Ya happy now, Todd?
Fool me once and all that crap stands for nothing I guess, because I've been lined up to be fooled once again. However I am approaching everything with the caveats ready to mind, which I think adequately preps me for a game which at least at one point it's life was described as 'The Next Cyberpunk'. Yes, we all know that has led to a substantial delay but just let me remind you; Cyberpunk was delayed for half a year. Remember that? And also don't forget, Cyberpunk's big issue was not that the thing was buggier than the Aussie outback, that was the garnish on top of the cake, the problem was that the game oversold its features in a bad-faith advertising campaign to try and succeeded in brainwashing the public. And compound on top of that the fact that Bethesda have done similar lie campaigns, although not quite on the same scale as CDPR, for their 'Fallout 4 Wasteland Workshop DLC' (The flagship feature didn't function as implied and was never patched to work) and 'Fallout 76', who's many shortcomings are a matter of wide public record at this point. But taking all of that to heart... I'm still excited.
God, do you want to know how pumped I am for a new Bethesda RPG? I've literally been playing my heavily modded Skyrim save throughout the past two weeks, that game still has me hooked all these years later. I even tried to hop around to the numerous other big games I need to finish, and Skyrim just pulled me back in with it's tenacious grip. When they do it right Bethesda can craft the sort of playgrounds you just absolutely cannot put down and Starfield is a chance for that to hit the drawing board once again with an entire franchise! Something utterly disconnected to the worlds of Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and we've gone through these release footage clips with fine-tooth combs; everything is new, if there are any recycled assets the team are hiding them well. I may not agree with every choice the team made from a design standpoint, such as to go more 'science fiction' over 'science fantasy', (I guess Fallout is pretty 'science fantasy' on it's on, huh.) now it's finally revealed I can at least appreciate that their vision doesn't totally suck. At least not as far as I can tell right now.
The big problem right now is the fact that the gunplay looks bad. Actually, it looks really dull, as in, more dull than Fallout 4's combat; which doesn't make sense to me. I think that may be somewhat because Fallout allows itself to be gory and from what I can tell, Starfield absolutely does not. We see one character blasted in the face with a shotgun and they barely squirt a bit of blood, and another is rocketed into the air and blows up, only for his body to go ragdolling into orbit. I understand that this is yet another example of the ways in which the various Bethesda franchises aren't just one series wearing different skins, (like Ubisoft games) that each series has their own styles and artist choices, but if you're going to take away the satisfying responsiveness of location based damage causing dismemberments, you have to replace that with something! Punchier guns, better sliding, compressive hit detection; I know that Bethesda aren't actually the kings of combat but there's no reason we need to start become complacent in that department to the point of mediocrity. Work it out team!
But of course Bethesda pick it up with the world building because that is what they do best. Many are going to have trouble latching onto what was shown in this trailer and identifying the character and personality in it for a big reason; this is perhaps Bethesda's least flamboyant fictional world. Rather than focusing on the sweeping grandeur of high fantasy or the stylistic pastel tints of Science Fantasy, they want to emulate the gritty earthiness of near-future space flight with realism and Science Fiction taking a precedent. MrMattyPlays himself spotted what very much looks like a NASA probe in one of the video snippets, detailing clearly how much this game is trying to take it's world seriously, to be point of introducing elements of reality. That isn't going to pop off the screen so much, but for those that have taken the time to watch the copious numbers of lore videos that Bethesda have been putting out over the months (Which, I'll be honest, before this reveal I had no interest in) you'll know there's still some substance to this universe. As it stands the game is set during a stalemate in the Colony Wars, a major anchoring event in a ecosystem brimming with cyberpunk-style corporations, brand new churches preaching space religions and dangerous space pirates who you can absolutely sign up with. So far I'm just wondering if the general aesthetic of the people in this universe is going to stick rigidly to the neat-cut prim-and-proper style we've seen on pretty much every promotional material so far, or if they'll be some diversity with the grittier punkier elements on the further reaching systems. (I really hope for the diversity angle.)
Exploration is going to be huge chunk of the gameplay focus, in fact with the meh combat it could very be the most focused on angle of the gameplay. Scouring the 1000 different planets in search of interesting locations to delve, places to build a settlement and resources to keep the research crew of your ship fuelled. I like the idea of ship building but I love the idea of crew building, I hope there's personality to the people we hire, maybe not quite to the levels of Mass Effect's deck crew, but at least approach that greatness. I worry about the 1000 planets. Obviously there's going to be a lot of procedural generation involved in making that play space, but there's needs to be a sculptor's hand too in order to hand place enough exciting elements to make a significant chunk of those planets worth exploring. And I don't just mean 1 event per planet; they need to ensure that the world generation tools can create play areas all by itself whilst the real special places are handcrafted by them. That's the least of what they could do, but it's about the best I can expect considering this is just Bethesda still working with the Creation Engine here.
We did get a chance to taste some of the narrative and I think the words hanging off near everyone's lips to describe it is: painfully derivative. A galaxy wide hunt for groups of mysterious relics left by some precursor/forerunner/prothean/TheOnesWhoCameBefore civilisation that hold the secret to changing the course of humanity as we know it... wow! Oh, and you get visions by touching one of the artefacts? Commander Shepard called, he/she wants their schtick back! Seriously, I can't fathom a more cookie cutter premise to sell your game on, and just like every other game that came before the relics themselves look like total garbage. I'm so sick of these games where some nutjob floats a shapeless chunk of metal in my face and expects me to praise it as a fragment of beauty's very essence. It looks bad. And whatsmore, this story sounds trite beyond reasoning. Unless the reveal at the end of the game is that other sentient Aliens exist, and we get to interact with them in some significant post-game way; this is going to be a disappointment from a main narrative front. Which is why I'm really hopeful for the world simulation elements.
Whilst browsing through every text box shoved in our face during the character creator I came up with some interesting conclusions regarding how the player will get to interact with the world. First off, there appears to be some rudimentary form of a reputation system given that players can pick starting classes that gives them access to one type of vendor whilst denying another. There are space religions that you can join, such as the one which asks you to jump everywhere for a health boost or stop bouncing for a health penalty. There's some sort of debt system tied with one of the background paths that gives you an early starting house, just in case you want to make this into space Animal Crossing. (No word on if there's wider money lending system in the game.) And one of the starts gives you parents, who are apparently actually interactable in the game, and whom steal 10% of your income in whatever you earn. (Wait, where's the benefit there? You have parents who expect you to visit and they take money from you? That's worse than starting as 'Deprived' in Dark Souls.)
Weighing up the pros with the cons, the possibilities with the probabilities, and the base building mechanics against the ship building ones; I think I've agonised enough over Starfield to be officially excited for it. This isn't blind hype, and I very much hope and expect to see more of what the game has to offer before we enter the death march of development stage, but the dream I was just sold on stage is one I want to experience. Whether Bethesda can achieve that dream is up in the air, people say that Microsoft will give them the extra resources to make it, but those clowns can't even manage a Perfect Dark Reboot without it falling into development hell just over a year after announcement. We know that right now the game is an unplayable mess that has been likened to Cyberpunk 2077, we can just hope that the extra half a year is enough to conjure the game everyone is in the waiting room getting pumped for. (Didn't Cyberpunk take a full year to reach a playable state though...)
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