Starfield: Bethesda is Stuck in the Past (Sincere Criticism)

This is a bit of a different video. I went back to Starfield to see if I wanted to cover any of the lore and instead it became a critique on Bethesda as a whole. Not rage bait, just sincere criticism from someone who wants to love Elder Scrolls 6!

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[kalaelizabeth]

Some of yall are really upset about me saying Larian showed up out of no where and yes! They did. No one was expecting BG3 to be what it was, even during early access. So yes people were expecting a great game, not a revolutionary one I think that's pretty obvious and a silly thing to argue about lol

[Kat-qevk]

Starfield frustrated me so much because it felt like every time there was an opportunity for something unique or even just interesting to happen, Bethesda decided to run as far as possible in the opposite direction. And as far as companions are concerned, Fallout 4 had way more interesting, varied companions than Starfield, Starfield is actually such a step backwards and that's crazy. Fo4 released in 2015! Companion writing should have gotten better, not worse. I truly don't understand what happened here

[dulany]

The writing is just boring and doesn't hold up when compared to other games. Worse, the lore is uninteresting.

[jgj]

The senior team (Todd, Emil, etc.) did not originally create either Elder Scrolls or Fallout. Todd inherited Elder Scrolls when the original senior team left Bethesda after Daggerfall, and Bethesda acquired Fallout when Interplay went bankrupt. Todd and team had enormous success that speaks for itself building upon the worlds they inherited, but they did not lay the foundation. This was their chance to show their chops at world building from the ground up, and . . . they are just not good at it.

[shoosh]

Here comes the wall.

Probably the worst thing about this is that the same happened back in 2015 when Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 released about 6 months apart, and Bethesda didn't really improve or learned some obvious lessons from back then. Fallout 4 also did try to go for more characterization, voiced protag and more cinematic look for dialogs, but it was received very poorly because Bethesda often stops half-way into thinking through their designs. Their writing in general feels like it is completely disconnected to the level design or other forms of presentation. The entire philosphy often looks like "best-effort assumption of what writing can be in this particular place" instead of just getting people together to make something coherent.

Not to mention this constant tug-of-war when Bethesda wants player to be unburdened with any sort of complex decision making, while sometimes offering solid characters that have some complexity to them to explore. I remember a comment from a friend once that Bethesda wants to be Bioware sometimes, but they never really understood how to do it, and some character end up being palatable almost accidentally.

The other major pitfall is that Bethesda insists on making player a chosen one (I guess they still can't get rid of Oblivion trauma), while the rest of the world doesn't really adjust to that. This gap between what are you supposed to be vs your actual place in the world is something they still cannot bridge. They don't even give enough time for you to accept your role as someone or even buy into it, because they keep shortcutting your "ascension" to some imporant status with every game. Not even 10 min into the Starfield, and you already get a ship and a robot and unwarranted trust from other characters.

It also doesnt help when the protagonist's writing is done in a way that they are almost a complete newcomer to the world, which leads to a ton of just stupid moments of "tell me everything about the government under which I was supposedly living for years". Which one do you want me to be, Todd? A faceless avatar, or a character, or a dress up doll, or a chosen one, or what?

Bethesda games are so player-centric, this creates this almost a tunnel vision that entire world exists to serve the player only. NPCs are barely interacting with each other, and if they do, it is some contextless nonsense that often happens just once. People were complaining about lack of NPC schedules, but it was not only because those systems were a staple for games like Bethesda's, but also because it is one of the basic tools that ensures authenthicity of the world and helps people to get immersed just a little bit better. It is already difficult to suppress your disbelief in Bethesda games, but they are indirectly insisting with their design decisions that people don't need those systems and those things, they need more god damn LEGO aka ship building and such. I like LEGO, but c'mon. It is just funny that the ship building and housing are the things that end up with the better fidelity, while the rest of the game is lacking a follow-up.

The way they prioritize their features is just weird. This is not a direction, it is exactly the lack of a proper grip on things. And with players already having barely any agency or place in the world, you can't even do something basic as dress up as you see fit because they will most likely spend time making realistic scans of various food items than add more equipment slots.

