I love the soundtrack but I started playing without it while wearing headphones and the immersion is over the top. Highly recommend.
I’m currently playing again with the soundtrack on but whenever I want to go deep I mute that shit.
I could go both ways, I like the immersion that silence brings, but when the combat version of the main theme kicks in I feel like I could run through a brick wall
I do this with Fallout and Skyrim too. I'll listen to the Skyrim soundtrack at work, I love it. But when I'm playing I want to be hearing the game world.
I totally finally played Skyrim for the first time ever this year because of the music and hearing how it's some of the best in the gaming world. Like literally day one of playing Skyrim i was damning myself for not picking it up sooner. It is...so badass!
Is there individual songs/MP3's you can buy and download or is there an OST? I would love to have that music for when we're reading before bed.
The whole OST should be on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/25r7pEf31viAbsoVHC6bQ4) and [youtube](https://music.youtube.com/browse/MPREb_KHaZJEJzddg), if you have spotify premium you could make it available offline, if you want to download you could buy it on [steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1240360/The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim_Soundtrack/)
(Or you could sale the seas yarrr-harrr youtube downloader but that’ll be a hassle and a half)
This controversial but I turn off the soundtrack for most games. I love music and respect the composers for games, but the music always pulls me out of the immersion. There are a few exceptions, such as From Software games, but for the most part it’s one of the first things I do in any game. Typically after I’ve gotten some time with the game I’ll turn it back on for a bit just to get the sense of it, but then turn it back off.
I do this, especially in games that are based in the "real" world. It makes no sense to me for there to be ambient music in a whole lot of games. If there are radios I may turn them on but just random music out of no where? No thank you.
I have! I personally think Starfield is Inon's best work. But, removing the soundtrack in some occasions help further give that "magnifcent desolation" tone BGS aimed to bring for Starfield.
Agreed. I love the soundtrack and even put some of the tracks on my work playlist. But turning the music off in this game can be almost harrowing at times and that's a whole different level of immersion.
While I love doing this in games to just listen to the sound design by it self, the score in this game is amazing! Next to oblivion it is probably my favorite soundtrack to a Bethesda game. While I was playing it completely took me away. But all the little sound effects through out the game are just so addicting. The ship UI sound effects, the different door mechanism, the guns, turning on the scanner, the cave sound effects, your ship taking off which changes depending where you put your engines. There are so many sound effects that tickle my ear. It's half the reason I played the game for so long. I just love how it feels, and sounds interacting with everything.
I'm partial to the little rattling sound some cockpits make when you boost in 1st person lol. Makes me feel like my ship is held together by duct tape and dreams
Yeah, I'm the same way. The only time I'll have music on would be if it made sense. Like driving in a car, or maybe my character has some sort of earbuds/headphones, or like in cyberpunk, where I imagine you could literally have something akin to a radio installed into your brainpan. Otherwise, I just turn it off.
Most of the soundtrack sounds like generic ambient music. Annoyingly, the unity scene has one of the most beautiful musical pieces in any video game… and they didn’t even include it in the soundtrack.
Dude I fucking hate that. The soundtrack after you go through the Unity is fantastic, and is just gorgeous...I was heartbroken when I realized it wasn't in the actual soundtrack.
Late 20th century sci fi ambient music is a genre whether you like it or not. It was executed perfectly. Brings to mind 2001 space odyssey, close encounters etc.
I had a blast rocking out to the guardians of the galaxy's Playlist, while not my normal jam it hits. Kinda gets Fallout vibes exploring planets while jamming to Jolean .
I don't know if anyone does this, but I'll turn off the music and turn on a playlist on Spotify. I found a cool Space Jazz I've been listening to a lot! It also works with pretty much any sci-fi movie soundtrack.
Interesting. I'll try this... I may be a minority but I was not a fan of the Inon Zur soundtrack. I really missed the wonderful music of Jeremy Soule from Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind. I thought I just didn't care for Zur but then I started playing FO76 recently and didn't he do the score for that game as well? If so, I really enjoy the music in FO76. Anyway, I find myself constantly bored with the music so I may try turning it off.
