• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

Reviews Starfield Review Thread | 87 OpenCritic, 87 Metacritic

Party Sklar said:
I genuinely don’t think that Microsoft care much about the Metascore. What they care about is how much people it’ll bring to Gamepass, and it’ll probably be one of the best games they ever released in that regard.

The Metascore for these type of games doesn’t mean much unless they’re really awful. It’s like we see everytime with Ubisoft and games like AC Valhalla that generated more than 1 billion $ in revenue despite a 83 Metascore : the general public still love the Bethesda formula and I think a lot of people will be talking about the game in the next few weeks. BG3 is the critical RPG darling of the year, but I’m sure Starfield will appeal a lot more to the general public.
Click to expand...

It's not so much the overall score but where the lower scores are coming from. A 7/10 just from IGN alone has likely cost them millions.
 
0
HeyItsPulse said:
I find it funny that she's still allowed to do stuff like this while working for Sony Santa Monica. It's like if after Pikmin 4 released Miyamoto made a youtube video about Final Fantasy 16 and how the RPG elements are flawed.

No hate for her, get that bag from both sides if you can, it's just funny to me.
Click to expand...
I said this on ERA and they’re jumping me, I hope you get a warmer reception here lol

😭😭😭

I agree that it’s definitely not something you see developers doing, and I’m assuming that’s because it’s usually not allowed. So it’s cool that she’s been able to keep her roots as a journalist
 
Party Sklar said:
I genuinely don’t think that Microsoft care much about the Metascore. What they care about is how much people it’ll bring to Gamepass, and it’ll probably be one of the best games they ever released in that regard.

The Metascore for these type of games doesn’t mean much unless they’re really awful. It’s like we see everytime with Ubisoft and games like AC Valhalla that generated more than 1 billion $ in revenue despite a 83 Metascore : the general public still love the Bethesda formula and I think a lot of people will be talking about the game in the next few weeks. BG3 is the critical RPG darling of the year, but I’m sure Starfield will appeal a lot more to the general public.
Click to expand...
I'd say it probably falls somewhere in the middle. The bigwigs at Xbox were probably hoping for Starfield to be their own Zelda/The Last of Us moment, a true genre defining experience that would generate tons of critical acclaim for the brand as a whole. Based on the reviews, Starfield isn't that, and there's gonna be some disappointment tied to that.

Doesn't take away from Starfield being a smash financial hit that will finally put Xbox back on the map in a way that doesn't involve Halo, Gears, or Forza.
 
hologram said:
To borrow your analogy, I would say this is more like the top student in the high school class took some extended time off, and so when they came back everyone was expecting them to ace their exam, but they also needed to ace their exam in order to get into their dream college. And then they got a (what would usually be quite good) score of B+
Click to expand...
This hits home, unfortunately.
 
0
I always kinda take the inflated game scores as:

7: decent
8: good
9: great
10: masterpiece

7 is like the lowest an AAA game can score before it officially enters complete disaster territory.
 
Remember when BGE2 was expected to wait until this current gen to achieve seamless space/planet travel? And everyone was like, oh yeah we'll totally see all that stuff in the next generation!

And No Man's Sky does that fairly well already, even on Switch.

Yet Starfield doesn't even attempt to do anything like that. It's just weird.
 
my biggest takeaway from the reviews is that Bethesda is not the critical juggernaut that it was 10 years ago, it feels like their games are stuck on the past generation and have been surpassed by other studios, especially in the open world side.
If 12 years ago if you wanted big expensive open world to explore skyrim and bethesda games in general were the only choice you had, or at least the best and most mainstream game you could find, now they're not as special anymore and starfield should have been the game to bring back bethesda at the top of the world but it looks like it will be just another good open world game following the same formula of skyrim.
I guess the final chance will be with elder scrolls 6, that's their most acclaimed series and if the follow up to skyrim doesn't shock the world then no bethesda game will ever do it again.
 
0
Skittzo said:
Remember when BGE2 was expected to wait until this current gen to achieve seamless space/planet travel? And everyone was like, oh yeah we'll totally see all that stuff in the next generation!

And No Man's Sky does that fairly well already, even on Switch.

Yet Starfield doesn't even attempt to do anything like that. It's just weird.
Click to expand...
Based on the fact that Starfield was always a Bethesda-style RPG in a space setting, I'm not sure why anyone expected it to feature intricate interstellar space flight gameplay.
 
Last edited:
Hailinel said:
Based on the fact that Starfield was always was a Bethesda-style RPG in a space setting, I'm not sure why anyone expected it to featur intricate interstellar space flight gameplay.
Click to expand...
I'm not even talking intricate though. You don't even get to experience a "flying through the atmosphere" type transition when you go to a planet. That kind of thing has been done for decades, it's one of the core staples of this genre. Or even flying from one planet in a system to another. Or even a moon! It's all instanced, there's no actual "exploring" going on beyond just hitting buttons on maps.

