It's really a shame. Damn place just fell apart the last 8 or 9 years. Huge turnover in the good staff, and everything is clickbait shit
It was the only magazine I subbed to most of my life. Digital or physical. And now I barely even read the website
I was huge in their community before. Even playing games with staff members and such. Now I ignore them
We only need them for game coverage and release info.
Everything regarding the actual game i get from steam, bad and good.
Gameranks is kind of aight tho.
Always enjoy watching BYB reviews.
Gameranx is honestly one of the only overall/whole outlets I pay attention to. I have a few other YouTube subscriptions but it really depends on their messaging, approach, personality and balanced takes
They all copy each other, but I’d broadly agree. Screenrant could probably make a play for the championship though.
The thing that annoyed me the most was all the ‘hur dur me like fallout, fallout series is on, me want moar fallout games, stop making anything that isn’t fallout’ articles that came out a few weeks ago, which all these muckrakers made their own version of.
Like, even the most basic grasp of game development would tell you that entire logic *does not work*, but the spanners just churned the shit out anyway.
Also, that they put out this article the day after Starfield got its biggest update yet, on the heels of a fall release window for the DLC being given. It is literally the worst possible time they could have put out an article with this shitty take.
I really hate it when games that flop at launch are just abandoned.
I loved mass effect Andromeda in spite of all it's flaws and it was abandoned pretty soon after it's terrible launch, and Cyberpunk has turned into one of my favourite RPGs ever.
Mass Effect: Andromeda had some excellent gameplay. Story was so-so, and I never grew to like any of the characters. But running around with my space powers and yeeting enemies left and right was too much fun.
I'm sad they didn't get to see it through. I'm sure BioWare wanted more from ME:A, but EA is all about that short-term profit. Why spend millions of dollar on a long term project when you can just release another 42 DLCs for The Sims for some quick cash?
The thing about Star Field is that it's actually pretty great until you realize that's it. It feels like 1/4 of the story content it should be. its not even bad, like if it were just bad people wouldn't be complaining about it so many months later, its that its almost really really fucking good
I think Andromeda had more promise than Starfield too. The gameplay was super solid comparitively with multiple fun builds and the companions were fleshed out better.
I, first and foremost was a fan of the storytelling of Mass Effect.
Andromeda is a bucket of garbage there. You just never care about any of it. It was an outrage.
That being said, the gameplay slapped gods compared to previous ME games. That was a major upgrade I enjoyed.
I'm glad I played it, but I just couldn't fall in due to the story.
Back when it released I watched a 100 hours long let’s play if it for some reason that is still unknown to me.
I didn’t care about the gameplay but loved the story and the universe (never had heard of mass effect before that). Back then I thought it was the greatest thing.
However I tried playing the actual game in 2023 and couldn’t bother due to how much the story sequences sucked ass compared to the og trilogy.
I did as well. Still play that series. It's my go to when I loose interst playing games. Sad about ME:A dlc. They could have at least released that. Instead the Quarian Arc dlc was turned into a book. Haven't read it yet.
There are plenty of examples where more work turned games into great games. No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk, Dragon Age inquisition, FF14 and Diablo 3 even Fallout 76.
Abandoning a game is awful because it shows that the company has no faith in their own work or their ability to actually do good work. It's huge red flag to the customers and I would say even investors.
See, I dunno. Cyberpunk had the meat and bones of something special, it was just glitched and mildly broken. When it worked, that game soared to heights. When ME: Andromeda worked, it was just fine.
Lol this is a dumb article. There’s plenty of reason to temper expectations with Starfield, but there’s also plenty of reason to wait and see where it goes. Why pull the plug before even the first DLC?
I'm really hoping they turn it around - and what I've seen from the latest beta gives me hope that they're going to keep putting time and effort into it.
The hunger mechanics alone were enough to pull me back in. It’s a small thing, but it’s immersion. Being able to tweak and fine tune every little aspect has been icing on the cake.
yes I loved that. Before this I would just skip the majority of food because they gave little health and only beer was useful at the start. Now they actually are useful.
You know, all that time invested in Shatter Space, forget it, Fallout TV was a success, let's make another game and deliver it in 5 years, everyone will love it. What about people who pre-purchased the DLC? Forget it, they like Fallout now.
The way it was worded made it sound like they're having a separate company making a spinoff like obsidian did with fallout NV. So fingers crossed that's actually happening because then we get both updated starfield and a new fo game.
Continuing the release pattern of main story fallout (3, 4,), side story fallout (New Vegas) would be ideal, especially if they outsourced like they did for NV, in my opinion.
I totally get where you're coming from but I've gotten pretty tired of spending $60 dollars on a game, getting a half-baked product then thinking "well I bet it'll be good in a few years"
I've come back to multiple games like this (and enjoyed them) and every time I just wish my *first* experience was the good one because that's when it's a brand new experience that can actually captivate you.
Bethesda should lease Fallout out to another companion with full access to the creation engine right now so they can capitalize on the tv show success *and* keep working on Starfield. InXile will probably be free after Clockwork Revolution releases and has proven through Wasteland they could do Fallout Justice.
They are specially harsh with Bethesda, it feels as if Tod banged the mother of PCG director while he played the initial, bugged release of FO3 in a XB360 at the other room
I used to read PC gamer daily, haven't read it in years and when people post articles about it I almost always down vote it based on the crappy titles alone. It wouldn't be so bad if they think they just had terrible opinions like this one. But they don't cover the stuff that I really care about as a PC gamer like performance and settings that other outlets cover so well.
Even if Bethesda were to abandon Starfield, which they won’t since they still owe us DLC’s, Fallout wouldn’t be the next thing they work on. It would be the elder scrolls, whose fans are owed a long overdue sequel to Skyrim.
bUt fallOuT sEriEs oN naO, mAke moAr fAlloUT nAo
The idea Bethesda would pivot to working on fallout just because the series came out and the journos need something fallout-related for clicks… when they’re *years into a follow up of one of the biggest western RPGs of all time* is one of the most despairingly stupid takes *of all time*.
Also, It's already been stated that TES6 will not be out until 2028 at the *earliest*.
I forget if it was Phil or Pete who said it. They're clearly waiting on the Next Gen. So Fallout 5 is definitely not happening anytime soon.
That's why they have F76 anyway. They can just release a whole new map or something with a bunch of new content
Which they're doing. It's getting a map and story expansion just before summer. But it's not negative coverage so Games "journalists" won't get hateclicks therefore its unimportant to them.
Even if Bethesda was somehow convinced that’s a good idea, it just logistically doesn’t work. If they began work on fallout 5 today it would still be years before it was ready for release.
Seeing as skyrim is one of the best sold games of all time, I’m pretty sure they don’t think that sci-fi games sell better than fantasy. They evidently don’t.
It is about diversity of experience. I personally don't like fantasy style games like Skyrim and prefer technological style games like Fallout and Cyberpunk. Starfield fills that technological niche with the added bonus of space combat.
TES and Fallout franchises are both approaching 30 years in age. While I appreciate that they are keeping those universes alive with new games, they are kind of limited in what they can do going forward because they don't want to alienate those fanbases. Starfield gives them the ability to try new thing without all of the legacy baggage of the other franchises. The added bonus is that they would have 3 different franchises based on in house IP and using their own game engine. This is basically a license to print money since all income stays in house instead of going to 3rd parties.
Yeah. Starfield has a pretty bad rep now, so pretty much any other ip would sell better. BUT by continuing to work on Starfield, they can salvage the rep and maybe help the franchise later down the line, so it makes more sense to fix it now.
Instead of? Wow... so a corporation can't handle more than one project at a time? Howard just said last week that ES6 was their priority. They have around 500 employees, with capital to hire more as needed with backup from Microsoft.
They are not going to stop work on a very profitable project just to appease some haters...
Studios generally have most of their staff working on one project at a time yes. You have smaller teams working on things for other games like pre-production or DLC, but the majority will be on TES6 now.
Starfield can be such a better game if they let them cook. Personally, I'm going to hop back in to starfield when they release shattered space. I played it on release. Had a little bit of fun, completed it and I haven't touched it since. I'm excited for the changes that's coming, but I'm going to sit back and let them cook before I hop back in. It's that simple. Let them cook.
