Starfield steam page for the DLC currently shows eight user review score of 41%, making this one of the worst Bethesda DLC’s released of all time. This is so horribly, shockingly bad for Bethesda, because it shows as a gaming company, they are no longer capable of delivering a really good gaming experience as they had in the past. Some of the reviews sum up quite nicely what is wrong with this DLC…
Less content than any skyrim DLC. Less than The Fallout 4 story DLCs. Doesn’t change of the complaints people had with the base game, writing is still at a 4th grade level.
Quick: If you are looking to buy my answer is no, you aren’t missing much content. I was really hoping to enjoy this DLC. Took about 4 hours for the main story and maybe 2 more hours to 100% the achievements.
These two reviews I think really summed up what Starfield has become, $70 for an AAAA title that has extremely little buy-in from the community, horrifically low amount of replayability and can be breezed through easily. It’s mind-boggling to see this
Sometimes I wonder whether Starfield truly deserves all the bad publicity or whether people are also still upset because it became an Xbox exclusive and that is clouding their judgement. I know it does affect me for one. I got a ps5 for gaming and I’m automatically much less interested in anything that isn’t on the platform. And I was of course very disappointed when Microsoft outright bought all these huge IPs and made them exclusive to Xbox.
Well with an average in the 80s on metacritic one would assume it’s a very decent game. But user reviews tend to be a lot harsher indeed.
The UI and perk system is actively hostile to playing the game. It was one thing when you could always try to pick the lock in Skyrim and the more locks you picked the better you got. Now you must take the perk and it’s a requirement to pick locks before the next perk.
You cannot even craft or use core gameplay mechanics without perks. Booster pack? Perks. Targeting sub systems? Perk. (Which is hilarious because it’s in the tutorial mission and they just hard coded the event ship not to blow up. So until you visit the Internet you don’t actually know how to board other ships)
Out post building is ridiculously complex, resources take up a bajillion spaces in your inventories, there’s no guidance on production chains, and basic resources aren’t even on the same planet. So you’re back to just buying resources to get it off the ground and why are we even building an outpost again?
To be fair, the story, the fly here, shoot this, listen to story parts of the game are fine. But literally everything else around it is made as obtuse as possible because yes I want to go through a loading screen every time I need to access my main stash.
As some one said when it released. It’s Fallout 4 in space. But if all the ancillary stuff was made 100 percent more inconvenient.
I was on Windows at the time and had GamePass, so I pleasantly had access included with what I was already paying for. I ended up pirating it so I could mod it (that is prevented on GamePass), because it needed mods.
No, it’s not negative because it’s MS owned. It’s a very bad game. I love older Bethesda games and I love sci-fi. This should have been an easy win for me. Wow, it was disappointing. The actual combat gameplay is fine, but everything between combat sucks. Too many loading screens taking you out of the gameplay.
The writing sucks. They make use of established sci-fi tropes, but then they don’t understand how to make them work in a story. They give you very few choices, often not including the most obvious ones.
Despite this being the “exploration” game, exploration is essentially non-existent. Every planet pretty much has the same stuff. There’s like five bases that spawn everywhere identically, and a handful of “natural” points-of-interest, which appear all over the planet identically, as well as being the same as every other planet with the same ones. You might see some benefit to explore if you’re building bases, but that system is incredibly clunky and frustrating to make operational. Even once you have things running, it’ll still require managing storages from overflowing and blocking incoming supplies. It’s really bad.
The universe is incredibly unreactive too. If you thought this was true for their previous games, it’s worse in Starfield. There’s no ships bringing supplies to colonies. No colonies being built that weren’t there at the start. No fighting between factions, besides pirates randomly and it’s the same random event that happens when you warp into a place, not something that happened because pirates are raiding a supply line or something. It just doesn’t change ever.
Basically, no. Starfield actually sucks. I really wanted to like it, but there’s nothing to like in my opinion. I’ve seen some people say they like it, but I honestly don’t get it. Every aspect seems like a downgrade from FO4, which had its own issues but had reasons to like it too.
