a stunning and dense example of hand-crafted goodness in Starfield.
Given its scope, the game is polished to a mirror sheen, which is a genuinely Herculean achievement.
That being said, the engine is undoubtedly showing its age.
When Starfield’s visuals deliver, oh boy, theyreallydeliver.
The vistas in Starfield range from drab moons to absolutely mind-blowing alien savannahs.
Gravity drives have enabled humanity to chase the stars and escape Earth with a dying magnetosphere.
Someone at Bethesda wasverypassionate about food item design, too.
Its density hides something interesting around every rusted corner.
Starfield’s alien fauna are varied, and often deadly.
Seedy bars, corrupt politicians, and desperate underclasses carve out a dire existence.
It’s within these hand-crafted locales where Bethesda’s art style and environmental visuals really shine.
But like I said in my introduction, the high highs come with some low lows.
Starfield’s ship-to-ship combat is stellar.
However, they’re aliens maybe they’re supposed to look that way, right?
I didn’t care about ugly NPCs when I was a teen exploring Oblivion.
Still, I adjusted to it over time.
Starfield’s gunplay feels tight, although enemy AI can be erratic at times.
I didn’t care when I was a teen exploring Oblivion.
I didn’t mind Xbox’s 30 FPS while putting hundreds of hours into Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Coming across from Fallout 4, you can customize personal outposts and rooms in Starfield, and create an automated flow of credits to fund your space activities.
To that end, Starfield should prove a suitable platform for fresh content for years to come.
What if you’re not interested in that aspect of the game, though?
In that instance, some of the trade-offs may not be worth it.
I love building ships in Starfield.
One of the most powerful experiences I had with Starfield’s combat was in zero-G.
Inside, it had been taken over by nameless raiders, but there was a quirk.
The ship’s artificial gravity mechanisms had become intermittent.
You can visit pretty much any ship, planet, or installation you can find in space, and occasionally, you may come across lasting experiences.
One of Starfield’s biggest problems pertains to its early pacing, I would say.
The intro to the game is not great and is arguably the weakest I’ve seen from the studio.
Long-time Bethesda fans may relish Starfield’s openness, but I think newcomers will suffer cognitive overload.
Starfield aims to cut through the vast melancholy of the universe as it delves into humanity’s most complex questions.
It reminded me of my first attempt to play Oblivion I didn’t get it.
“Wait, I can doanything?”
I did, and I’m oh-so-grateful for it.
Starfield’s companion gameplay, and the relationships you form, play a massive role in the game’s story.
Without spoiling the events, I would argue that some set pieces represent Bethesda’s best-ever work.
I sorely hope you stick with the game long enough to reach them.
The game has a vast abundance of load screens, owing to the vastness of its world.
You will find yourself in all kinds of strange places in Starfield’s main story and primary faction quests.
Encumbrance can also hinder fast travel, of course.
Carrying too much space junk prevents you from immediately traveling halfway across the galaxy.
Much like Todd’s infamous quote about Fallout 4 base building, however, “It just works.”
See you, space cowboy.
Providing you have enough fuel, that is.
Personally, I absolutely love Starfield’s ship combat.
Enemy ships fall apart into their constituent pieces in a glorious fireball when you emerge victorious.
I would say some of Starfield’s weakest gameplay aspects pertain to exploration.
I’ll rarely land on a planet and find something interesting.
Exploration traversal is also a bit of a chore.
If you’re playing as a pirate, it’s always fun to rob unfortunate traders jumping between systems.
You could’ve even sold mech horse armor, Bethesda!
(Don’t give them ideas.
)Why can’t I ride on Vasco’s back or something?
To be fair, occasionally, the radiant quests do deliver.
The zero-G combat experience I mentioned above was one such instance.
I found a derelict space station casino full of credits to pilfer.
Where Starfield really burns brightest is in its story gameplay.
I’ve enjoyedHitman-esque stealth missions as an aforementioned Crimson pirate.
I’ve explored mysterious alien structures as part of the explorer’s organization Constellation.
I’ve become a deputy for the space rangers.
I’ve traversed decaying battlegrounds of irradiated mech skeletons and roaming xenowarfare bioweapons.
It’s not long after that Barret from Constellation arrives on the scene.
This feeds back into the exploration of the galaxy and the questions these unknown artifacts represent.
Religion and God are recurring themes, too, alongside the motivation for simplybeing.
Spending time with them grants the possibility of friendship, new stories, dark mysteries, and even romance.
You’re not technically required to deepen your companionship outside a select handful of missions.
“conversations between friend groups.
Bethesda is no stranger to impactful moments.
Stepping out of the Vault in search of your dad in Fallout 3.
Skyrim’s story of the world-devouring Alduin and the trek to stop him.
That hasn’t been the case in Starfield.
There’s almost a meme amongst long-time Bethesda players that the main story quest should be an afterthought.
More than anything, that’s the uniqueness of this adventure.
It’s not just the journey but what it asks you to consider.
But Starfield is the most impactful story Bethesda Game Studios has ever told by a considerable margin.
Yet it does so without neglecting that side content that players know and love.
Starfield is the most impactful story Bethesda Game Studios has ever told, by a considerable margin.
The choices you make matter, and they’re informed by what skills you have.
There are a fair few characters with ‘plot armor’ invincibility, some I would argue unnecessarily so.
But despite all of it, Starfield is a surprisingly personal story that wants you to ask questions.
It’s difficult to impress the grand scale of Starfield’s moments without going into spoiler territory.
You’ll have to trust us and power through.
Starfield: Conclusion
Starfield tries to do a lot.
The uncanny, mannequin-like NPCs degrade otherwise excellent voice acting and story delivery.
Omissions like planetary vehicles are also glaring in the context of the game.
However, when Starfield delivers,it truly deliversin a big and bombastic way that only Bethesda Softworks can.
See you, space cowboy.
Bethesda rewards the faithful with one of Microsoft’s best exclusive games in over a decade.
With great storytelling and an exciting new world, Starfield is a triumph.
