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Todd Howard says it took 7 years to make Starfield fun to play: "I thought we would find the answers faster" (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 1 year ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[-] Knusper@feddit.de 20 points 1 year ago

I feel like this is emblematic of why many AAA titles are so dull.

I mean, you gotta give Bethesda some props here for developing their own engine. Indies don't do that.
But still, 8 years ago, they had this idea of a Bethesda game in space. Maybe they should have seen it coming that this concept won't work out terribly well, but ultimately someone decided to go ahead with it and then they spent 7 years building a space physics simulation, procedural planet generation and so on.

There was no way, they could have not released this game after realizing the concept doesn't work out terribly well. Or taken a step back and shifted the focus of the game towards space flight. Or taken a step back and deviate from the Bethesda-typical formula for this space theme.
These are options you have, when you've spent a few months prototyping, not after multiple years. They had to roll with the concept and basically try to bruteforce the fun into it.

[-] Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

Blizzard, back in the day, was willing to simply can games, even highly anticipated ones, when they didn't meet their standards, even after a couple years of work. StarCraft: Nova, Lord of the Clans...

And Square-Enix managed to take an MMORPG that was already released, tear it down to bare bones and completely rebuild it to make it good, with FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.

So it is possible to completely redo something if it doesn't work out...

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Anyone who wants to make a space exploration game needs to play The Outer Wilds. It has one star system all the planets are about 10 miles across and the game resets every 20 minutes and there is no combat, and yet it's still an infinitely better game than StarField. Why?

Because it actually has things to do and explore and interact with. Everything you do has reason to it, It has intention. There's nothing in the sidelines that was added just a pad the experience out because it's embarrassing having 11 quadrillion planets and nothing to do on any of them, so better add some random quests.

this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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