Thanks for the review. Disappointing to be sure. I was hoping to play it at some point and that it wouldn’t suck as much as people say it does. Or that they would turn it around in time.
Still give a try, it’s not for everyone and it’s not to the same quality as their previous games but it’s honestly not a bad game. At worst I’d say it’s aggressively average. But I still have a great time with ship combat and exploration, the loading doesn’t bother me as much and people act like the quests and writing are BAD, They are not, it’s just not to the level of their previous games. But there are still a few quests I absolutely love.
I was holding out hope that the modding scene would help support the game, because traditionally speaking Bethesda modders have done some incredibly amazing work on other titles. But no, alas, Starfield is such a fuckin’ trash fire that not even the modders are willing to put in the work to unfuck this heap of shit. Somebody might release a killer overhaul for it after they’ve had a couple more years to basically rewrite the entire engine, but frankly I don’t see anyone caring that much about this game to make it happen. I know of at least one guy who rather than getting involved in the mod scene, instead got on Steam and said fuck you, I’ll make my own fuckin’ Starfield, and started whipping up Spacebourne 2, and even this half-baked early access alpha jank has clear signs of being the seed of a better game than Starfield was. I’m sure that others have had similar ideas.
I feel like starfield is an experiment in user driven content (mods) to sell a game. The issue with Skyrim is that there is really only one map, and before any map extension mod came out, there were so many mods out there that competed for space on the map. Even today, large world overhaul mods are constantly stepping on the toes of other mods. City redesigns are also a problem unless you’re really good at load orders and merging.
Starfield feels like each world is an open map, ready for people to start designing content: either a colony, a cave, or anything really. The story seems loose and open ended so that it won’t interfere with large collaborative content. It’s not a game they are selling, but a modding storefront. It’s like Skyrim Creations, but putting the horse (armor sold separately) before the cart.
Remember when Cyberpunk fucked up their release. They knew they fucked up and owed it to the gamers. They told their board and stockholders to hold off, and that they needed to rebuild trust with their users before they could make line go up.
So they took their time, they redid many of the mechanics that people didn’t like, the fixed all of the bugs, and then they released Phantom Liberty - one of the best expansions I have ever seen in gaming history. Good enough where it could have been a game on it’s own.
That is how you rebuild trust with the community. You tell your stockholders to shut the fuck up and let you do what you do best. If they don’t trust you to do that, then fuck em, they can sell their stock, why are they holding stock in a company they don’t trust?
Post-2.0 Cyberpunk is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in a long time. You can tell it’s a product of effort, and love for the project. They have taken in a considerable amount of feedback from pre-1.5.
Meanwhile, Starfield is a complete miss in just about every way imaginable, and the expansion has followed through the same footsteps. On top of that, the studio actively gaslit people who expressed disapproval, even when it was constructive criticism.
Did they fix the driving?
That was the one and only reason I gave up the game. It was amazing from the start, and then I got in a car and it was horrible, and I stopped.
Bad cars don’t have good maneuverability is you full press the speeding stick, I imagine that that stick is an acceleration pedal and only full press it when I don’t need to do sharp turns. I would say that cars feel maybe too real.
I fully expect them to say it’s getting “review bombed” now, which is the current industry redefining of a term to make it come off as “It’s not us, it’s the stupid gamer’s fault”
Same with No Man’s Sky. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but they buckled down and delivered on almost every promise that they failed on back at release. Not only that but every update since the game came out has been for free. Both No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk are fantastic games, and they were garbage on release. Bethesda has been doing the opposite approach and avoiding feedback from fans since Skyrim came out the first time.
Saying NMS delivered is pure copium. It has become a great game in it’s own right but it’s not the game we bought into at launch and never will be.
I mean, it all hinged in the fact that under all those glitches and bugged mechanics CDPR still had a nice game. Starfield can’t be salvaged cuz the core game is just mediocre shit.
