The fact that this game was actually nominated as "best RPG" with the likes of baldurs gate 3 and final fantasy XVI is ludicrous enough.

It’s just so bland and formulaic. Against deep RPGs like BG3, it just pales in comparison.

The Best RPG list is basically Baldur's Gate 3, and four more games to make it look like it has competition. It doesn't.

I still think TotK is a better game overall than BG3.

I have not played it. I love scifi and open world games, but the trailers never spoke to me.

The universe looked so generic. I know Bethesda tried to force the label of “NASApunk” (whatever that means) but it just ended up with the same aesthetic of all those DeviantArt pages where people draw angular, scalloped metal scifi greeble over modern pictures. I didn’t feel any kind of vision coming out and grabbing me.

That’s aside from all the optimization and technical issues that I hear are bad even by Bethesda standards.

I'm curious what the design, and reaction to, of Starfield might say about what we'll expect from ES6. For three games now (Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield), have been marked by Settlement building and Radiant quests.

While radiant quests were there in Skyrim, in these later games it felt a lot like Bethesda were making it a core part of the mission design structure. There are a lot of blurred lines in Starfield that make it difficult to tell them apart. (That's more a comment on main missions being so generic than the radiant quests being so good, unfortunately).

Settlement building seems to be a core part of Bethesda's DNA now, and I wouldn't be surprised if the narrative follows a Kingmaker style where you build up a settlement of rebels over time or similar. I imagine the other ES staples will be tied to this too, Thieves Guild = establishing a branch within your new settlement to attack Big Bad Evil Vs joining an established one etc.

I really wonder how much of this poor reaction to Starfield makes its way through to actual change, but my feeling is ES6 will have a lot of hype, but similar feelings of disappointment. I hope I'm proved wrong.

Don't worry Bethesda, you can try again at next year's game awards after you've fixed the bugs and modders have added the features!

Painfully average is how I'd describe it. There's games with better graphics, better RPG elements, better open world, better space sim, better procedural generation use, better writing, better any one thing (except maybe ship building?). For a game that promised it all it's turned out to be your average jack of all trades, master of none.

What's the point in making a game "as stable as possible",
when it's not even fun?
Aren't you just polishing shit at that point?

I love Starfield, not as much as I love Skyrim or even Morrowind, but I really love it.

I am at 160ish hours and have seen only a small amount of the quests and barely touched the base or ship building part. There is so much in the game and with the innovative spin on new game plus I am able to build my own narrative again and again. I can play the perfect angle in one NG+ and a devil in another, I can be the freedom loving Ranger in the next, a mad loner who only interacts with others as much as needed to finish his perfect planetary base, or a starship fanatic who wants to collect and/or build the best ships.

You don't have those kinds of freedom with Baldurs Gate 3 or other RPGs, you can't really leave or mostly ignore the narratives of those games to create your own, not on the scale as it is possible with Starfield.

Starfields quests are fun, yes they are all separate from each other but that is in my eyes a good thing in this case as it allows to play the game as you like.

All the quests are like basic Lego blocks, you can connect them together in any way you want but they don't change each other but that's not needed as I have my own narrative and stories in my mind for this run or character.

Sure, games like Baldurs Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2.0 have better storytelling, better NPCs, but they are at the same time extremely limited and narrow experiences, sure you have side quests and all but once played the game that's mostly it.

Starfields freedoms come with limits like the loading screens sure, but that is a price I am willing to pay for having a sandbox like universe to explore and roleplay in.

As a pure entertainment product, that can be consumed without any own creativity, is Baldurs Gate better, without doubt. But as a expansion tool for your imagination, that's where Starfield (or any other Bethesda RPG) shines.

But as a end note: What have the Starfield developers consumed when they created the utterly bad and boring temple "puzzles". In Todd's name WHY????

It got a best audio nominee at the golden joysticks and a best rpg at the game awards. Taking up air that could have been used for actual worthy contenders but big money's get the auto nomination

Yeah, it isn't the best game, so it doesn't belong between the nominations.

Also because so many amazing games came out this year.

But that doesn't make it a bad game though. Had plenty of fun with it.

Yeah. It's a good game. That's all. Pretty formulaic and not Bethesda's finest work. Good, but nothing award worthy.

I enjoyed it for about 70h, then i got sick of all the loading.

I just need properly updated skyrim. Better graphics, similar amount of loading screens, better npc's, better mechanics but the same old fantasy setting.

Oh and all the mods, something about sculpting my own vuloptuous barbie doll character to turn into the ultimate killing machine.

I played it for 30 min and did not enjoy it past the first 10.

Starfield bad

When a game like Hardspace has better writing than your game, you fucked up.

Which is not a knock on Hardspace by-the-by. It's just that writing isn't the focus of that game, and even Blackbird said, "let's take a big swing at this anyways".

Jankfield's poor technical and creative debt have come full circle.