Anyone who wants to downvote or yell at me over this feel free, but whoever buys Starfield on release is an idiot. Why? Because it is a Bethesda open-world game.
Now, I have sunk ludicrous hours into Bethesda games. But, for decades what has held true about Bethesda games is:
Each successive release removes RPG elements, and simplifies plot stuff
They are crazy buggy on release (including reintroducing bugs that were previously seen and identified, I'm looking at you FO4 vertibirds having the same bugs as Skyrim dragons)
Mods are what give them their legs.
Now, debating #1 is not really doable at the moment since Starfield isn't out (but what has been released of the character creation information is thoroughly unimpressive IMO). But, for anyone not expecting this game to be ridiculously buggy on release, I'll just refer you over to Internet Historian's summary of Fallout 76. And for the mods, while Todd has said mod support will exist I still want to see how things break down with creation club vs non-creation club mods, and even if we assume the mod scene ends up looking like the TES and Fallout games that will still take time.
If Starfield turns out to be junk, I'll just pass on it.
If Starfield turns out to be good, I'll give it 6-12 months, pick up the GotY edition with all the DLC (which we all know is coming), and by that point the worst bugs should be patched (either by Bethesda or the Unofficial Patch), the script extended will be out and basic quality of life mods should be there.
But there are no reasons I can see to pre-order it (or pre-order any games TBH) or buy it on release.
I'll be honest I'm just not that excited about Starfield. Even the prospect of them making TES6 I just don't really feel anything. It's almost been a full decade since their last game so that well ran dry years ago
If there's enough of a backlash against Starfield (Say, the amount that cyberpunk 2077 got), I think it might also pay into dragging down TES6 - I wouldn't be surprised if this game fails to make a franchise as it's a new IP and I still remember that there was already a lot of people who were pushed away when it was heard that they were using the buggy old creation engine rather than getting a new one, on top of the announcement being right on the heels of 76.
Me personally, this just isn't my kind of game at all. I think it will be another release that I find more joy in talking about than actually playing. Maybe if TES6 builds the same modding community skyrim did, I could give it a shake, but right now Bethesda's reputation precedes that.
That's bugged me about open world games for a very long time. Not that I haven't played them but it seems in a lot of cases it takes away from the game for me for it to be open world. I think in some ways it's better as a linear game, but in one spot instead of a cutscene with a minute to explain how you got on a truck to go from A to B or a limited outside area, they left it open, added some boring things around to do, and a pretty little dotted line to tell you where to go next if you don't want to do the boring things. But they added some very useful items in the boring things so while you can skip them you might not want to.
Every open world game I've enjoyed (especially past 5 years) really left me alone with a lot less guidance. It's boring following a GPS to the next objective.
I’m a huge Skyrim fan (still playing and downloading mods) but I think I will wait a bit before getting Starfield. I may get ES6 on release date though.
That’s the point of “Review” copies, isn’t it? It’s a fancy word for bribe. Disney did it for decades with parties and dinners for Disney bloggers. CD Project Red sent big sword editions to many “influencers” ahead of Cyberpunk 2077. Even E3 tickets were passed around for hood behavior in the early 2000s.
Standard scummy tactics, though how effective nowadays as it seems gamers are more jaded nowadays especially with how expensive things are that they'll see streamers play it first to know if it's a good buy or not.
I'd be lying if I said I'm not interested in Starfield, but there's no way in hell I'd ever preorder it or pretty much any other game. One of the perks of GamePass is not needing to pay full price for these iffy games.
I expect this to be the next Cyberpunk myself. I guess Microsoft hasn't really the reputation of buggy performance issues, but how much of a hand have they in making it? I guess I hope I'm wrong I don't think I really have any reason for it to fail.
I could play day one with game pass, not really planning on it. It just sounds boring and makes me feel like it's a game of landing on yet another nothing-world with a different color dirt to look for a different kind of colorful rocks to collect.
It's a butthesda game. Only a moron would buy this for anything more than 20 bucks for the everything included plus edition, and before a few years have passed.
Half the install base of the PS5, gimped for the Series S model, no hype, and day 1 gamepass install means this one is pretty much guaranteed to be a turd. Unless Microsoft is really willing to throw away millions to get more people to sign up for having their back library monetized against them.
Man, all the comments shitting on Starfield (justified as it may turn out to be) make me kind of sad, as I'll be getting it bundled with the computer I'm building, so will actually be playing it very near release. Don't kill my hype, guys! Especially since I've only been hyped for a week or two, since my current computer can't even play it, so I gave Starfield no thought over the years.