I wanna say it’s a failed IP at this point, but who knows how many copies sold. What is sure is it doesn’t deserve any more of my time. I have the DLC but won’t reinstall that garbage
It certainly sold a lot. Bethesda once claimed to have over 10 million players across all platforms. Even if we assume half of those were using gamepass, that’s still 5 million sales.
Of course, if you compare it to Fallout 4’s first 6 months, with reported 12 million sales on day-one, that’s a significant letdown.
Starfield is a very real “could have been”, if only [huge list of changes] happened.
I might need to revisit cyberpunk, I didn’t know an expansion was ever released. I kind of hit max level doing mostly side quests within 4 months of launch and lost interest.
They changed a lot, but in a good way. I had also spent a while away from the game and came back recently for the expansion. It’s really good.
I would suggest starting a new character from scratch if you pick up the DLC. You’ll really appreciate the new changes to cyberwear that way.
I’ve had it sitting in my library, maybe it’s finally time to play it. Which is the better voice actor to pick, dude or chick?
It’s pretty legit. It stands on it’s own, and they also improved the base game quite a bit. I’d suggest it for sure
I was having fun, despite the flaws at launch. I’m sure with improvements and more content it’ll be a great one to revisit.
Cyberpunk was buggy, unoptimized, and kind of unfinished, but the fundamental game design was sound.
Starfield on the other hand is broken at its core. The Bethesda RPG experience just does not translate to the open worlds space map they built the game on. So they can’t take the cyberpunk approach because they’d have to build an entirely different game from scratch.
I don’t know why anyone decided that that engine was the right way to go. The number one thing that killed the game for me was the endless loading screens. Constantly. Whenever I started feeling immersed, a new loading screen would pop up and it ruined it for me. We have engines left and right that don’t need to do this anymore, but starfield, the game that’s trying to base itself to be a realistic exploration game, decided that endless loading screens were still the best way to go
That was one of the things that really helped with the immersion for me in Witcher 3 and even Cyberpunk. You walk into a building, house, etc and the world outside just continued and was present. I’m still quite impressed with their engine and it is a bit sad that they’ll be switching to UE5 for the next Witcher.
even without the loading screens it would still be terrible. get a quest, go to your ship, take off, travel to other system, land, exit your ship, walk to destination, reverse all that to turn the quest in, rinse and repeat. it’s just a tedious experience.
the best part of Bethesda games is just being able to wander around aimlessly in a pretty environment, likely stumbling upon little easter eggs or side quests along the way. none of that exists in Starfield.
On that note, how is Cyberpunk still 60 euros on Steam? I know it’s been getting better with the DLC and everything, but the game’s been out for ages.
That said, I might have to buy Phantom Liberty. I bought and finished the base game like 2 or 3 years ago I think and I really enjoyed it even back then.
Personally I think it’s worth it, it’s one of the few games I happily would pay full price for again. They did a full redemption arc, their game is now up there as one of my favorites of all time, next to Witcher 3 and RDR2. I think they deserve my money. What I really think is that Cyberpunk deserves 60. How the fuck can Assassin’s Creed think that they’re on the same level (or higher) than that?
I just finished playing it for the first time and I was blown away right from the start! Guess I’m glad I waited for the polish, but the world design, voice acting and overall storyline was absolutely fantastic. I couldn’t help feel bad for all the artists that clearly put a lot of love in to the world only to be overshadowed by bugs and poor implementation.
The difference is, there is no fixing Starfield, it is rotten to the core. You would have to re-do most of the story elements and writing, and the disjointed, empty world. On top of that you’d have to fix the bugs and technical limitations like the constant loading screens. At this point you would be throwing out most of the game and basically starting from scratch with a few systems done, like the ship building and possibly gunplay.
I think cyberpunk never became what many wanted, but if you let go of your expectations, it is a good game.