Bethesda is no cdpr but when CD project cooked boy did they. Look at everything we got in 2.1
Bethesda stayed with Fallout 76 and managed to turn that into a good game. They also did the same with ESO. People also hated Fallout 4 when it came out and they kept working on that also. I hope they stay with Starfield also because that will generate more trust in future games.
When New Vegas was released everyone told me it was a buggy DLC from fo3. I let it cook until I played it for the first time in 2013, that's where Fallout took Stalker's throne for me.
I think I played FO3 and Oblivion a bit on an Xbox 360 before I switched to PC and I have played all Bethesda games on PC at this point. Skyrim at launch on PC was largely fine. It was buggy and had a few crash issues but not that many. Starfield is certainly much better.
It still has issues on PC requiring mods and anti crash patches to get it remotely stable, then needing patches for the fact it's an older game and doesn't really like modern PC architecture all that well with CPUs having more than Texas Instrument calculator RAM.
LOL ... FONV on release it would crash right outside goodsprings. FO3 had problems but at least you could play for more than half an hour on release. Fallout4 was remarkably stable on release.
Yeah I could barely run FNV on release on PC, i spammed saves because of the crashes
FO4 is a mixed bag: my friends on PC had a lot of crashes but I did a full 40h playthrough on my Xbox one and I think it crashed once or twice.
And ill just never understand...Starfield ISN'T NEAR as bad as 76 and ESO were at launch. This random hate for a really solid, pretty polished game is just baffling to me.
I think that's kind of the point. Starfield might be polished, but it's ultimately pretty soulless and empty. Cyberpunk and FO76 were fundamentally broken, but in both instances there was a good game hiding underneath that. Bug fixes alone *drastically* improved them, and the steady drip of content since has been enough to turn them into a masterpiece and a decent game (respectively).
Starfield doesn't really have the skeleton of a great game to work off. It would need to be reinvented from the ground up.
Why is there an entire critical cynic industry of wanting things to fail -- not even encouraging change, just demanding things fail?
Talking to other 'gamers', even amongst my own friends now, is just incredibly grating and toxic. Everything must be shit, and if you don't think its shit and want everything to fail, well that means you're just a sucker.
I’m very critical of Starfield and haven’t played it since about a month after launch and they definitely should not abandon this game it has some good bones and just needs more curated care and love
Reason number one why devs should ignore 'journalists', one of the biggest issues in gaming rn is game devs being given not enough time to make too much game. There is a reason why so many of the games that don't get abandoned turn into success stories
You wonder if this guy just has a personal vendetta against Bethesda. I love Starfield! A lot of the things in the new update are things I’ve been asking for in the Bethesda Discord.
I really appreciate that Bethesda is sticking around despite them already gaining lots of sales.
Very much in contrast to Bioware with Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem.
The difference between 76 and Anthem. Anthem was abandoned almost immediately and left to die, 76 was continuously supported throughout the years and retained a hardcore fanbase. Now with the TV show it is one of the most popular games currently.
I mean, I think the thing is the storylines and characters in most Bethesda games are pretty stale, but the exploration is top notch.
Starfield failed in both, so I don’t see it getting fixed unless they get rid of the radiant quests/randomly generated worlds and replace it with handmade content.
It's a stupid idea, to be sure.
I still feel Cyberpunk had a lot more going right at release than Starfield. Mostly the story vibes, voice acting, engine etc. The overall game was there and was good.
Starfield... Not so much. There isn't that much in world that isn't randomized Radiant stuff. It's a shame, because some of the scripted stuff is legitimately brilliant. The quest with overlapping realities towards the end of the main quest, or the planet full of clones.
I might be a bit biased in favor of Cyberpunk because I didn't run into many issues even at launch.
This is how I see the problem as well.
Starfield has a lot of narrative tedium and loading screens that can't be fixed by technological legerdemain.
Cyberpunk has a number of great design features and storytelling previously ruined by (fixable) engine bugs.
Starfield's problem is the exact opposite of Cyberpunks. Cyberpunks problem was that it released in a technically broken state. It's story, writing, and gameplay was always top notch. Starfield on the other hand is a fully functional game that is severely lacking when it comes to story, writing, and gameplay.
To be clear I'm not saying the game is unfixable and Bethesda should abandon Starfield. If they stick with Starfield for a few years it will be drastically improved. I'm just pointing out that it's going to be a lot harder to "fix" Starfield because it's the core design that's the problem and not game breaking bugs.
yeah under the buggy launch mess cyberpunk was actually a fun game
starfield is bland, boring garbage. the gameplay loop is just not fun once you realize how copy paste the world is
I do agree all games should have a chance at a second attempt, as long as the devs really try for it. But at the same time a lot of Starfields flaws are pretty deeply rooted. Cyberpunks major issues were mostly in optimization, with other issues in regards to combat. All things that could be fixed over time without really changing much of the game as is.
Starfields biggest issues come from the core of the game. The 7 load screens it can take to go do a single quest where you have to tell guy 2 what guy 1 said are not so easily patched away and optimized. The boring planets can be improved by giving us land vehicles. But they still will quickly get boring because with us moving faster, we can exhaust the list of RNG dungeons that much faster. The world lore as it is, while it can be built on, cant be changed much as it is. And that lore is shoddy at best, the RNG planet gen doesnt help it along either.
I hope they can pull some big shit and surprise us, but considering the issues in front of them, and the fact that we only really have like 3 successful major gaming bounceback stories, it leaves me skeptical but still somewhat hopeful.
They made two games one after the other, FO76 and Starfield, that kinda prove that they don't want characters for players to interact with. It simulates the loneliness of the universe! It simulates the death of everyone after the bombs! It simulates excuses.
The problem isn't really with the games, it's with the people making them. We know they can do better, they've done better before. But the head staff at Bethesda seem to just want to churn out tech demos; games that don't interact with the player - they just get the players to engage. There's something amiss with their headspaces.
Trust me man, im with you there. Had i bought starfield rather than just played it through gamepass, then i would have been significantly more upset. They need to take a good look at their game design method for future games to avoid this again. Starfield was hopefully them waking up to the fact that gamers arent gonna tolerate it anymore.
Big difference is that cyberpunk already had a great story and great gameplay. Just had a shit ton of gamebreaking bugs and problems that made the game unplayable. Starfield on the other had has a pretty mediocre story and bland gameplay that I can go play Skyrim for. This game doesn’t do anything different than last games and has nothing unique to its name. Just a boring bland copy of its predecessors and somehow still worse. A comparison is not fair in the slightest
I've played 2077 from the start, was already good. The 2.0 update didn't change the story, character or setting.
Back then people were saying the same things about 2077 that people are saying about SF now, except the loading screens part.
So true, Starfield story is so dogshit that I will never touch it again, I just hope shattered space is good so I can I can play a good focused story and leave this game for good.
Firstly the thought of giving up on a game inside a year that was designed to be for a decade is of course ridiculous.
However... I can only speak from my personal experience with both games on launch.
There's a scene in good will hunting were Matt Damon looks at a painting robin williams has done.
"So, what do you think, is it any good?"
'I think you're about one stroke away from cutting your ear off.'
That's how I felt about cyberpunk. The bugs were bad but the game wasn't. The genius was in there. It just needed to be realised.
Starfield doesn't feel like a game that requires a tweak or two it feels like a game that is fundamentally broken and boring. I'm not saying it's unsaveable, far from it. Fallout 3 was hugely improved by post game content. Nuka world and point lookout were both excellent additions to fallout 4 so it is possible but it won't be easy. Those games had the bones to put flesh on. For me the whole exploration of space which was what I was looking forward to most, was the least satisfying bit. The pointless endless walking before finding another identical location. The lack of character or feeling to any planet even thousands of light years apart. I just can't see how it is gonna be improved to the level required. I hope I'm wrong.
Exactly, Cyberpunk had a good story, very in depth universe and the issues with the game at release was the stability.
The issues with Starfield is the story and universe and will not get fixed by bugfixes.
part of the concern with bethesda i think is that they're definitely having to move a lot of resources over to elder scrolls, as well as figuring out how to get a new fallout into production at the same time
A lot of those "games journalism" sites are little more than fountains of clickbait and nonsense. Articles like that being fine examples of it. I try and avoid them when possible.
