People leave steam reviews when they've played a game. There's no deadline. So why wouldn't new reviews be coming in? It happens to all games. Why should Starfield be different?

Fair, but here's the thing:

1. It's a big release with a life cycle. Big release by the guys who made Skyrim? it's going to continue to get new people even after it's life cycle officially ends. So as long as Bethesda keeps digging themselves deeper instead of out the hole they made, the negative reviews and press will keep coming; by these new folks and the current players who see Bethesda basically making the situation worse in order to give any curious buyers a warning to be mindful at what they're going to throw money at. Do some people sometimes go a bit too scathing in their takes? Sure. But honestly? I'm not gonna blame em. I know a disillusioned person when i see one, and disillusioned or otherwise, they're still not at all wrong with most of their complaints.

2. the "hater" thing...yeah, most of these aren't haters. If they were bringing up BS claims, sure (See: The Pronouns thing). But the majority of "hate" this game is getting is....actual shortcomings the game has, or for the pretty crappy responses the devs put out in response. Dare I say it, most of the "hate" is by actual fans of Bethesda. Again, very disillusioned likely now former fans, but yeah. Haters don't spend the energy to go this indepth about something, fans passionate about the thing typically do tho.

Like i said in my other comment, the camel's back broke for a lot of people after 13 long years. Not 5 or 3 years, 13. Even more if you were a Bethesda fan before Skyrim.

Its getting regular updates. I think every 6 weeks. Each new update will disturb the water, when it either breaks what few mods are out already and someone quits fixing it, or when the update fails to fix/creates a new bug and someone finds that to be too much.

Then a new wave of annoyed people will reignite the conversation.

Youre also going to see each time that more and more people start talking praise on the game. As some people do just like it as is, and as updates repair or add enough things that some people are willing to consider "enough" to undo the previous flaws.

How much of each depends on if those updates are actually ever good, or if theyre lackluster or fail to stick to the called shot schedule.

It's because the people leaving negative reviews now are the opposite of haters.

We're the people who still gave a damn, who were willing to put the effort to play the game, who found at least part of it entertaining enough to keep playing despite all the frustrations, who dared hope that the next quest or world or NPC would bring back the feeling of playing the old Bethesda games.

We're the people who the game finally managed to break despite how much we tried to enjoy it. Who gave up in frustration after the last crash made us lose all the time we'd spent customizing our ship (my case), who lost the will to play after realising we knew what we'd find behind that corner or locked door because we'd already encountered them half a dozen times in exact copies of the same building in half as many planets, who after weeks of trying to find the same sense of wonder we'd found in previous Bethesda games finally gave up after the umpteenth unfulfilling quest bland generic NPC, or cookie cutter location.

And we're the people who, even after all that, still had enough respect for a company that had once made games we'd loved not to post a negative review... until, instead of acknowledging the game's faults and trying to fix them, Bethesda started attacking reviewers for their opinions and defending their poor design choices.