I don't know, I think it will have some definite issues on launch, but as long as it's not Fallout 76 I think it will be fine. A lot of the Bugthesda talk is just memes...which is not to say there aren't bugs, just that it gets blown out of proportion, and the majority of people aren't running into gamebreaking bugs. Now, should those bugs be there on a release for anyone to hit? No, that's pretty lame. My point is, for most people, Bethesda games aren't broken like the memes would have you believe.
I don't think Starfield will be perfect, and I'm not a fanboy, but I do think I'll have quite a bit of fun with it. Heck, I'll be excited to play any modern game, but Starfield does look like fun in a vacuum (hehehe, space joke!) also.
I hope you have fun with it! Tons and tons of supposed broken unplayable games have been fine for me. Hell, I played Cyberpunk the first week on an Xbox. Pretty bad? Yeah it wasn't great. But as a normal person playing a few hours in the first week it was really performance issues that were the biggest thing I can point to. You can probably gloss over those on a new PC.
Any lack of interest on my part is lack of interest in the game itself, I'm sure I could make it run on my PC at settings good enough for me. If you're excited for the game then well you don't share my lack of interest in the game itself so you're good there.
Tons and tons of supposed broken unplayable games have been fine for me. Hell, I played Cyberpunk the first week on an Xbox. Pretty bad? Yeah it wasn't great.
Yeah, and Cyberpunk console launch was apparently really bad. So if even that was doable, it shows how things get hyped up. Should they be releasing games in that state? Nope. But it still often gets exaggerated.
I think the only game I remember having severe issues with on launch was actually Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but I think that was mostly my computer anyway. Also, I generally don't play games on launch anyway, so it's a pretty small sample size.
If you think about media especially places like Youtube, what gets clicks "OMG LOOK AT TEH BUGS CYBERPUNK BAD" or "This game is ok"? So if you're wanting attention, go around look for messed up textures or glitchy stuff and make a video trashing the game.
Not necessarily excusing it, it was not great and honestly probably shouldn't have been on last-gen consoles. Driving around is still easily sub-30fps in most cases on my Xbox One X with an SSD in it. Just expectations can be ridiculous the demand at the end of a console life for 60fps? I mean why would that change now this thing has been doing 30fps games for years.
Yeah, the clickbaiting pisses me off. If you search "Starfield" on YT, it's mostly a bunch of different people all going over the same bits of recent news...but the "Shorts" that make it to the top are all people saying how terrible Starfield - you know, the game that isn't even out yet - is. How they know this? Unclear. But "Starfield is shit" apparently gets a bunch of clicks; most are hate clicks, but I guess they think it's worth it.
I'm with you. Well no, I certainly won't be getting it any time soon. But maybe in a year or two with lots of mods. Based on the videos I'm sure it will give me a good bit of fun for a while.
I can smell the buggy mess on release and the "funny" compilations on YouTube from here.
Why not just wait a couple of years and buy the bug-fixed version with all DLC for 80-90% off? There will be hundreds of high-quality mods and you can just work through your backlog until then.
Again, this goes back to my complaints about the way people were critiquing Baldur's Gate 3. Yes it is woke as fuck, there's no denying it now, but what most people were doing was on either side basing their opinions of a bunch of fucking memes that sprang out from their marketing material.
Why can’t you just take the L? You really are Scott Adams.
I'm going to come across elitist as fuck now but I honestly don't care, I think this is all part of a scam to replace true gamers who actually give a fuck about the state of games and critique the gameplay with fucking cringey political commentators and influencers and brainless normies who don't know any better encouraging them to buy their shitty broken products.
Sorry to break it to you, but that already happened. Decades ago.
"Major release game is unplayable mess at launch" isn't news. That's just standard for the industry.
"Game has penis configuration options and they're not just a joke" is news.
And there were like 2 or 3 threads about it over weeks or months. It's not like it was dominating conversation.
Well yeah, I'm in my mid-40s and I can't believe that people are willing to pay for buggy, unplayable, incomplete shit. Bethesda has never once released a game that was finished on release.
If having standards means I "sound old", then it's still miles better than sounding like a mindless consoomer. Which is what you sound like right now, just in case that went over your head.
Anyone who wants to downvote or yell at me over this feel free, but whoever buys Starfield on release is an idiot. Why? Because it is a Bethesda open-world game.
Now, I have sunk ludicrous hours into Bethesda games. But, for decades what has held true about Bethesda games is:
Each successive release removes RPG elements, and simplifies plot stuff
They are crazy buggy on release (including reintroducing bugs that were previously seen and identified, I'm looking at you FO4 vertibirds having the same bugs as Skyrim dragons)
Mods are what give them their legs.
