Two years ago, Bethesda launched its biggest game since its acquisition from Microsoft. Advertised to be one of the biggest space explorations games yet and 25 years in development. Sadly, there ended up being many mixed reviews and it did not win an award at last year’s VGA Awards or the year before. I preordered this game and have been playing it off and on for two years. I have spent a total of 11 days on it so far. Let’s get into it …
Starfield Direct
I’d like start with the Starfield Direct presentation. I thought it was good all the way through. It got me hyped quite a bit. I’m not a big fan of anything that’s an RPG of any kind, so that’s saying something. The team clearly takes pride in what they have done. You are introduced to the main base where your whole team is stationed with cities and civilizations to explore. Much awaits you as players are going to get to tell their own story with what you will encounter. I was ever more so amazed with being able to explore over 1,000 planets. Each containing its own wildlife and whatever else could be in there. I haven’t even came close to finding that many planets yet. My favorite moment was how you can play it the way you want for the combat. If stealth is your thing, you can do that. If you’d rather just blast through anything in your path, you can go for it. One Bethesda staff member pointed how he likes to talk his way out of things. Being able to pick dialogue lines where you can possibly get an enemy you encounter to avoid combat, that one definitely got my attention. This is one of the best conferences I had ever seen going into a game.
The Gameplay
I’m going to first say that you cannot rush through this game and quickly get to your objectives. It wasn’t made for that. The amount of exploration is just as advertised. You just don’t know what you will encounter and whether or not you will get attacked. There’s times where you will have to take an alternative route to get to your destination. Some critics of the game have said that there is not much to see in many of the planets. I have explored 32 planets so far. Some have more activity than others. In any case, each one has a vast amount of land. There are weather hazards in some of the planets more than anything else. You will find interesting looking structures, camps, and landscapes that will tempt you to stop and checkout. In some of my missions, I’ve found some buildings that I have gone in and interacted with people that have nothing to do with the mission I’m on. Some people may just try to kill you on the spot. I’ve seen some interesting looking wildlife. Some look like dinosaurs, in fact, many that I have seen look like dinosaurs. Some also look like bigger versions of farm animals such as the groats. It seems as if they are made after mountain goats. Some of the wildlife will initially attack you and some will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Whatever you decide to do as you visit planets, drive the rover. It will save you time, give you protection, and help escape situations. I was one of those that played the game before the rover got added in and it helps a lot. You can even upgrade the gun turret on the top of it. Being able to fire it from the drivers seat is quite useful. There have been times when I have approached an enemy base and just stayed in the rover while I fired back at the enemies that attacked me. If you are struggling getting around rocky areas, the jet propulsion will help as you can hover over obstacles.
You are going to learn how to conserve your ammo. I had to learn the hard way as I would just go on missions thinking that I would just pick up what I need along the way. That’s what I am used to do doing. In Starfield, you will pay. Just because you encountered some enemies with weapons, doesn’t always mean they will drop what you need. I did the first few missions with mostly a laser cutter. I found lots of ammo that went to guns that were no longer useful for me as I went along. It wasn’t until I figured out how to trade items, make outposts for minerals to sell to a store, and where stores were to earn money so I could then put together an effective weapon layout. In fact, before you put yourself into too much combat, explore around. Learn where the weapon stores are and where you can go to get more health. Completed missions will award you money too. But you will need to make sure you have the fire power you need and the health you need. The top right shoulder button on the Xbox controller will ping all the businesses in each planet you are in. If you can find a guide for this game, I recommend getting one, or there is always YouTube.
Mass Effect fans will like this one. It is basically the same idea, but bigger in every way. One of the biggest things you’ll notice is the dialogue. This part was one of the key highlights of the press conference. This where you will find how you like to play. You don’t know have to put up with anyone if you don’t want to. When confronted by an enemy, or someone that is turning on you, you can say heck with it, and break out in a fight. If you don’t prefer that, you can go with things and hope that you can reach a settlement peacefully. Be ready either way to pull out your weapon and engage in case your talks fail. If you are trying to save ammo, might want to talk your way out things. That was a strategy I found.