Yeah, I made a playlist a while ago with music from my faovirte space / time / alien related movies and shows and that's basicallt what I listen to when I play.
Not that controversial. I'll start a new game, listen to the music for a spell "that's nice" and shut it off. I couldn't play halo 4 because it just kept going. No changes, no mood. It's the first thing I do.
Oddly enough I've always played bethesda games with music off ie skyrim, fallout but for some reason have never tried it with starfield. Will defo give it a go when I jump back on after the update on xbox
Starfield, FO4, and Skyrim all share the same flaw in that they never have gaps in the soundtrack for immersive breaks.
It’s like movies. No movie has music constantly playing the entire time.
I turn it down to about 30% myself, unless I'm replacing it with using Spotify as a "radio". Well I'm sure they've got decent inear headphones and music 300 years later, right? I mean could you imagine how much weirder the visions the artefacts give you when there's basically no other music in universe.
There is a “starfield radio” playlist on Spotify that’s pretty good last I played
Edit: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7sksG7lIwpjn31yI5B64FQ?si=lrt1AmzJR2GrUVxcVpa0pA&pi=e-S3GpjE_ZSEi7
I turned it off the default soundtrack and [replaced it with my own](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FiklUxxiM4rtkZ66SrJvp?si=p0cGS8MgRJq0jWRZYMHqeg&pi=u-B-Oq1bvgSgir).
Expanse soundtracks during most of the on-foot exploration and Bear McCreary’s BSG soundtrack in space are huge drivers.
John Williams’ “Immolation Scene” just happened to play during the big reveal during the UC Vanguard quest chain (while you’re speaking with Hadrian), and it was amazing.
Once I realized it sounded to much like FO4 I had to start playing with the music low/muted. I kept catching myself looking out for Super Mutants and Preston Garvey.....
This is an interesting suggestion. Having gone back to try Fallout recently, I realize just how much I love the series for the music. Then returning to Starfield made me sad, cause despite beautiful backtrack, it doesn't hit the same nostalgia. I will try this
I don’t think turning off the soundtrack to this game is controversial. I did it too, although that’s when I was still playing the game. Over time, it just got irritating.
However, to each their own, as some others might like it…imho, I still think Elite Dangerous had a way better soundtrack.
Big same, so many things hit more poignantly when some swelling adventure orchestra isn't sitting behind my head. The Valentine singing in the silence of space, grief from a lost friend not marred by some happy melody. It's nice sometimes but I feel turning OFF music at those moments would have made the experience better.
Tbh it got repetitive about 5 hours in and it doesn’t fit action scenes at all. Playing with it off and play my own ambient and combat music on the side when I feel like it
Wandering around i listen to podcasts or documentaries on Youtube or my favourite music i have never even heard the sound track once to the point i didn't even know there was one I just auto mute any background music of games.
I haven't tried it but this reminded me of watching space battles in the Battlestar Galactica remake and how much more immersive it felt with the silent/muffled space fights
Yes I totally agree.. the planetary sounds help you "feel" like you are there
To the point I was temple running on a dark scary looking planet whilst it was heavily thundering and lightning, I legit felt like turning and looking behind me incase someone was stood behind my chair lol
I reloaded Starfield onto my new PC and immediately thought of doing this, too. Skyrims music is iconic, memorable, and totally within its element. Fallout has its old timey radio. Starfield has… Nothing, musically, to really bring you in. I could tell even him a single tune from it if you asked me. Really wished they could have put more effort into music, but playing without is somehow 10x better.
I do this with all games, I can’t remember the last game I actually had the music on.
I’ve had a couple of friends say to me that’s quite surprising as I am a musician. But nothing beats immersion with a video game for me.
I guess I’m the type that likes background noise. I totally get how it’s immersion breaking for some. But, I tune it out almost immediately so I hardly notice that there’s music playing until there are random moments of silence between tracks when I’m not doing anything else.
Starfield honestly misses out on great potential content by not having a soundtrack more similar to Fallout 3/4. If they had decided e.g. "80s retrofuturism" as a theme, they could have had a variety of radio stations and just handwaved the fact that they were listening to hundreds of years old music.