Now, debating #1 is not really doable at the moment since Starfield isn't out (but what has been released of the character creation information is thoroughly unimpressive IMO). But, for anyone not expecting this game to be ridiculously buggy on release, I'll just refer you over to Internet Historian's summary of Fallout 76. And for the mods, while Todd has said mod support will exist I still want to see how things break down with creation club vs non-creation club mods, and even if we assume the mod scene ends up looking like the TES and Fallout games that will still take time.
If Starfield turns out to be junk, I'll just pass on it.
If Starfield turns out to be good, I'll give it 6-12 months, pick up the GotY edition with all the DLC (which we all know is coming), and by that point the worst bugs should be patched (either by Bethesda or the Unofficial Patch), the script extended will be out and basic quality of life mods should be there.
But there are no reasons I can see to pre-order it (or pre-order any games TBH) or buy it on release.
You pretty much nailed it. Starfield looks like it's got alot of potential, but this is a 'buy after a year' purchase for me, if ever.
I'll be honest I'm just not that excited about Starfield. Even the prospect of them making TES6 I just don't really feel anything. It's almost been a full decade since their last game so that well ran dry years ago
If there's enough of a backlash against Starfield (Say, the amount that cyberpunk 2077 got), I think it might also pay into dragging down TES6 - I wouldn't be surprised if this game fails to make a franchise as it's a new IP and I still remember that there was already a lot of people who were pushed away when it was heard that they were using the buggy old creation engine rather than getting a new one, on top of the announcement being right on the heels of 76.
Me personally, this just isn't my kind of game at all. I think it will be another release that I find more joy in talking about than actually playing. Maybe if TES6 builds the same modding community skyrim did, I could give it a shake, but right now Bethesda's reputation precedes that.
I just watched the internet historian- NO WAY has this company learned from that disaster.
And no way do they deserve my money
That's bugged me about open world games for a very long time. Not that I haven't played them but it seems in a lot of cases it takes away from the game for me for it to be open world. I think in some ways it's better as a linear game, but in one spot instead of a cutscene with a minute to explain how you got on a truck to go from A to B or a limited outside area, they left it open, added some boring things around to do, and a pretty little dotted line to tell you where to go next if you don't want to do the boring things. But they added some very useful items in the boring things so while you can skip them you might not want to.
Every open world game I've enjoyed (especially past 5 years) really left me alone with a lot less guidance. It's boring following a GPS to the next objective.
"it's greatest crime is its boring" oh yeah? How many hours do you have in it so far? None? Interesting
Oh snap, hot take here
edit: /s
forgot that sarcasm communicates terribly over text, whoops
I’m a huge Skyrim fan (still playing and downloading mods) but I think I will wait a bit before getting Starfield. I may get ES6 on release date though.
I wouldn't give the Guardian a free copy either.
Yea, I was like "that sounds scummy". Then I read who was complaining about not receiving review copies. Now I'm all "I'm ok with that".
I'm not in a hurry for articles why Starfield is "too white and toxic" and how it "idolizes colonialism".
That’s the point of “Review” copies, isn’t it? It’s a fancy word for bribe. Disney did it for decades with parties and dinners for Disney bloggers. CD Project Red sent big sword editions to many “influencers” ahead of Cyberpunk 2077. Even E3 tickets were passed around for hood behavior in the early 2000s.
Oh no! Won't somebody think of the poor games journalists who won't get a free copy of a game. :(
I don't trust any reviewer that gets a free copy. It should be standard practice that you have to buy it to review it.
Standard scummy tactics, though how effective nowadays as it seems gamers are more jaded nowadays especially with how expensive things are that they'll see streamers play it first to know if it's a good buy or not.
I only trust Tyrone’s stream.
https://youtu.be/kRo6we-HPVE?si=AHy1RBEgFzEBKaDz
edit : sorry for posting this bootlicker criticizing Tyrone. But you get the idea about Tyrone
I'd be lying if I said I'm not interested in Starfield, but there's no way in hell I'd ever preorder it or pretty much any other game. One of the perks of GamePass is not needing to pay full price for these iffy games.
I expect this to be the next Cyberpunk myself. I guess Microsoft hasn't really the reputation of buggy performance issues, but how much of a hand have they in making it? I guess I hope I'm wrong I don't think I really have any reason for it to fail.
I could play day one with game pass, not really planning on it. It just sounds boring and makes me feel like it's a game of landing on yet another nothing-world with a different color dirt to look for a different kind of colorful rocks to collect.