This leads right into the combat itself. If there is anything that doesn’t disappoint in Starfield, it is the combat! Things will get intense fast. The background music and all will get your heart beating. So far I have not found myself in many situations where I could just pick a few people off and be done. Other enemies will be nearby and if you’re not paying attention, you will get attacked when you least expect it. You will have to quickly decide in many situations whether you should go find cover, or even just get out of there if you can. That is unless you are confident enough to blast right through. Reloading takes awhile, so watch your bullet count. What’s even more important than that is again, finding where the ammo shops and hospitals are in the planets that have them. You will need to restock ammo, possibly buy more weapons, and restock on health in between many missions. This is why you would want to build an outpost somewhere to make resources to sell. Dialogue lines will sometimes give you an option to talk someone into paying you for you willing to help them in some side missions.
If you played Mass Effect and you thought that trilogy had a lot of side missions, Starfield has just as many. You’ll walk by people overhearing conversations. Some of them will engage in conversation and will ask you to help them out. The game’s layout for all the missions is well done. As each mission becomes available, it will appear in a list in the Missions Section when you pause the game. There you can view what is not completed and what is. The missions have a symbol next to them on the left side indicating what kind of missions they are. Primary missions for example, will have a Starfield logo. It makes it all easy to look for what you want to take on. Once a mission is selected, a light blue circle will appear on your scanner to lead you where you need to go. With how much there is to stop and look at, you will be using the scanner a lot.
Technical problems that seem to be in Bethesda’s games, carry into this one. Nothing quite as bad as Fallout 76, but there are a few I have encountered. Some side missions won’t acknowledge that you completed them, even though you have. One mission had me go find five particular shotguns and return them to a guy. Even though I did so, the dialogue line even failed to show up so I could tell him I found what I needed.
If you were hoping for something similar to No Man’s Sky, where you can land and launch your ship, you will be disappointed. It is all automatic as it goes to a loading screen until your ship lands or is back in space. You can try to go towards a planet all you want. You are not going to get any closer to it. It would have been cool to be able to experience each planet’s atmosphere. While it is a dealbreaker to many, I don’t think it ruins the game. Space fights are just as intense. You will need to buy ship parts for your inventory. You can heal your ship using them.
Ship customization is one area where the game shines. Perhaps it may be the most detailed I’ve ever experienced when it comes to customizing a form of transportation. Everything you see on every ship you own can be adjusted. I have had the most fun so far deciding what colors I want. Maybe you want your head part of the ship green, your thrusters blue, and the whole back side yellow. You can mix and match as you experiment around. Using your credits to add weapons, improve the engines, and so on, will be important if you want to win your space fights. I’ve gone into some space fights so far not being ready enough and get destroyed fast before I can high tail out of there. Don’t let that happen to you.
I have managed to complete the Shattered Space expansion missions. You can download it instantly for free. In this, you are basically trying to save a planet called Va’Ruun. Much like the rest of the game overall, you will explore the world, and meet the people in it. Your job is to help them eliminate a threat of enemies looking to take over called Zealots. They are a cultist group of people that wear armor that makes them look ghostly. Their religion comes from their spiritual leader called the Great Serpent. They have threatened to take over the Settled Systems of Starfield with their power. You must locate their base and destroy it, which will make the zealots go away. Many of the missions were tough, but it was fun to play through. Do not use any of your special abilities you may have gained up until you do these missions. They will not work on the Zealots. You’ll need to put together a weapon load out that will take them about the best. One weapon that would be good against them is the legendary particle beam pistol that some of the Zealots have. If you aim right, you can take some of them out in one shot.
So there you have it for my thoughts on Starfield so far. It wasn’t everything it was hoped to be, but it still delivers quite a bit. Much to see and explore. I’ll come back to this later on for some final thoughts once I beat it. In the next article, I will go back to PRGE 2025 for some final thoughts on that.
Comments
2 responses to “Starfield: Initial Thoughts”
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Great thoughts!
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Thanks!
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