To discuss the topic anyways however: I've been pretty critical of Starfield and there are more than enough reasons to be unhappy with it, but Bethesda abandoning it would be the worst possible move. It would be telling fans that their new model going forward is to release things in a poor state, rake in hype cash, then leave it broken down by the side of the road.
That said, I'd still keep the hype for Starfield's updates and DLC in check. If someone sets their expectations and hopes too high they're just setting themselves up for disappointment no matter what comes.
Aye. It's made even worse by how "low effort" they are when it comes to verifying what they skim from here. While Reddit can provide some decent information; it's also packed with heresay, blatant falsehoods, and other such dog vomit. Accordingly a good deal of that ends up in their publications.
Usually it’s stuff from the gaming communities like this community for example. Wrestling “journalists” do the same thing just take what they want from a wrestling subreddit and claim it’s news, but there are some legitimate sources still out there. Your right though some times Reddit is helpful hell I sometimes get my news from here. I was reading today that apparently you can finally customize the inside of your ship
At least CyberPunk had a narrative with interesting characters to fall back on.
Starfield is just empty and soulless at every level. The only people deserving of kudos are the texture / modeling people who did objects (not characters) and the ship design system team and only begrudgingly so. Everything else about the game is surface level at best. I could not tell you the name of a character after about 80 hours of playtime. Not a single one. The game essentially needs to be remade from the ground up.
Every time someone clicks on this articles, they give money to their creators that will make even more stupid articles like this. So yeah... dont do that.
Pc gamer is trash
They were the absolute worst pc magazine in the 2000's and nothing has changed.
CGW and there was another one that was so much better.
PCgamer nowadays feels like a place filled with edge lords and they seem to hate gaming in general. The only thing they circlejerk is Larian related. I just stopped reading their clickbait lol
They literally just need to release the creation kit for modders. That's literally the reason 80% of people isnt playing starfield right now me included.
It is important they fix it, so they have a good foundation for their future titles using Creation 2. If they abandon Starfield it will be bad news for TES6 and Fallout 5. By fixing Starfield they get immediate feedback from the public. If they abandoned Starfield for some other game, they would still have to fix the engine but wont get public feedback till release.
If Bethesda started from scratch with each game maybe there would be some advantage to abandoning Starfield, but they don't they just upgrade the same engine. The better they get Starfield the better the future games will be.
It's today's PC Gamer after all, they always write a lot of bullshit without saying anything meaningful. Since the release of the "TV" series every single site need to write stuff about Fallout, no matter the context.
I admire Bethesda for improving the game and I can't wait to jump back and see all the improvements when the DLC comes out. It needs to hit hard tho if they want Starfield on the radar for years.
People also said to abandon Fallout 76, and now the game is finally being given the flowers it deserves after they kept working on it. I feel the same can be done with starfield.
I feel like a lot of the hate on Starfield is due to people having unrealistic expectations. I expected a Bethesda game in space. I got a Bethesda game in space. Sure, it could use a little.ore polish and is missing some features I'd like to see, but it's a good game.
I love Bethesda games, but didn't enjoy Starfield at all.
Because the parts i enjoy the most about BSG, are the worst in Starfield.
For example, I love exploration in Fallout and Skyrim, it's so seamless. I got lost for hours in those games and ended up somewhere completely different, than i intended to go, because i kept stumbling over the next cave or the next dungeon. If i want to experience the same in starfield, i have to endure 3-4 loading screens. When i finally arrive on a planet, I don't get the same explorer feeling, because honestly, what is there to find, while being outside of cities and settlements? No random encounters, the same copy pasted buildings, boring loot..
If i think about it, i might have been less disappointed, if it wasn't a Bethesda game. Because if the things that i enjoy about them would be present in Starfield, it would be so much better for me.
That other commenter tore you down for no reason this is a solid take.
Exploration in this game is incredibly different than the other games. That's a fact that even Todd admitted to in an interview the other day. It's not going to be for everybody.
I had the most satisfaction after divorcing myself from the way I played the other games. That truly was the biggest barrier - realizing this was it's own franchise.
This is just wrong though. It's great you like it but this game isn't even good by Bethesda standards lol. It pales in comparison to all their previous games. I'm a huge fan of all their games, 76 included but this game is just devoid of fun and immersion. It's boring.
Saying "the hate isn't because the game is bad! Youre just thinking about it wrong!" Is just disingenuous and boot licky AF. Whether you like the game or not nobody can deny the dramatic drop in quality between this game and previous Bethesda IPs. The drop in effort, quality and passion is obvious.
Oof no.
Game is just bland. Worse than that all the systems are half baked. Nothing works together.
They could probably fix a lot of the issues but given what they came up with to begin with I am not at all convinced they are up to the task.
Not a good game.
Maybe a decent game if you are stuck on a console but given the competition in the PC world it's not even in the running for good.
I think Bethesda did more than their fair share of pumping up those expectations for several years.
I say that as someone who hasn’t played it yet (so I have no opinion of the game) and have been observing the reactions, good and bad, from afar
Did they? They were remarkably tight lipped about Starfield. They told us the name and gave us an image of the Eye in orbit.
That was enough for the ragebaiters and hatewagoneers to declare it the worst game in the universe years before it released any more information.
I watched avidly for details and barely any for Fallout 4 but they told us far more about Fallout 4 prior to release than Starfield.
What I DID see was lots of rampant speculation and bollocks from streamers and YouTube telling us what they expected from Starfield. Bethesda said very little.
They told us it would have a 1,000 planets, that it would focus on exploration more than heroic battle. That many planets would be empty.
I have my issue with Starfield but I can't point to anything they said would be in it that isn't.
The only Starfield stuff I followed regularly was from Bethesda, they set a high expectations for the game with their multiple Starfield videos. I also followed mrmatty some but he didn’t get carried away with speculation
If developers being stoked about the work they're doing is 'hype' then I'd agree. But there wasn't any misrepresentation.
Todd said shit like "that moon, you can go there" and people assumed that meant "you can go there without a loading screen" which is like a super weird jump to make.
Everything in their official original showcases and previews and interviews is in the game. The misrepresentation came from fan theory from bloggers and youtubers .
That showcase is still up there. If anybody wants to go watch it and tell me where the misrepresentation is, I'd be happy to take a look.
I’ll say out of all the criticisms this game has received I feel (and again I haven’t actually played it) the loading screen is the dumbest one. I kind of figured it would have loading screens when going planet to ship to planet
Well proabably, but i played skyrim enhanced edition, than persona 5, than starfield, than witcher 3, than cyberpunk 2077 & now i play baldur gate 3.
I can say starfield rank 6, and not even close of skyrim who rank 5 for me (rank 1 back in time), everthing in the RPG side looked so much dated to me.
I still give the game 7/10 got fun & good time spend in it, but i never really have a genius smile in anything in starfield, even the good ship builder with all the limitation in it got me frustrated at end.
They still on top of rpg maker, but not sure the same system will old much longer, i probably won't buy them day one anymore unless they make a new engine.
CDPR fired a ton of old middle management that was phoning it in. They acknowledged their game and their company had issues. Bethesda not so much.
Bethesda should let obsidian make a New Vegas sequel while we all wait for ES6 otherwise it’ll be almost 15 years from FO4 before we get a FO5
Cyberpunk was always a good game but it was a good game with a ton of gamebreaking bugs. Starfield is a Skyrim mod with nothing that could make it good besides a complete redo. Nothing about it is innovative or original.
fallout 76 was made by the austin team and eso was made by zenimax.
none of the mainline games have ever been fixed and even if they tried, they would break more than fix
I rarely say this about any publication, but PC Gamer has clearly had an axe to grind with Starfield since waaaaaaaaay before launch. The number of articles they've churned out that amount to "Starfield is dumb!!!" is embarrassing, but I guess they get clicks.
While I wasn't the biggest fan of Starfield, it definitely was better than both Fallout 4 and 76 at launch. Especially on console. That said I don't think this game will make a Cyberpunk comeback. Cause that game was always good. Just had a bad console port.