Funny thing is that shipbuilding also felt annoying to me. There were so many arbitrary restrictions that I felt like I couldn’t actually make the ship I wanted, it always felt the same
That’s exactly how I felt too. I tried SO MANY times to build the ship I wanted. Never could get it done. I even console-command-cheated vendor stock to allow myself access to every part at my home base, and even STILL THEN I could never get it the way I wanted it. It was important to me for role-playing purposes for every crew member on board to have their own bed, and a good kitchen, living space, bathrooms, etc… Stuff that just makes sense for a spaceship that is essentially a flying house. But so many times I could never get the damn ship builder to do what I wanted. I’d change some random part, and then BAM some of my beds would disappear for no reason? Ok well now two of my crew members have nowhere to sleep. wtf.
Just wound up abandoning my entire build and going back to the same ol ship I’d been using the whole game.
spoiler
It’s also absolutely bizarre to me that the end-game ship, the one I had been looking forward to for SO LONG is just completely and totally 100% empty. When I had my crew members on board, they just stood still in place and stared at the wall. What the hell is going on here!??!?!?! That really ruined the entire ship for me. Could never get over that.
I dislike the narrative that something is “unfixable”, everything is fixable if there is a will to do so.
I don’t know why game developers seem to have inhibitions of changing the game too much after release. For instance reworking and extending the main story in a game seems to be a big red line for them.
For instance I would have wished in Cyberpunk 2077 to actually play Vs introduction into Night City and the individual fixers myself, instead of just watching a cut scene. A DLC could have extended the start of the game a bit.
The same for Starfield, they could extend and improve the main story, characters and locations in an update, but seem hesitant to do so. Something like directors cut, that adds cut content as well as tons of side quests into the game.
If people still want to play the original game, they can make the extended story optional, like sleecting what version you want to play at the game start.
For bugs, they could work together with the community and the “unofficial patch” and engine fixer modders, instead just ignoring them. In Skyrim SSE for instance they still had many of the same bugs that Oldrim had and where fixed by thr community.
Bethesda could improve, and even fix their games, if they would decide to do so. Their DLC just doesn’t seem to be worth what they ask for, it could have been just part of a free update, so that some more people buy the base game.
they could extend and improve the main story
I don’t think they can.
I have a strong suspicion that truly talented writers who are able to build memorable stories in great worlds are few and far between, and those that are willing to work in the games industry of today are as rare as hen’s teeth. Most companies, including Bethesda, simply don’t have the talent at hand to fix their mess, or there wouldn’t be a mess in the first place. The truth is probably somewhere between this, and the ol’ “eh, good enough”.
I just ment you’d have to cut so much that at that point it would basically be a new game. I’m thinking a bit more from the dev point of view. Like an old rusted-to-hell car, everything is fixable. The question is cost: if you have to replace or re-fabricate every piece than you’re better off starting from scratch.
I’m the case of Starfield, changing the core story, characters, missions, and theme is basically the same as replacing the entire car body.
Not really. It isn’t as good as Far Harbor aeven though the world building is better and more interesting. Of course it’s way worse than Dragonborn. But it’s definitely better than Nuka World and Automaton. And also better than the Pitt and Mothership Zeta even though it’s difficult to make comparisons with Fallout 3
I’ve given up on every major developer/publisher, so-called AAA garbage, except for capcom for monster hunter and square enix for final fantasy. I’ll be extra sad the day they too go the way of every other greedy lazy “AAA” game company…
At least indie devs care to make a good game and not try to make a money printing IP machine with some game like aspects in it.
$70 is going to be the new normal price for AAA. Prices haven’t increased in decades. I don’t like it, but that’s what it is. It’s not AAAA because of the price, nor is that even a thing.
AAA comes from credit rating scores. It essentially means nearly guaranteed returns. It was used to identify games that need to be stocked for game stores. AAA is going to sell. AA is slightly less but still good. Etc. There is not AAAA credit rating. That was just stupid marketing buzzwords that don’t matter.
Even Capcom I’m not preordering. If wilds is getting good reviews a couple days after launch I’ll get it. (Even though I’m pretty sure it will be a good game)
oof ffxvi? the “rpg” which is just a action game. ff vii remakes are at least good.
Still better than Horse Armor. So no, not Bethesda’s worst DLC.