It's a butthesda game. Only a moron would buy this for anything more than 20 bucks for the everything included plus edition, and before a few years have passed.
This is going to be even worse than Fallout 76.
Half the install base of the PS5, gimped for the Series S model, no hype, and day 1 gamepass install means this one is pretty much guaranteed to be a turd. Unless Microsoft is really willing to throw away millions to get more people to sign up for having their back library monetized against them.
Man, all the comments shitting on Starfield (justified as it may turn out to be) make me kind of sad, as I'll be getting it bundled with the computer I'm building, so will actually be playing it very near release. Don't kill my hype, guys! Especially since I've only been hyped for a week or two, since my current computer can't even play it, so I gave Starfield no thought over the years.
I don't know, I think it will have some definite issues on launch, but as long as it's not Fallout 76 I think it will be fine. A lot of the Bugthesda talk is just memes...which is not to say there aren't bugs, just that it gets blown out of proportion, and the majority of people aren't running into gamebreaking bugs. Now, should those bugs be there on a release for anyone to hit? No, that's pretty lame. My point is, for most people, Bethesda games aren't broken like the memes would have you believe.
I don't think Starfield will be perfect, and I'm not a fanboy, but I do think I'll have quite a bit of fun with it. Heck, I'll be excited to play any modern game, but Starfield does look like fun in a vacuum (hehehe, space joke!) also.
I hope you have fun with it! Tons and tons of supposed broken unplayable games have been fine for me. Hell, I played Cyberpunk the first week on an Xbox. Pretty bad? Yeah it wasn't great. But as a normal person playing a few hours in the first week it was really performance issues that were the biggest thing I can point to. You can probably gloss over those on a new PC.
Any lack of interest on my part is lack of interest in the game itself, I'm sure I could make it run on my PC at settings good enough for me. If you're excited for the game then well you don't share my lack of interest in the game itself so you're good there.
Yeah, and Cyberpunk console launch was apparently really bad. So if even that was doable, it shows how things get hyped up. Should they be releasing games in that state? Nope. But it still often gets exaggerated.
I think the only game I remember having severe issues with on launch was actually Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but I think that was mostly my computer anyway. Also, I generally don't play games on launch anyway, so it's a pretty small sample size.
If you think about media especially places like Youtube, what gets clicks "OMG LOOK AT TEH BUGS CYBERPUNK BAD" or "This game is ok"? So if you're wanting attention, go around look for messed up textures or glitchy stuff and make a video trashing the game.
Not necessarily excusing it, it was not great and honestly probably shouldn't have been on last-gen consoles. Driving around is still easily sub-30fps in most cases on my Xbox One X with an SSD in it. Just expectations can be ridiculous the demand at the end of a console life for 60fps? I mean why would that change now this thing has been doing 30fps games for years.
Yeah, the clickbaiting pisses me off. If you search "Starfield" on YT, it's mostly a bunch of different people all going over the same bits of recent news...but the "Shorts" that make it to the top are all people saying how terrible Starfield - you know, the game that isn't even out yet - is. How they know this? Unclear. But "Starfield is shit" apparently gets a bunch of clicks; most are hate clicks, but I guess they think it's worth it.
I'm with you. Well no, I certainly won't be getting it any time soon. But maybe in a year or two with lots of mods. Based on the videos I'm sure it will give me a good bit of fun for a while.
Got to inflate that metacritic score?
I can smell the buggy mess on release and the "funny" compilations on YouTube from here.
Why not just wait a couple of years and buy the bug-fixed version with all DLC for 80-90% off? There will be hundreds of high-quality mods and you can just work through your backlog until then.
I just looked it up for the first time, and holy cow, game looks like garbage. They must be allergic to style at ol' Bethesda.
Bethesda doesn’t make games, they make modding platforms.
Why can’t you just take the L? You really are Scott Adams.
Sorry to break it to you, but that already happened. Decades ago.
"Major release game is unplayable mess at launch" isn't news. That's just standard for the industry.
"Game has penis configuration options and they're not just a joke" is news.
And there were like 2 or 3 threads about it over weeks or months. It's not like it was dominating conversation.
you are not entitled to review copies.
Why buy it? It's going to be on Game Pass anyway
Bunch of salty old boomers in the comments here I swear to God, y'all sound about 45 and groan and moan like it too.
Well yeah, I'm in my mid-40s and I can't believe that people are willing to pay for buggy, unplayable, incomplete shit. Bethesda has never once released a game that was finished on release.
Sorry you're a glutton for abuse.
If having standards means I "sound old", then it's still miles better than sounding like a mindless consoomer. Which is what you sound like right now, just in case that went over your head.