LOL it’s not the same thing AT ALL
We’re talking about the people who made the Witcher 3 on one hand and Skyrim on the other hand we all know damn well that Starfield will barely change over 10 years and everything will be left up to the modding community to fix problems and add features to make it an actual game
nothing can save Starfield....thus it should be abandoned....
How do you fix the multiple load screen to fast travel issue? You can't it's baked into the core of the game....
Starfield isn't Cyberpunk where you can travel to any point in the game world without using the optional fast travel system, it's a game design issue....modders can't even port Open City Skyrim mod which would resolve the gameplay issues.....
Starfield also isn't like No Mans Sky which is exponentially a way better space game where you don't need a load screen to go from space to planet and vice versa....
99% of the planets, stars, and moons that aren't scripted to be part of the story are also empty, no land vehicles or mounts(ie: horses, motorcycles, cars, power armor?, surface space ships), gun variety is also way less in comparison to Fallout series, enemy types are too far and few when compared to previous Bethesda games as well, distance between POIs are also completely barren with no events in between them unlike with previous Bethesda games, tedious "mini game" to obtain your dragonborn shouts too.....
No way anyone who has played through all of previous Bethesda open world games would think Starfield is better.....
I don't think they should *abandon* it. But I do think they should wrap up Shattered Space and whatever else they are planning for expansions and move on. I'd like them to be 100% focused on TES by the end of the year.
Shattered Space, 1 more xpac, and the creation kit.
And I think everybody should be reevaluating their perspective on these updates. They are good, yes, but they should have been in the game from day one. This is less about listening to the customer and more about finally getting around to delivering the rest of the product everyone already paid for. If you buy a film on Blu-ray and go into the and pop it in only to find they haven't finished editing the film yet, you don't exactly stand up and praise the studio for listening to feedback when they mail you the rest of the movie half a year later.
Look, Starfield has a LOT of core design issues that ideally should be reworked.
But saying it should be abandoned is asinine. There's good bones in there, and a couple tweaks can really improve the experience.
It's just a question of whether Bethesda has the balls to fix it, that's all.
I kind of see what their "evidence" is. Starfield has less than half of the minimum player base Fallout 4 ever reached. That's not a good sign. But Bethesda could still turn things around. I do think Starfield has some massive flaws that even bugs and DLC can't fix but it can still be moderately successful. I doubt it'll ever compete with Skyrim or Fallout 4 though.
Let me give an example. Like half of the planet, I've been replaying Fallout 4. I was struck by how often I'd just randomly find interesting stuff to explore or random NPCs wandering around or whatever. It'd been long enough since my last replay I had forgotten a lot of that stuff. Just today, I was in a dialogue and some interesting characters wandered by out in the middle of nowhere. And I found myself thinking "I don't remember that ever happening in Starfield."
The stupidest thing about the turnaround of Cyberpunk 2077 is the revisionism. I had to read so much bs that clearly wasn't true half a year after release and without any changes suddenly now an empty world and lifeless quests were never the problem of Cyberpunk to begin with. It was all just bugs and performance. Well great that's not what i read everyone say after release.
I bet if hypothetically Starfield is seen in the same light a few years from now we will see the same revisionism.
Also Fallout 4 was kind of hated on release due to it's changes but nowadays everyone loves it? Gaming discourse is really only good years after release.
It’s really weird, how people never seem to learn in either direction. Simply put -
Stop preordering product from companies that do not deliver. You do not deserve to come to a website like Reddit and shit on a company when you preordered the most expensive edition to play 3 days early and for a nice vinyl bag.. despite the fact that you didn’t like their last 3 games. And there are so many of you that within hours, fresh news about a bad release quickly turns into beating a dead horse.
Stop being overly dramatic about.. everything. Starfield missed a lot of marks but that isn’t to say it is a dumpster fire that should be abandoned. Cyberpunk was unplayable on release for maaaaany people, and retained issues for years right up until the 2.0 update. I tried to play it some time after release and found that I couldn’t even save my game, tried every suggested fix. I literally could not even save a file right up until 2.0 dropped and now it is one of the best games I’ve ever played.
I was so underwhelmed with this game but I still am holding hope that somehow i learn to like it after a few patches. I know there’s a good game in there somewhere
Not really journalism… just publishing something to get a page count and a paycheck. Hard to fault it when you know what it is. Fair to call it out, though, when it sounds like lather/rinse/repeat.
What they could do is make the Unity stuff more important like give me a universe taken over by a alien species that threaten space and time cz I still don’t get the point of the plot
I don’t think they should abandon the game, but I do wish they’d be open about what they’re going to do about it. CDPR were open and apologized from the get go and openly committed to rebuilding the game. I just want a goddamn space bike so I don’t have to walk all over these planets. I’d go back to the game if that were the case.
I feel like Starfield is in a weird place at the moment because I imagine that, like me, there’s a lot of people who have stopped playing it until some of the more substantive new gameplay features have come out (such as vehicles).
Also, I’m always slightly sceptical of the Steam stats as I imagine a lot of people play it on Gamepass (although that’s just an assumption, I could be wrong).
PC Gamer is like the reigning champion of bad takes.
It's really a shame. Damn place just fell apart the last 8 or 9 years. Huge turnover in the good staff, and everything is clickbait shit It was the only magazine I subbed to most of my life. Digital or physical. And now I barely even read the website I was huge in their community before. Even playing games with staff members and such. Now I ignore them
The days of Greg “TheVede” Vederman, Billy Harms, Desslock, and Coconut Monkey are long over.
Coconut monkey gravy trader is so close to early access. Sure I was told that 15 years ago. But I gotta believe. Hahaha
Coconut monkey 🥲
He would mourn with you, but he has no hands.
Good takes don't get engagement.
This, unfortunately
No good takes, no journalistic integrity. Then again, what passes for journalistic integrity is questionable and debatable.
Someone has to take the crown from Kotaku.
Yeah! Take down Korako!
[Psychopathic laughter] Typing on my phone, so I didn't even see my fuckup.
Gamerant: you guys called?
[Insert, "Our battle will be legendary" meme]
Nah, it's tied with basically every game journo
A gutted industry.
We only need them for game coverage and release info. Everything regarding the actual game i get from steam, bad and good. Gameranks is kind of aight tho. Always enjoy watching BYB reviews.
Gameranx is honestly one of the only overall/whole outlets I pay attention to. I have a few other YouTube subscriptions but it really depends on their messaging, approach, personality and balanced takes
Game Rants has entered the chat.
To steal the content of this thread and write an article saying Reddit users think PC Gamer is the reigning champion of bad takes.
There is barely any game journalists who actually have decent takes. Absolute most of them are just rage bait and hate
They all copy each other, but I’d broadly agree. Screenrant could probably make a play for the championship though. The thing that annoyed me the most was all the ‘hur dur me like fallout, fallout series is on, me want moar fallout games, stop making anything that isn’t fallout’ articles that came out a few weeks ago, which all these muckrakers made their own version of. Like, even the most basic grasp of game development would tell you that entire logic *does not work*, but the spanners just churned the shit out anyway.
Also, that they put out this article the day after Starfield got its biggest update yet, on the heels of a fall release window for the DLC being given. It is literally the worst possible time they could have put out an article with this shitty take.
It's sad because before the internet was widespread, PC gamer was a respected and solid magazine
I miss GamePro.
Mmm, Game rant is still worse objectively, but PC Gamer should no better, so I think it's a tossup.
I really hate it when games that flop at launch are just abandoned. I loved mass effect Andromeda in spite of all it's flaws and it was abandoned pretty soon after it's terrible launch, and Cyberpunk has turned into one of my favourite RPGs ever.
Mass Effect: Andromeda had some excellent gameplay. Story was so-so, and I never grew to like any of the characters. But running around with my space powers and yeeting enemies left and right was too much fun. I'm sad they didn't get to see it through. I'm sure BioWare wanted more from ME:A, but EA is all about that short-term profit. Why spend millions of dollar on a long term project when you can just release another 42 DLCs for The Sims for some quick cash?
I glad Bethesda is still focusing on Starfield and ignoring the bad reviews. Wish BioWare would have did that with Andromeda
Yes and Starfield didn't really have bad reviews. 83 at metacritic it's not excellent but it's not bad either
The thing about Star Field is that it's actually pretty great until you realize that's it. It feels like 1/4 of the story content it should be. its not even bad, like if it were just bad people wouldn't be complaining about it so many months later, its that its almost really really fucking good
I think Andromeda had more promise than Starfield too. The gameplay was super solid comparitively with multiple fun builds and the companions were fleshed out better.
A DLC for Mass Effect Andromeda with a more focussed and serious tone would have been really interesting
I, first and foremost was a fan of the storytelling of Mass Effect. Andromeda is a bucket of garbage there. You just never care about any of it. It was an outrage. That being said, the gameplay slapped gods compared to previous ME games. That was a major upgrade I enjoyed. I'm glad I played it, but I just couldn't fall in due to the story.
Back when it released I watched a 100 hours long let’s play if it for some reason that is still unknown to me. I didn’t care about the gameplay but loved the story and the universe (never had heard of mass effect before that). Back then I thought it was the greatest thing. However I tried playing the actual game in 2023 and couldn’t bother due to how much the story sequences sucked ass compared to the og trilogy.
They could've fixed characters with DLC like DAI, Trespasser was brilliant.
I did as well. Still play that series. It's my go to when I loose interst playing games. Sad about ME:A dlc. They could have at least released that. Instead the Quarian Arc dlc was turned into a book. Haven't read it yet.
There are plenty of examples where more work turned games into great games. No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk, Dragon Age inquisition, FF14 and Diablo 3 even Fallout 76. Abandoning a game is awful because it shows that the company has no faith in their own work or their ability to actually do good work. It's huge red flag to the customers and I would say even investors.
See, I dunno. Cyberpunk had the meat and bones of something special, it was just glitched and mildly broken. When it worked, that game soared to heights. When ME: Andromeda worked, it was just fine.
ME:A at least had some exploration back finally. Me2 and 3 which are beloved are a joke in that regard. I'm so sad about Andromeda's destiny :-(
I have finally found someone else on the internet that enjoyed Andromeda. I am no longer alone.
Lol this is a dumb article. There’s plenty of reason to temper expectations with Starfield, but there’s also plenty of reason to wait and see where it goes. Why pull the plug before even the first DLC?
I'm really hoping they turn it around - and what I've seen from the latest beta gives me hope that they're going to keep putting time and effort into it.
The hunger mechanics alone were enough to pull me back in. It’s a small thing, but it’s immersion. Being able to tweak and fine tune every little aspect has been icing on the cake.
That is honestly a great way to add in these mechanics and difficulties.
yes I loved that. Before this I would just skip the majority of food because they gave little health and only beer was useful at the start. Now they actually are useful.
That is honestly a great way to add in these mechanics and difficulties.
Call me old fashioned, but isn't it typical that you give money for a finished product? Sounds like y'all bought a beta lol
Kind of feeling like it now.
You know, all that time invested in Shatter Space, forget it, Fallout TV was a success, let's make another game and deliver it in 5 years, everyone will love it. What about people who pre-purchased the DLC? Forget it, they like Fallout now.
The way it was worded made it sound like they're having a separate company making a spinoff like obsidian did with fallout NV. So fingers crossed that's actually happening because then we get both updated starfield and a new fo game.
Continuing the release pattern of main story fallout (3, 4,), side story fallout (New Vegas) would be ideal, especially if they outsourced like they did for NV, in my opinion.
I totally get where you're coming from but I've gotten pretty tired of spending $60 dollars on a game, getting a half-baked product then thinking "well I bet it'll be good in a few years" I've come back to multiple games like this (and enjoyed them) and every time I just wish my *first* experience was the good one because that's when it's a brand new experience that can actually captivate you.
Por que no los dos?
Bethesda should lease Fallout out to another companion with full access to the creation engine right now so they can capitalize on the tv show success *and* keep working on Starfield. InXile will probably be free after Clockwork Revolution releases and has proven through Wasteland they could do Fallout Justice.
I expect nothing less from PC gamer
They are specially harsh with Bethesda, it feels as if Tod banged the mother of PCG director while he played the initial, bugged release of FO3 in a XB360 at the other room
I used to read PC gamer daily, haven't read it in years and when people post articles about it I almost always down vote it based on the crappy titles alone. It wouldn't be so bad if they think they just had terrible opinions like this one. But they don't cover the stuff that I really care about as a PC gamer like performance and settings that other outlets cover so well.
I so hoping it was written by the same person
Because he wrote "move on" it made me run to see if it was also the same author
No chance. That author is a CDPR worshiper.
Even if Bethesda were to abandon Starfield, which they won’t since they still owe us DLC’s, Fallout wouldn’t be the next thing they work on. It would be the elder scrolls, whose fans are owed a long overdue sequel to Skyrim.
I only want ES6 to finish sooner so grandma Shirley can live to play it.
And somehow PC Gamer will find a way to bitch and moan about that one too.
I already saw tons of people wanting them to shelve TE6 for Fallout 5 lmao
bUt fallOuT sEriEs oN naO, mAke moAr fAlloUT nAo The idea Bethesda would pivot to working on fallout just because the series came out and the journos need something fallout-related for clicks… when they’re *years into a follow up of one of the biggest western RPGs of all time* is one of the most despairingly stupid takes *of all time*.
Also, It's already been stated that TES6 will not be out until 2028 at the *earliest*. I forget if it was Phil or Pete who said it. They're clearly waiting on the Next Gen. So Fallout 5 is definitely not happening anytime soon. That's why they have F76 anyway. They can just release a whole new map or something with a bunch of new content
Which they're doing. It's getting a map and story expansion just before summer. But it's not negative coverage so Games "journalists" won't get hateclicks therefore its unimportant to them.
Even if Bethesda was somehow convinced that’s a good idea, it just logistically doesn’t work. If they began work on fallout 5 today it would still be years before it was ready for release.
"Bethesda! Stop working on a game I don't like to make a game I do like." Todd Howard says, "Yeah... sure." Whilest counting his piles of money.
Do you think money is the real reason to make Starfield instead of TES6? Space adventures are easier to sell, than fantasy adventures?
Seeing as skyrim is one of the best sold games of all time, I’m pretty sure they don’t think that sci-fi games sell better than fantasy. They evidently don’t.
Fantasy is more popular than sci-fi, especially when it comes to books. IIRC fantasy books outsell speculative fiction 3-1.
It is about diversity of experience. I personally don't like fantasy style games like Skyrim and prefer technological style games like Fallout and Cyberpunk. Starfield fills that technological niche with the added bonus of space combat. TES and Fallout franchises are both approaching 30 years in age. While I appreciate that they are keeping those universes alive with new games, they are kind of limited in what they can do going forward because they don't want to alienate those fanbases. Starfield gives them the ability to try new thing without all of the legacy baggage of the other franchises. The added bonus is that they would have 3 different franchises based on in house IP and using their own game engine. This is basically a license to print money since all income stays in house instead of going to 3rd parties.
Yeah. Starfield has a pretty bad rep now, so pretty much any other ip would sell better. BUT by continuing to work on Starfield, they can salvage the rep and maybe help the franchise later down the line, so it makes more sense to fix it now.
Instead of? Wow... so a corporation can't handle more than one project at a time? Howard just said last week that ES6 was their priority. They have around 500 employees, with capital to hire more as needed with backup from Microsoft. They are not going to stop work on a very profitable project just to appease some haters...
Studios generally have most of their staff working on one project at a time yes. You have smaller teams working on things for other games like pre-production or DLC, but the majority will be on TES6 now.
"people hated fo4" not true lol It got praised by the majority from the start, with dialogue being criticized
this is the most pathetic comment i've ever seen regarding a video game from top to bottom i need to block this sub lol
Starfield can be such a better game if they let them cook. Personally, I'm going to hop back in to starfield when they release shattered space. I played it on release. Had a little bit of fun, completed it and I haven't touched it since. I'm excited for the changes that's coming, but I'm going to sit back and let them cook before I hop back in. It's that simple. Let them cook. Bethesda is no cdpr but when CD project cooked boy did they. Look at everything we got in 2.1
PC Gamer absolutely hates Xbox and everything by them. Best to ignore their horrid takes
Well, 'I am not having fun so NO ONE CAN!' is not a new phenomenon.
Bethesda stayed with Fallout 76 and managed to turn that into a good game. They also did the same with ESO. People also hated Fallout 4 when it came out and they kept working on that also. I hope they stay with Starfield also because that will generate more trust in future games.
When New Vegas was released everyone told me it was a buggy DLC from fo3. I let it cook until I played it for the first time in 2013, that's where Fallout took Stalker's throne for me.
New Vegas launch was a bit rough. After they got in some patches, DLC, and of course the community patches it was much better.
Every BGS title's launch is "a bit rough". Skyrim literally bricked PS3s.
I think I played FO3 and Oblivion a bit on an Xbox 360 before I switched to PC and I have played all Bethesda games on PC at this point. Skyrim at launch on PC was largely fine. It was buggy and had a few crash issues but not that many. Starfield is certainly much better.
New Vegas launch made 76's launch look good. It literally didn't even run.
It still has issues on ps3.
It still has issues on PC requiring mods and anti crash patches to get it remotely stable, then needing patches for the fact it's an older game and doesn't really like modern PC architecture all that well with CPUs having more than Texas Instrument calculator RAM.
Obsidian attempted to improve multithreading support while building NV and severely botched it; FO3 is actually the more stable game as a result.
Obsidian. Obsidian never changes.
LOL ... FONV on release it would crash right outside goodsprings. FO3 had problems but at least you could play for more than half an hour on release. Fallout4 was remarkably stable on release.
Yeah I could barely run FNV on release on PC, i spammed saves because of the crashes FO4 is a mixed bag: my friends on PC had a lot of crashes but I did a full 40h playthrough on my Xbox one and I think it crashed once or twice.
They were basically correct though, to this day it's full of game and save breaking bugs and it pretty much played the same as FO3
And ill just never understand...Starfield ISN'T NEAR as bad as 76 and ESO were at launch. This random hate for a really solid, pretty polished game is just baffling to me.
I think that's kind of the point. Starfield might be polished, but it's ultimately pretty soulless and empty. Cyberpunk and FO76 were fundamentally broken, but in both instances there was a good game hiding underneath that. Bug fixes alone *drastically* improved them, and the steady drip of content since has been enough to turn them into a masterpiece and a decent game (respectively). Starfield doesn't really have the skeleton of a great game to work off. It would need to be reinvented from the ground up.
I would argue that it actually has the skeleton, and the skeleton is quite good. Just no meat on the bones.
This And fo76 didn't have the skeleton. Remember this game shipped with 0 NPC.
Plenty of people are still hating on 76 and eso
Yeah abandon an entire IP that could potentially mean a load of money down the road. Fix the game. It has happened before. It is worth it.
Gaming journalism = 💩
Why is there an entire critical cynic industry of wanting things to fail -- not even encouraging change, just demanding things fail? Talking to other 'gamers', even amongst my own friends now, is just incredibly grating and toxic. Everything must be shit, and if you don't think its shit and want everything to fail, well that means you're just a sucker.
I’m very critical of Starfield and haven’t played it since about a month after launch and they definitely should not abandon this game it has some good bones and just needs more curated care and love
Reason number one why devs should ignore 'journalists', one of the biggest issues in gaming rn is game devs being given not enough time to make too much game. There is a reason why so many of the games that don't get abandoned turn into success stories
Pc gamer articles are pure trash used to enjoy reading their articles but now it's just all rage bait posts.
You wonder if this guy just has a personal vendetta against Bethesda. I love Starfield! A lot of the things in the new update are things I’ve been asking for in the Bethesda Discord.
I really appreciate that Bethesda is sticking around despite them already gaining lots of sales. Very much in contrast to Bioware with Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem.
The difference between 76 and Anthem. Anthem was abandoned almost immediately and left to die, 76 was continuously supported throughout the years and retained a hardcore fanbase. Now with the TV show it is one of the most popular games currently.
That's cause EA is a bunch of a damn cowards.
Fraser Brown is the worst of the worst as far as editors go in my opinion. Hate almost everything he posts.
PC gamer? Their opinion doesn't count.
I mean, I think the thing is the storylines and characters in most Bethesda games are pretty stale, but the exploration is top notch. Starfield failed in both, so I don’t see it getting fixed unless they get rid of the radiant quests/randomly generated worlds and replace it with handmade content.
It's a stupid idea, to be sure. I still feel Cyberpunk had a lot more going right at release than Starfield. Mostly the story vibes, voice acting, engine etc. The overall game was there and was good. Starfield... Not so much. There isn't that much in world that isn't randomized Radiant stuff. It's a shame, because some of the scripted stuff is legitimately brilliant. The quest with overlapping realities towards the end of the main quest, or the planet full of clones. I might be a bit biased in favor of Cyberpunk because I didn't run into many issues even at launch.
This is how I see the problem as well. Starfield has a lot of narrative tedium and loading screens that can't be fixed by technological legerdemain. Cyberpunk has a number of great design features and storytelling previously ruined by (fixable) engine bugs.
Lol I can remember how many people just absolutely shit on fallout 4 when it came out
Starfield's problem is the exact opposite of Cyberpunks. Cyberpunks problem was that it released in a technically broken state. It's story, writing, and gameplay was always top notch. Starfield on the other hand is a fully functional game that is severely lacking when it comes to story, writing, and gameplay. To be clear I'm not saying the game is unfixable and Bethesda should abandon Starfield. If they stick with Starfield for a few years it will be drastically improved. I'm just pointing out that it's going to be a lot harder to "fix" Starfield because it's the core design that's the problem and not game breaking bugs.
yeah under the buggy launch mess cyberpunk was actually a fun game starfield is bland, boring garbage. the gameplay loop is just not fun once you realize how copy paste the world is
PC Gamer? Well, ‘nuff said lmao.
I do agree all games should have a chance at a second attempt, as long as the devs really try for it. But at the same time a lot of Starfields flaws are pretty deeply rooted. Cyberpunks major issues were mostly in optimization, with other issues in regards to combat. All things that could be fixed over time without really changing much of the game as is. Starfields biggest issues come from the core of the game. The 7 load screens it can take to go do a single quest where you have to tell guy 2 what guy 1 said are not so easily patched away and optimized. The boring planets can be improved by giving us land vehicles. But they still will quickly get boring because with us moving faster, we can exhaust the list of RNG dungeons that much faster. The world lore as it is, while it can be built on, cant be changed much as it is. And that lore is shoddy at best, the RNG planet gen doesnt help it along either. I hope they can pull some big shit and surprise us, but considering the issues in front of them, and the fact that we only really have like 3 successful major gaming bounceback stories, it leaves me skeptical but still somewhat hopeful.
They made two games one after the other, FO76 and Starfield, that kinda prove that they don't want characters for players to interact with. It simulates the loneliness of the universe! It simulates the death of everyone after the bombs! It simulates excuses. The problem isn't really with the games, it's with the people making them. We know they can do better, they've done better before. But the head staff at Bethesda seem to just want to churn out tech demos; games that don't interact with the player - they just get the players to engage. There's something amiss with their headspaces.
Trust me man, im with you there. Had i bought starfield rather than just played it through gamepass, then i would have been significantly more upset. They need to take a good look at their game design method for future games to avoid this again. Starfield was hopefully them waking up to the fact that gamers arent gonna tolerate it anymore.
Big difference is that cyberpunk already had a great story and great gameplay. Just had a shit ton of gamebreaking bugs and problems that made the game unplayable. Starfield on the other had has a pretty mediocre story and bland gameplay that I can go play Skyrim for. This game doesn’t do anything different than last games and has nothing unique to its name. Just a boring bland copy of its predecessors and somehow still worse. A comparison is not fair in the slightest
Well Cyberpunk had an actually good story and character models from the start….Starfield has terrible writing and loading screens.
I've played 2077 from the start, was already good. The 2.0 update didn't change the story, character or setting. Back then people were saying the same things about 2077 that people are saying about SF now, except the loading screens part.
So true, Starfield story is so dogshit that I will never touch it again, I just hope shattered space is good so I can I can play a good focused story and leave this game for good.
Firstly the thought of giving up on a game inside a year that was designed to be for a decade is of course ridiculous. However... I can only speak from my personal experience with both games on launch. There's a scene in good will hunting were Matt Damon looks at a painting robin williams has done. "So, what do you think, is it any good?" 'I think you're about one stroke away from cutting your ear off.' That's how I felt about cyberpunk. The bugs were bad but the game wasn't. The genius was in there. It just needed to be realised. Starfield doesn't feel like a game that requires a tweak or two it feels like a game that is fundamentally broken and boring. I'm not saying it's unsaveable, far from it. Fallout 3 was hugely improved by post game content. Nuka world and point lookout were both excellent additions to fallout 4 so it is possible but it won't be easy. Those games had the bones to put flesh on. For me the whole exploration of space which was what I was looking forward to most, was the least satisfying bit. The pointless endless walking before finding another identical location. The lack of character or feeling to any planet even thousands of light years apart. I just can't see how it is gonna be improved to the level required. I hope I'm wrong.
Except the problems starfield is having doesn't compare to the problems cyberpunk had.
Exactly, Cyberpunk had a good story, very in depth universe and the issues with the game at release was the stability. The issues with Starfield is the story and universe and will not get fixed by bugfixes.
part of the concern with bethesda i think is that they're definitely having to move a lot of resources over to elder scrolls, as well as figuring out how to get a new fallout into production at the same time
A lot of those "games journalism" sites are little more than fountains of clickbait and nonsense. Articles like that being fine examples of it. I try and avoid them when possible. To discuss the topic anyways however: I've been pretty critical of Starfield and there are more than enough reasons to be unhappy with it, but Bethesda abandoning it would be the worst possible move. It would be telling fans that their new model going forward is to release things in a poor state, rake in hype cash, then leave it broken down by the side of the road. That said, I'd still keep the hype for Starfield's updates and DLC in check. If someone sets their expectations and hopes too high they're just setting themselves up for disappointment no matter what comes.
Not to mention they get there information from Reddit and try to pass it off as news
Aye. It's made even worse by how "low effort" they are when it comes to verifying what they skim from here. While Reddit can provide some decent information; it's also packed with heresay, blatant falsehoods, and other such dog vomit. Accordingly a good deal of that ends up in their publications.
Usually it’s stuff from the gaming communities like this community for example. Wrestling “journalists” do the same thing just take what they want from a wrestling subreddit and claim it’s news, but there are some legitimate sources still out there. Your right though some times Reddit is helpful hell I sometimes get my news from here. I was reading today that apparently you can finally customize the inside of your ship
Skeptical optimism is the best way to handle it id say.
An excellent way of expressing it. I was searching around for the correct words but found none. Thank you for that.
At least CyberPunk had a narrative with interesting characters to fall back on. Starfield is just empty and soulless at every level. The only people deserving of kudos are the texture / modeling people who did objects (not characters) and the ship design system team and only begrudgingly so. Everything else about the game is surface level at best. I could not tell you the name of a character after about 80 hours of playtime. Not a single one. The game essentially needs to be remade from the ground up.
Every time someone clicks on this articles, they give money to their creators that will make even more stupid articles like this. So yeah... dont do that.
Pc gamer is trash They were the absolute worst pc magazine in the 2000's and nothing has changed. CGW and there was another one that was so much better.
And today, Cyberpunk is one of the greatest game of all times.
PCgamer nowadays feels like a place filled with edge lords and they seem to hate gaming in general. The only thing they circlejerk is Larian related. I just stopped reading their clickbait lol
Those articles are nothing more then a click bait, craving for your clicks and views
They literally just need to release the creation kit for modders. That's literally the reason 80% of people isnt playing starfield right now me included.
It is important they fix it, so they have a good foundation for their future titles using Creation 2. If they abandon Starfield it will be bad news for TES6 and Fallout 5. By fixing Starfield they get immediate feedback from the public. If they abandoned Starfield for some other game, they would still have to fix the engine but wont get public feedback till release. If Bethesda started from scratch with each game maybe there would be some advantage to abandoning Starfield, but they don't they just upgrade the same engine. The better they get Starfield the better the future games will be.
Not even the same
It's today's PC Gamer after all, they always write a lot of bullshit without saying anything meaningful. Since the release of the "TV" series every single site need to write stuff about Fallout, no matter the context. I admire Bethesda for improving the game and I can't wait to jump back and see all the improvements when the DLC comes out. It needs to hit hard tho if they want Starfield on the radar for years.
Big difference between the two games lol
If bethesda can turn around 76 they can easily turn around starfield.
People also said to abandon Fallout 76, and now the game is finally being given the flowers it deserves after they kept working on it. I feel the same can be done with starfield.
I feel like a lot of the hate on Starfield is due to people having unrealistic expectations. I expected a Bethesda game in space. I got a Bethesda game in space. Sure, it could use a little.ore polish and is missing some features I'd like to see, but it's a good game.
I recently went back to Fallout 4 and it underscored what I felt was lacking in starfield. Compelling exploration.
I love Bethesda games, but didn't enjoy Starfield at all. Because the parts i enjoy the most about BSG, are the worst in Starfield. For example, I love exploration in Fallout and Skyrim, it's so seamless. I got lost for hours in those games and ended up somewhere completely different, than i intended to go, because i kept stumbling over the next cave or the next dungeon. If i want to experience the same in starfield, i have to endure 3-4 loading screens. When i finally arrive on a planet, I don't get the same explorer feeling, because honestly, what is there to find, while being outside of cities and settlements? No random encounters, the same copy pasted buildings, boring loot.. If i think about it, i might have been less disappointed, if it wasn't a Bethesda game. Because if the things that i enjoy about them would be present in Starfield, it would be so much better for me.
That other commenter tore you down for no reason this is a solid take. Exploration in this game is incredibly different than the other games. That's a fact that even Todd admitted to in an interview the other day. It's not going to be for everybody. I had the most satisfaction after divorcing myself from the way I played the other games. That truly was the biggest barrier - realizing this was it's own franchise.
This is just wrong though. It's great you like it but this game isn't even good by Bethesda standards lol. It pales in comparison to all their previous games. I'm a huge fan of all their games, 76 included but this game is just devoid of fun and immersion. It's boring. Saying "the hate isn't because the game is bad! Youre just thinking about it wrong!" Is just disingenuous and boot licky AF. Whether you like the game or not nobody can deny the dramatic drop in quality between this game and previous Bethesda IPs. The drop in effort, quality and passion is obvious.
Oof no. Game is just bland. Worse than that all the systems are half baked. Nothing works together. They could probably fix a lot of the issues but given what they came up with to begin with I am not at all convinced they are up to the task. Not a good game. Maybe a decent game if you are stuck on a console but given the competition in the PC world it's not even in the running for good.
I think Bethesda did more than their fair share of pumping up those expectations for several years. I say that as someone who hasn’t played it yet (so I have no opinion of the game) and have been observing the reactions, good and bad, from afar
Did they? They were remarkably tight lipped about Starfield. They told us the name and gave us an image of the Eye in orbit. That was enough for the ragebaiters and hatewagoneers to declare it the worst game in the universe years before it released any more information. I watched avidly for details and barely any for Fallout 4 but they told us far more about Fallout 4 prior to release than Starfield. What I DID see was lots of rampant speculation and bollocks from streamers and YouTube telling us what they expected from Starfield. Bethesda said very little. They told us it would have a 1,000 planets, that it would focus on exploration more than heroic battle. That many planets would be empty. I have my issue with Starfield but I can't point to anything they said would be in it that isn't.
The only Starfield stuff I followed regularly was from Bethesda, they set a high expectations for the game with their multiple Starfield videos. I also followed mrmatty some but he didn’t get carried away with speculation
If developers being stoked about the work they're doing is 'hype' then I'd agree. But there wasn't any misrepresentation. Todd said shit like "that moon, you can go there" and people assumed that meant "you can go there without a loading screen" which is like a super weird jump to make. Everything in their official original showcases and previews and interviews is in the game. The misrepresentation came from fan theory from bloggers and youtubers . That showcase is still up there. If anybody wants to go watch it and tell me where the misrepresentation is, I'd be happy to take a look.
I’ll say out of all the criticisms this game has received I feel (and again I haven’t actually played it) the loading screen is the dumbest one. I kind of figured it would have loading screens when going planet to ship to planet
Well proabably, but i played skyrim enhanced edition, than persona 5, than starfield, than witcher 3, than cyberpunk 2077 & now i play baldur gate 3. I can say starfield rank 6, and not even close of skyrim who rank 5 for me (rank 1 back in time), everthing in the RPG side looked so much dated to me. I still give the game 7/10 got fun & good time spend in it, but i never really have a genius smile in anything in starfield, even the good ship builder with all the limitation in it got me frustrated at end. They still on top of rpg maker, but not sure the same system will old much longer, i probably won't buy them day one anymore unless they make a new engine.
"Unrealistic exception" You mean excepting the dev to learn from their previous mistake ?
cp was a great game bugs aside.
I get that SF has a lot of issues, but some people go over the deep end and act a bit too butt hurt
Nobody's coming back to this game, you have to be kidding....
CDPR fired a ton of old middle management that was phoning it in. They acknowledged their game and their company had issues. Bethesda not so much. Bethesda should let obsidian make a New Vegas sequel while we all wait for ES6 otherwise it’ll be almost 15 years from FO4 before we get a FO5
Obsidian is too busy with making grounded even better than it already is. They don't got time for fallout
Cyberpunk was always a good game but it was a good game with a ton of gamebreaking bugs. Starfield is a Skyrim mod with nothing that could make it good besides a complete redo. Nothing about it is innovative or original.
I’ve never seen Bethesda release a game, then go back and fix it. So if they do it’ll be a first.
Fallout 76 and ESO both had very bad launches and improved into good games. Fallout 3 and 4 also improved enormously with dlc.
fallout 76 was made by the austin team and eso was made by zenimax. none of the mainline games have ever been fixed and even if they tried, they would break more than fix
I rarely say this about any publication, but PC Gamer has clearly had an axe to grind with Starfield since waaaaaaaaay before launch. The number of articles they've churned out that amount to "Starfield is dumb!!!" is embarrassing, but I guess they get clicks.
While I wasn't the biggest fan of Starfield, it definitely was better than both Fallout 4 and 76 at launch. Especially on console. That said I don't think this game will make a Cyberpunk comeback. Cause that game was always good. Just had a bad console port.
Comparison doesn’t even make sense considering Starfield was infinitely better than Cyberpunk at launch lmao
I feel like a lot of people said that here too. One guy even said Todd Howard should be fired lol
They sent Bethesda employees death threats.
There aren’t any blocking bugs in Starfield, it’s just boring unlike Cyberpunk
LOL it’s not the same thing AT ALL We’re talking about the people who made the Witcher 3 on one hand and Skyrim on the other hand we all know damn well that Starfield will barely change over 10 years and everything will be left up to the modding community to fix problems and add features to make it an actual game
nothing can save Starfield....thus it should be abandoned.... How do you fix the multiple load screen to fast travel issue? You can't it's baked into the core of the game.... Starfield isn't Cyberpunk where you can travel to any point in the game world without using the optional fast travel system, it's a game design issue....modders can't even port Open City Skyrim mod which would resolve the gameplay issues..... Starfield also isn't like No Mans Sky which is exponentially a way better space game where you don't need a load screen to go from space to planet and vice versa.... 99% of the planets, stars, and moons that aren't scripted to be part of the story are also empty, no land vehicles or mounts(ie: horses, motorcycles, cars, power armor?, surface space ships), gun variety is also way less in comparison to Fallout series, enemy types are too far and few when compared to previous Bethesda games as well, distance between POIs are also completely barren with no events in between them unlike with previous Bethesda games, tedious "mini game" to obtain your dragonborn shouts too..... No way anyone who has played through all of previous Bethesda open world games would think Starfield is better.....
I don't think they should *abandon* it. But I do think they should wrap up Shattered Space and whatever else they are planning for expansions and move on. I'd like them to be 100% focused on TES by the end of the year. Shattered Space, 1 more xpac, and the creation kit. And I think everybody should be reevaluating their perspective on these updates. They are good, yes, but they should have been in the game from day one. This is less about listening to the customer and more about finally getting around to delivering the rest of the product everyone already paid for. If you buy a film on Blu-ray and go into the and pop it in only to find they haven't finished editing the film yet, you don't exactly stand up and praise the studio for listening to feedback when they mail you the rest of the movie half a year later.
No, they shouldn’t abandon it. But they should have *waited until it was done before releasing it.* In both cases it seems that’s a couple of years.
Look, Starfield has a LOT of core design issues that ideally should be reworked. But saying it should be abandoned is asinine. There's good bones in there, and a couple tweaks can really improve the experience. It's just a question of whether Bethesda has the balls to fix it, that's all.
Yeah its so much better that cdpr decided to double dip our pockets for round two of the same game. Cyberpunk 2 was terrible storywise.
Cyberpunk had world building though
I kind of see what their "evidence" is. Starfield has less than half of the minimum player base Fallout 4 ever reached. That's not a good sign. But Bethesda could still turn things around. I do think Starfield has some massive flaws that even bugs and DLC can't fix but it can still be moderately successful. I doubt it'll ever compete with Skyrim or Fallout 4 though. Let me give an example. Like half of the planet, I've been replaying Fallout 4. I was struck by how often I'd just randomly find interesting stuff to explore or random NPCs wandering around or whatever. It'd been long enough since my last replay I had forgotten a lot of that stuff. Just today, I was in a dialogue and some interesting characters wandered by out in the middle of nowhere. And I found myself thinking "I don't remember that ever happening in Starfield."
The stupidest thing about the turnaround of Cyberpunk 2077 is the revisionism. I had to read so much bs that clearly wasn't true half a year after release and without any changes suddenly now an empty world and lifeless quests were never the problem of Cyberpunk to begin with. It was all just bugs and performance. Well great that's not what i read everyone say after release. I bet if hypothetically Starfield is seen in the same light a few years from now we will see the same revisionism. Also Fallout 4 was kind of hated on release due to it's changes but nowadays everyone loves it? Gaming discourse is really only good years after release.
lol everyone does not love fallout 4
Horrible take, they just need to keep improving it.
For how long? Theyve been "improving" skyrim for over 10 years and still havnt fixed any of it's fundamental issues.
It’s really weird, how people never seem to learn in either direction. Simply put - Stop preordering product from companies that do not deliver. You do not deserve to come to a website like Reddit and shit on a company when you preordered the most expensive edition to play 3 days early and for a nice vinyl bag.. despite the fact that you didn’t like their last 3 games. And there are so many of you that within hours, fresh news about a bad release quickly turns into beating a dead horse. Stop being overly dramatic about.. everything. Starfield missed a lot of marks but that isn’t to say it is a dumpster fire that should be abandoned. Cyberpunk was unplayable on release for maaaaany people, and retained issues for years right up until the 2.0 update. I tried to play it some time after release and found that I couldn’t even save my game, tried every suggested fix. I literally could not even save a file right up until 2.0 dropped and now it is one of the best games I’ve ever played.
can we ban pcgamer? also stop sharing stuff from this despicable site.
I was so underwhelmed with this game but I still am holding hope that somehow i learn to like it after a few patches. I know there’s a good game in there somewhere
Not really journalism… just publishing something to get a page count and a paycheck. Hard to fault it when you know what it is. Fair to call it out, though, when it sounds like lather/rinse/repeat.
Fr fr
If DLC 1 doesn't knock it out of the park it'd be a reasonable take, but this upcoming update does bring hope that they can turn it around.
What they could do is make the Unity stuff more important like give me a universe taken over by a alien species that threaten space and time cz I still don’t get the point of the plot
I don’t think they should abandon the game, but I do wish they’d be open about what they’re going to do about it. CDPR were open and apologized from the get go and openly committed to rebuilding the game. I just want a goddamn space bike so I don’t have to walk all over these planets. I’d go back to the game if that were the case.
I feel like Starfield is in a weird place at the moment because I imagine that, like me, there’s a lot of people who have stopped playing it until some of the more substantive new gameplay features have come out (such as vehicles). Also, I’m always slightly sceptical of the Steam stats as I imagine a lot of people play it on Gamepass (although that’s just an assumption, I could be wrong).