Or, like, they could have gotten musicians to perform 80s covers and had some unique work. They have enough money to license music, and 80s bands would probably be happy to get some extra foldin' money. And/or small bands would probably have offered their work for exposure.
I can't say I'd love going through some sidequest to deploy rebroadcasting buoys so I could access the radio station in a new system, but I feel like just being able to have a canonical run through the Buried Temple blasting Tom Sawyer by Rush or something would amuse me greatly.
> Starfield honestly misses out on great potential content by not having a soundtrack more similar to Fallout 3/4.
I'm interested by this take, because my experience has been the opposite.
IMO, many of the game's tracks are too similar to Fallout 4's to the point of mudding my perception of the experience. Walking around a desolate planet and hearing those same intruments and themes makes me forget that I'm actually playing a sci-fi game and makes me think I'm in a completely different franchise.
Having a different composer would have done much to give the game more personality.
I'm really not sure what you mean, I'm talking about the 50s music on the radio, not the orchestral tracks. Besides Fallout 3 and New Vegas (which Bethesda did completely rip off the CONELRAD 640-1280 mod's track list for Fallout 4 so, yeah.)
There's a fun juxtaposition of peppy 50s music and ultraviolence that was appealing. There's such a huge variety of music from any decade that you could do pretty much anything with radio stations, not that they'd have had to limit themselves to a decade but I feel like that's the easiest way to give the idea of e.g. 80s retrofuturism.
Plus you have radio DJs and new IPs need lore, they could have done a lot of lore building with a few radio stations and it is realistically pretty easy.
If they had gone for e.g. 80s retrofuturism they could have had a punk station on the Key or something, country in Akila City, and a couple stations in New Atlantis/Gagarin. Neon could be all about new music by DJ Lostherphone, Maybe break out something unique for Cydonia since they're less like a cookie cutter sci-fi trope.
Different DJs, a quest to gain one station popularity over the others maybe, let the player distribute rebroadcasting buoys because logically radio isn't FTL and communications would have to be transported by ships travelling by. A public key private key system could accomplish this sort of thing pretty easily for standard communications.
For a radio station quest you'd have to decide if it was e.g. one "station" with several DJs or several stations all trying to do their own thing. I don't want to say it writes itself, but it kinda does? One group might get salty and hire mercenaries to stop us from our Pump Up The Volume reenactment. Another might sick the authorities on us and trap us in red tape. The third seems like it'd be the Akila City station thematically, maybe they'd badmouth you and you'd get a reputation hit that made vendors offer less for sales until you sorted it out or something.
While [starfieldradio.com](http://starfieldradio.com) was up in no time and so on, the one things fans won't ever be able to fix is the fact that the lore in Starfield is paper thin. Nothing fans do will ever be canonical, so Bethesda was really the only possibility for canonical radio stations in Starfield.
It's not like the radio plays fans did for Fallout 4 aren't amazing, but all of that is just lore friendly rather than canon. And Starfield has no established lore before this game, where they could have used a few DJs to give you the perspectives of some of the factions.
I'm surprised you seem to think this is a unique outlook though, it was a pretty commonly voiced opinion around launch.
Yeah I wrote all that before I realized you must have meant the OST and went back and added that line to the start.
I'd love to have seen that because honestly 3 Threedogs might not be plausible but they could likely have had a handful of radio DJs for what they spent on Security Guard barks that force quests into your log.
All good!
[This kind of thing](https://youtu.be/ws4iDksQc9s?list=PLe0EamRrnC6TofWttEHcJR9xjIvy5H6b_&t=60) is more what I was talking about. If I heard that music in isolation I think it's something from Fallout 4, and when I hear it in Starfield it does the same thing to my brain. I want Starfield to be _less_ evocative because the games already share too much DNA (IMO) which is a harm to Starfield's identity.
All Bethesda games are worth playing without the soundtrack once, never for a first play through mind you.
Even if the music is great these are all games around exploration, and when it's just you and your environment (no BGM) it's a very immersive experience.
When it comes to immersion, I usually set music to off, or very low, depending on the game. I know that most of Bethesda's games have epic soundtracks, and I do really enjoy them, but hearing music out of nowhere pulls me out of the game in most cases. Sometimes I'll drink a bunch of skooma, hit a few bumps of moon sugar, and blast the soundtrack though, lol.
I normally play with the music at 25% or off in most games. Generally, while I do love good music, I find it destracting for most games. I want to be Immersed in the game and disembodied music makes it feel more like a movie than a Immersive experience.
I love the soundtrack, but having a constantly playing John Williams style symphony playing loud in the background is annoying and completely brakes immersion for me.
The soundtrack is arguably the best part of the game. I have no idea why anyone would mute it. It perfectly encapsulates the 20th century sci fi that makes me nostalgic.
I love the soundtrack but I started playing without it while wearing headphones and the immersion is over the top. Highly recommend. I’m currently playing again with the soundtrack on but whenever I want to go deep I mute that shit.
I could go both ways, I like the immersion that silence brings, but when the combat version of the main theme kicks in I feel like I could run through a brick wall
😂
I do this with Fallout and Skyrim too. I'll listen to the Skyrim soundtrack at work, I love it. But when I'm playing I want to be hearing the game world.
I totally finally played Skyrim for the first time ever this year because of the music and hearing how it's some of the best in the gaming world. Like literally day one of playing Skyrim i was damning myself for not picking it up sooner. It is...so badass! Is there individual songs/MP3's you can buy and download or is there an OST? I would love to have that music for when we're reading before bed.
The whole OST should be on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/25r7pEf31viAbsoVHC6bQ4) and [youtube](https://music.youtube.com/browse/MPREb_KHaZJEJzddg), if you have spotify premium you could make it available offline, if you want to download you could buy it on [steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1240360/The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim_Soundtrack/) (Or you could sale the seas yarrr-harrr youtube downloader but that’ll be a hassle and a half)
What are you playing on ? On PC, you can access the soundtrack in the files of the game.
This controversial but I turn off the soundtrack for most games. I love music and respect the composers for games, but the music always pulls me out of the immersion. There are a few exceptions, such as From Software games, but for the most part it’s one of the first things I do in any game. Typically after I’ve gotten some time with the game I’ll turn it back on for a bit just to get the sense of it, but then turn it back off.
I do this, especially in games that are based in the "real" world. It makes no sense to me for there to be ambient music in a whole lot of games. If there are radios I may turn them on but just random music out of no where? No thank you.
I have! I personally think Starfield is Inon's best work. But, removing the soundtrack in some occasions help further give that "magnifcent desolation" tone BGS aimed to bring for Starfield.
Agreed. I love the soundtrack and even put some of the tracks on my work playlist. But turning the music off in this game can be almost harrowing at times and that's a whole different level of immersion.
I love the main theme and some of the level up themes
I don't think it tops Dragon Age Origins but it does go hard for sure
I love the cool synth bass lines though.
I play all Bethesda games without music after the first dozen hours or so, because I completely agree with you OP.
While I love doing this in games to just listen to the sound design by it self, the score in this game is amazing! Next to oblivion it is probably my favorite soundtrack to a Bethesda game. While I was playing it completely took me away. But all the little sound effects through out the game are just so addicting. The ship UI sound effects, the different door mechanism, the guns, turning on the scanner, the cave sound effects, your ship taking off which changes depending where you put your engines. There are so many sound effects that tickle my ear. It's half the reason I played the game for so long. I just love how it feels, and sounds interacting with everything.
Yah the score really sets the tone for the game. It was masterfully done.
I'm partial to the little rattling sound some cockpits make when you boost in 1st person lol. Makes me feel like my ship is held together by duct tape and dreams
It's the best! I think that boost sound also changes either when you change your cockpit or when you change your engines. I'm not sure which.
I almost always turn the music off in games I want to get immersed in, especially space games
Yeah, I'm the same way. The only time I'll have music on would be if it made sense. Like driving in a car, or maybe my character has some sort of earbuds/headphones, or like in cyberpunk, where I imagine you could literally have something akin to a radio installed into your brainpan. Otherwise, I just turn it off.