It's hard to pitch a game about exploring a massive universe full of planets while at the same time only letting you fast travel to specific instances of space and land, it feels like those two concepts are fundamentally at odds with each other.


Also, Bethesda style RPGs have always been unabashedly open. I mean, that's where the "you see that mountain" meme came from. The expectation that a Bethesda RPG in space was also going to be open and seamless should not have been at all surprising.
 
Last edited:
Personally when I score a game I try not to use inflated scores - a 7 means a game is pretty good! But that doesn't change anything when reading critics scores, which have only slowly been re-adjusting themselves for the past few decades to stop being inflated (believe 6th/7th gen was when they were most inflated iirc)
 
I sat down and looked at the Alanah video.

When I heard that the game was going to have space flight etc, I was expecting it to be closer to what it actually is rather than 100% free-form, but seeing how she just awkwardly hovered in front of Saturn like that was a bit.. oof to me.
 
Party Sklar said:
I genuinely don’t think that Microsoft care much about the Metascore. What they care about is how much people it’ll bring to Gamepass, and it’ll probably be one of the best games they ever released in that regard.

The Metascore for these type of games doesn’t mean much unless they’re really awful. It’s like we see everytime with Ubisoft and games like AC Valhalla that generated more than 1 billion $ in revenue despite a 83 Metascore : the general public still love the Bethesda formula and I think a lot of people will be talking about the game in the next few weeks. BG3 is the critical RPG darling of the year, but I’m sure Starfield will appeal a lot more to the general public.
Click to expand...

I mean, we'll see if it does that.

Microsoft's expectations for this quarter for Xbox are extremely low so they don't seem to be expecting a Starfield bump.
 
0
The only game I’ve played that felt like it had “realistic” space exploration was Outer Wilds.

And honestly, admittedly mainly due to controls… I didn’t like it much lol. Despite being someone who really loves space and space vibes.

Just not sure how much fun you can make traveling through an empty void
 
We've been able to do actual planets/interstellar bodies you can fly onto and off for a while now. The game I always think of is Space Engineers: it's a game by a fairly small scale development studio, and it's basically Minecraft in space.

You can build spaceships, fly around moons and planets, land on them, explore them, take off again, all seamlessly. It's a pretty solved problem at this point from a tech perspective.

The main issue is that if you want to be able to do stuff like that in the game you're making, you need to design everything else around it. You need to make sure you're not trying to load too much other stuff into memory (like voice files or NPCs), you need to make sure you have a solid design loop that allows for landing anywhere on a planet, and you need to make sure you're creating enough variety to stop planets seeming flat and samey.

I'm not sure Bethesda would ever have can able to make that sort of game while keeping all the questing and storylines that fans expect from their previous games.
 
Lozjam said:
When Microsoft makes a claim like "All of our QA developers have been working on this game for the past year, just for polish. This is by far the most polished a bethesda game has been at launch". Or "this is the biggest game ever created", or "this is the starting gun for a relay race of first party titles". People will go on "gamers" all the time of having way too high of expectations, but that oftentimes is irresponsible marketing. I don't think we can blame people for having incredibly high expectations when that was how Starfield was marketed for the past 3 years.
Click to expand...
But...it is the most polished Bethesda game ever? I saw a reviewer also state that there's no significant difference with the Series S and Series X, which is basic the polar opposite from devs who have basically claimed the S is a potato.

If this game was high 70s, I'd defend the gamers for being pissed. 87 is the same score as the original Spider-Man. This is a phenomenal achievement.
 


Great review as always from ACG, it has no spoilers and it's very detailed. His verdict is that Starfield is "absolutely worth buying".
 
0
damn. Saw all the dooming around the internet then saw a 87 metacritic. Seems like Bethesda was gonna lose no matter what if starfield scored under a 90. What a shit standard for AAA gaming tbh.

It also seems like people who like Bethesda style RPG's will like this game no problem.
 
Red Monster said:
between these middling reviews and me finding mario wonder boring as all heck, this is a bad day in gaming for me 🥴
Click to expand...
It's one point below GoW: Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West. IGN, GameSpot, and Polygon aren't the end all be all for review sites, these are not middling lol.

Edit: I'm a dummy and I meant to say Spider-Man instead of Ragnarok, which has a 94 on Metacritic. A better game would've been Diablo IV, which is also at 88.
 
Last edited:
Phendrift said:
The only game I’ve played that felt like it had “realistic” space exploration was Outer Wilds.

And honestly, admittedly mainly due to controls… I didn’t like it much lol. Despite being someone who really loves space and space vibes.