PS: I fully expect TES6 to have magic schools removed and introduced with magical everything-soup "where you can do anything".

[MorphyVA]

I dropped the game when my wedding with Sarah Morgan was just us and another npc just standing in a beach lol

[flyingsquirrels]

Starfield is the game that peaked in high-school.

[diegolopezpresa]

The thing that killed this game for me was when I tried to fly to a planet and realizing I was not getting closer and had to teleport there. I wanted to fly my ship around, to go somewhere, not just teleport from point A to point B and then from there to C.

[cw]

My reaction to playing Starfield really was the parent going "I'm not mad, just disappointed". I wanted to love it so much but now I'm side-eyeing TES VI which I hate to say.

[Protege]

Larian didn't just sneak up out of nowhere they've been here. They ascended with Divinity Original Sin 2 and with Baldur's Gate 3 pretty much cemented that they're the top dog when it comes to RPGS. I remember saying how Larian, Obsidian, CD Projekt Red and Owlcat surpassed Bethesda years ago but I'm glad people are starting to see it now. Bethesda has fallen off and I don't think ES6 is going to be what brings them back to glory

[SSMugen]

Todd Howard can't keep getting away with this

[Dude]

Emil Pagliarulo in a recent article said that he thinks Starfield is the best game they have ever made. TES 6 is dead. By saying that Emil has just confirmed that TES 6 is going to be just as statrfield. Procgenned, efortless, Boring SLOG
I had to force myself to finish the last hour of this new DLC, and finally I cleared this game off my SSD.

[whskyflvrdinslt]

You have more patience than I, friend. I think I managed to log about seventy hours into Starfield before I uninstalled it. That's coming from a 39 y/o gamer with numerous BGS titles under my belt from Morrowind to FO3. I was hyped like you because I thought "BGS space game? oooo shiny" and it wasn't shiny :(

[auntdee]

Starfield could have benefitted from any of these:

Starting with the evacuation of Earth
Taking place during any of the wars
Aliens
Fewer worlds, curated content...but Shattered Space makes me think they're incapable
Uses for the ships you build
Choices that matter
More meaningful companions
No Unity and freaking stupid jumping universes. Fix this one.
More meaningful exploration...instead of just abandoned human buildings with copy/paste enemies.

It reeks of AI involvement. Badly used AI.

The random citizens are all procedurally generated and don't react like those in Skyrim.


It's like all of it was just AI created which is what Microsoft said they'd be going to.

[SynthLizard]

"It plays like Skyrim in Space" IF ONLY that was true!

Skyrim gleamed brightly with it's ambience, aestetic, the music and world is just ASMR euphoria with creeks, nature and the soothing, deep music, it had a immensely cozy vibe to it.

Starfield feels like the most sterile versions of sci-fi tropes all just mushed together in a incoherent mess: Akila City is a retro-futuristic cowboy aesthetic with using such terminology such as a bar named the "Hitching post" when some consider Earth a myth, let have animals to hitch or know about horses, Neon is the most sexless, gritless cyberpunk city ever, no one to mug you, everyone being neighbourly, New Atlantis....I mean the name is the only thing distinctive about it.

[AfonsoVMSP]

I'm still hoping for exodus 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[Nubii_]

I’m not gonna lie, but I was expecting Starfield to be a better version of Mass Effect Andromeda. It probably would’ve been a massive success if it went off of MEA’s bones imo

[jungtothehuimang]

I think their biggest issue is that they know modders will pick up their slack and so they create games with the intention of them being modded. The gameplay, story, charactrrs, and even the engine are so incredibly stagnant, tired, and old.

[giantpunda]

Emil recently said in an interview that he considers Starfield the best Bethesda game.

They're not going to learn. With some serious removal of a lot of senior devs, expect more of the same lifeless medicrity for future DLC & Elder Scrolls 6

[kanakawase]

Larian hires actual writers. CDPR hires writers. Bethesda has their designers do their writing. The flaws with that approach are made really apparent with Starfield.