Where to begin? Starfield is a game of immense scale, billed by Bethesda in the build-up to its launch as so utterly enormous that the possibilities were almost endless. Do I tackle the main story, I wondered, or should I journey on endless sidequests? Perhaps, I might instead gather thousands of cheese wheels and horde them across the galaxy! In the end, I feel as though I’ve sampled more or less everything the game has to offer. Indeed, my Starfield review is very different than any rushed impressions I might otherwise have done. I’ve taken my time to really explore as much of the cosmos as I possibly could. In the end, it has become apparent that Starfield‘s promise of freedom is ultimately its prison.
Do note that I will be talking spoilers, so heed the warning if you want to keep the experience fresh.
Story: Space and Time
Like most of Bethesda’s prior games, Starfield thrusts you into the role of a nameless character. You start as a miner but quickly find a mysterious artifact that gives you a glimpse of the galaxy and its splendor. You will soon be put forth on an adventure that offers a brief hands-on tutorial of core gameplay mechanics. Specifically, the opening hours are spent in character creation, gunplay, piloting, planet-hopping, checking out massive cities, and getting far too distracted by more sidequests than I could be bothered to count.
The main thread will have you come join a group of space pioneers called Constellation. They are a crew of like-minded individuals bonded over the promise of exploration and discovering the true meaning behind the artifact you’ve uncovered. This part of my review is where my spoiler warning comes back into effect. Starfield‘s story during my time in the review was my biggest surprise: I don’t play Bethesda games for the main plot. In fact, most of my fun in their worlds comes at the expense of it.
You adventure around the galaxy, finding artifacts, and those artifacts lead to more temples that grant some powerful (Anti-Grav) and useless (Sense Star Stuff) magical abilities. After discovering a handful of these, a mysterious race known as Starborn appears. They clearly don’t want you to have these powers, and you’re left to wonder who or what they are.
The mystery at the core story was intriguing to me. It was far more fascinating than an alien race hell-bent on galactic destruction or playing the savior who must save the galaxy by your lonesome. As each layer of the narrative unraveled and answered one question, another equally compelling riddle took its place. The Starborn are human, like you. Every time somebody collects all the artifacts and enters what is known as “The Unity,” they are reborn in a parallel universe. This narrative thread ties directly into the concept of New Game Plus, which Bethesda has never really experimented with before.
The concept of experiencing the story as a new version of you is a fantastic way to innovate how New Game Plus works in a hundred-hour RPG. Being able to speak to the group and tell them, “Hey everybody, this is how the greatest mystery of the known universe is solved, so let’s skip the busy work and get right to it”. All of this is why I was so surprised by the story; I just didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.
The fact that Starborn only hints at something greater, as it becomes clear, Starborn or not, humans didn’t create the artifacts or the Unity to begin with. This still leaves a very tangible but mysterious thread that I’m still itching to learn more about as I played more and more of it.
After entering The Unity, the death of your physical form and the big bang of a new you is a haunting and jaw-dropping sequence that gave me goosebumps and made me feel how small we all are against the sheer, infinite void that is our universe. Sadly, the awe I felt during these climactic sequences was a rare and often fleeting emotion during my moment-to-moment gameplay.
Gameplay: Galaxy in a Box
The first few moments of Starfield hold so much promise; I thought this review would be easy to write after experiencing the well-constructed opening. Within the opening hours, you will engage in your first gunfight, get a ship, land on a planet, spend an hour exploring a low-gravity moon, and then arrive at New Atlantis. It truly feels like a living, breathing, authentic metropolis. It bustles with NPCs galore, named characters to recruit, and the mission tracker fills as you stroll through the streets. Once the majesty of the opening moments begins to fade into the double-digit hours, however, many of the theatrics make way for the reality of their production.
You see, the biggest issue with all of those elements I mentioned before –the quests, combat, flight, and exploration– are just as compartmentalized as the sections of this very review. Each system is designed to fit and support each other, but the thread tying it all together feels abstract and flimsy. Your ship is fun to fly in and explore, but the world inside it exists in a vacuum. Brief but frequent loading screens block off every major area. The vast majority of NPCs vital to the plot can’t be killed, and they rarely move from their stations. Oftentimes, you will see a massive spaceship descend from the sky, then land and unload a long line of soldiers, who will run 3 miles towards you just to attack you. Such an event might be thrilling initially but gets old quickly once the instance repeats itself multiple times.
It’s just so easy to see the walls all around you. Once you see them, it’s almost all you notice every time you try to experiment or deviate from what the game wants. I’ll explain with one small example: I was in a police station and murdered three cops. One of them was a named NPC so that he couldn’t die. I walk out the door and pay a fine. I immediately walk right back in, and that same immortal story character sits at his chair and asks if I want a job and wants me to have a great day.
That would be all good except that the dead bodies of his two friends I murdered just a minute ago weren’t laid out across his desk. The constraints around each facet of the gameplay force many gameplay systems to clash against each other. Every time this clash occurs, all immersion is scattered to the wind. It’s another example of hitting a wall and not being able to tailor the scenario how I envision it in my head and translate that to the game. Now, this may seem like I’m being a bit harsh, but technically, most games don’t like it when you try to color outside the lines and expose their inner workings. Starfield‘s ambition and surface-level scope do an excellent job of pulling me in and grounding me with the aesthetic that the parts that don’t work became all I could see for a while.
Graphics and Audio: NASA Punk is Stunning
A big part of why that surface-level scope works so well to pull you in is because it all looks so good. I played Starfield for my review primarily on my Xbox Series X, and despite the 30-frame cap, I was getting a next-gen visual treat. The NASA Punk style that Bethesda used is incredible. Suits, guns, ships, interiors, it’s remarkable how tactile and tangible everything looks. Yeah, you catch the occasional glimpse of the Bethesda jank in there – NPCs talking to you with their backs turned or a ragdoll or two that goes haywire after a kill – but the visuals are breathtaking far more often than they are buggy.
The audio complements the visuals at every turn and, in some ways, even surpasses them. The notes and orchestral score that play over the opening logos immediately sets you up for something magical. Every level-up is punctuated with a triumphant blast of horns that doesn’t get old, even after hearing it 95 times.
Conclusion: Cosmic Theories
All of the writing in this review was a long, winding road that ultimately brought me here — this conclusion. I have had moments of a perfect experience during my Starfield review period, stories I will remember about exploits I stumbled into. I also have as many moments where the Bethesda DNA betrays its fantastic presentation and immersion.
I sometimes swung from one extreme to another while writing my Starfield review. Sometimes, I’ll play and only nitpick the flaws I run across, but then I stare at my clock, and it’s 4 a.m. It’s almost frustrating how close elements of Starfield gave me a glimpse of THE ultimate space adventure. If I had to describe the game in one phrase, it would be this.
Starfield game is a rugged, workman-like approach to a space RPG that uses surface-level technical wizardry to disguise a foundation built like the set of the Truman Show. I have a ton of problems with my review of Starfield, but I keep playing it. I found my fun and freedom inside Starfield‘s many walls, and perhaps with some patience, you can find yours.
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