Just not sure how much fun you can make traveling through an empty void
Click to expand...
Space Engineers does it really well, but essentially by making designing and flying a ship a glorified puzzle.

You can have thrusters pointing backwards to make your ship go forwards, but then, how do you stop? Ah, well you'll want thrusters pointing forwards as well. And if you want to turn sideways? You'll want thrusters pointing port and starboard as well. Except now you need more power. Better stick another power reactor in there, but that means making the hull longer.

Oh, you need thrusters pointing up and down as well. Wait, if you have thrusters pointing in all directions, how do you even define front and back anymore? Best just to make a cube, and put the seat in the middle...

As I said in my previous post, stuff like this can work really well and be really fun, but you need to design the game around it for it to really work.
 
0
Red Monster said:
ok so maybe “middling” isn’t the right word. that IGN review got me down tho.



😵‍💫

I want to be hyped for Wonder! I do! I’m just not 😣
Click to expand...
Thing is the ign review isn't that bad. Their biggest complaint was the slow start. They enjoyed the game enough to immediately jump in the NG+.
 
Hocot8 said:
damn. Saw all the dooming around the internet then saw a 87 metacritic. Seems like Bethesda was gonna lose no matter what if starfield scored under a 90. What a shit standard for AAA gaming tbh.

It also seems like people who like Bethesda style RPG's will like this game no problem.
Click to expand...
To be fair Bethesda majorly hyped it up well beyond even normal standards. I recall watching some Bethesda thing where they said things like it was the game they've wanted to make for 20 years that they were building towards and now have both the technical ability and schedule to finally make it happen. When you say things like that people will start expecting a genuine masterpiece. To be clear I personally expected this kind of score but they definitely set expectations too high.
 
0
Metroid said:
I can understand a double whammy of disappointment but... in no world is an 88 on MC "middling"

That's ridiculous
Click to expand...
In this case it is because it got scores around 70s and lower by some of the biggest game reviewers out there. IGN is like, single-handedly responsible of skewing review averages to the point where a 7 isn’t just “good”, 7 is just one point above a 6 which is basically the passing grade, which is usually bad. I know reviewers vary and such but IGN are usually pretty lenient in their scores, they gave pity 7s for many other “ambitious next-gen games” that weren’t very good at all. Therefore it’s understandable to infer that Starfield doesn’t actually stick its landing and is more on par with mid games like Star Fox Assault rather than being a GOTY contender (puns intended)

You don’t see this kind of reaction for other games scoring in the high 80s. Something like Armored Core VI got people impressed because it’s a niche series getting it’s first critically acclaimed game ever, most of its scores are 8s and above. Starfield is different because it had astronomical levels of hype and its scores were brought down back to Earth by 7s and below, while most 10/10 reviews don’t really say much. Understandable to be wary about it
 
Skittzo said:
Ain't nobody got time for that!
Click to expand...
aqua-konosuba.gif
 
0
Like every Bethesda game, I will wait 2 months until it reaches $10 in bargain bins/online sales.
 
0
Reviews are still great, thought it would be higher but still very excited to play tonight.
 
0
I dunno I'm still just shocked that the space flight exploration is that incredibly limited. Feels like that should be a bigger deal but maybe it's just me.
 
Skittzo said:
I dunno I'm still just shocked that the space flight exploration is that incredibly limited. Feels like that should be a bigger deal but maybe it's just me.
Click to expand...
Didn't expect this too. Is it only limited in Starfield or it's the same case for No Man's Sky, for example. Always thought the deal about those games were seamless space exploration.
 
balgajo said:
Didn't expect this too. Is it only limited in Starfield or it's the same case for No Man's Sky, for example. Always thought the deal about those games were seamless space exploration.
Click to expand...
No Man's Sky AFAIK is completely seamless, from planet to planet you can fly seamlessly.
 
Skittzo said:
I dunno I'm still just shocked that the space flight exploration is that incredibly limited. Feels like that should be a bigger deal but maybe it's just me.
Click to expand...
I'm neither here nor there on these reviews, but this seems like the ONE THING they would try to get right.
 
0
im not sure why ppl expected no mans sky type exploration on top of all of bethesda usualy rpg mechanics and quest lines. The exploration is pretty much what I expected after the huge gameplay reveal.
 
I'm still really excited. Between games like this and FFXVI, the chaos of discussions for these high 80s level games is getting a bit too nutty.
 
romanithegreat said:
im not sure why ppl expected no mans sky type exploration on top of all of bethesda usualy rpg mechanics and quest lines. The exploration is pretty much what I expected after the huge gameplay reveal.
Click to expand...
Because Bethesda was one of the pioneers of open world seamless traversal.

I'm having trouble understanding why "it's a bethesda game" is in any way a reason NOT to expect seamless exploration. It's the exact opposite.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom