I don’t think I’m a Bethesda gamer. Starfield was my best chance at converting into a fan of their style of RPG, but a clunky interface and glimmers of interesting narrative didn’t help this ship stick the landing.
I tried. I really did try. The formula is great on paper: Space + Ship Combat + NASA Punk = sign me up. But then comes the menus, the loading screens, the 100th time seeing the docking or takeoff animations.
Starfield is a game of repetition. The first time you flip on your grav-drive magic happens annnnnnd then you see it every time you wish to traverse back to your lodge or that next system over. It turns space into a series of nav-points and endurance battles with patience. More props to you if you explore all 1000+ planets.
There are glimmers. For every note on a dead space pirate leading you to a wild adventure straight out of comics, you have fetch quests, mining quests, and other filler stories that you have to repeat over-and-over because you want to complete the quest but a clipping bug is messing with you.
Did I mention bugs? Too many random glitches prevented me many times from completing a mission. It was great. Grrrreat.
Maybe somewhere there’s a me that likes Starfield and what Bethesda lays out. For this universe’s version, they’re glad they paid only 16.99 via Game Pass instead of retail.