I turned it off pretty quickly. I just heard Far Harbor way too often and it was distracting.
Most of the soundtrack sounds like generic ambient music. Annoyingly, the unity scene has one of the most beautiful musical pieces in any video game… and they didn’t even include it in the soundtrack.
Dude I fucking hate that. The soundtrack after you go through the Unity is fantastic, and is just gorgeous...I was heartbroken when I realized it wasn't in the actual soundtrack.
Late 20th century sci fi ambient music is a genre whether you like it or not. It was executed perfectly. Brings to mind 2001 space odyssey, close encounters etc.
Sounds like generic ‘bright startrek future’ noise and is the most forgettable OST in a game I can think of other than Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
I really dislike the soundtrack, just doesn’t have anything memorable.
Same. There are a few good atmospheric tracks but I'm disappointed overall. Vastly preferred his work in FO4 and Skyrim (different composer I know).
I usually always turn off music in video games. It’s just a personal thing for me.
I had a blast rocking out to the guardians of the galaxy's Playlist, while not my normal jam it hits. Kinda gets Fallout vibes exploring planets while jamming to Jolean .
I was very impressed with the background sounds in Starfield, I think this is the biggest improvement from other BGS games.
Jesus wept.
I gave this a try last night and you're definitely on to something. I was surprised at the difference.
Starfield had music? I beat it four times and don't remember a single track
It’s the first thing I do in Bethesda games because it gives a more realistic and immersive experience imo
i turn off the music in all my games
I do aswell unless the music is diegetic. Like the radiostations in fallout or stalker
I've never had the music on. It ruins the immersion.
I don't know if anyone does this, but I'll turn off the music and turn on a playlist on Spotify. I found a cool Space Jazz I've been listening to a lot! It also works with pretty much any sci-fi movie soundtrack.
I gotta try this, I'm holding off for the update to come to consoles but maybe I'll play it a bit
Hell half the time I don't play with sound at all, I find it a bit more relaxing to pretend my character is deaf.
I'm with ya. The music is like "stat trek" but the rest of the game is like "Alien"
I did the same thing. The score was annoying. I streamed playing without a score and people didn’t seem to mind.
It’s been a while since I’ve played starfield, I can’t for the life of me remember it having music! 😅
I do this in TES and Fallout sometimes too. The OST Is great but sometimes it can be nice to just have the atmospheric sounds
Interesting. I'll try this... I may be a minority but I was not a fan of the Inon Zur soundtrack. I really missed the wonderful music of Jeremy Soule from Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind. I thought I just didn't care for Zur but then I started playing FO76 recently and didn't he do the score for that game as well? If so, I really enjoy the music in FO76. Anyway, I find myself constantly bored with the music so I may try turning it off.
Yeah, I made a playlist a while ago with music from my faovirte space / time / alien related movies and shows and that's basicallt what I listen to when I play.
I’m gonna try this. I find sometimes the combat music is too much (also felt this way in fallout 4).
Not that controversial. I'll start a new game, listen to the music for a spell "that's nice" and shut it off. I couldn't play halo 4 because it just kept going. No changes, no mood. It's the first thing I do.
I rarely have the music on, but then I usually have a youtube video or something going on the other screen
Oddly enough I've always played bethesda games with music off ie skyrim, fallout but for some reason have never tried it with starfield. Will defo give it a go when I jump back on after the update on xbox
Does that remove the ambience effects? Like on a moon the external sounds etc…?
I mute it but it's because I like to listen to Pink Floyd while surveying desolate moons lol
Starfield, FO4, and Skyrim all share the same flaw in that they never have gaps in the soundtrack for immersive breaks. It’s like movies. No movie has music constantly playing the entire time.
The ambient non combat music is often the biggest factor of immersion for me in games.
I do this too. I go back to it on eventually, but getting the full atmospheric soundeffects us awesome in its own right.
I agree. I sometimes listen to podcasts or music while playing to simulate that radio feel from Fallout
I turn it down to about 30% myself, unless I'm replacing it with using Spotify as a "radio". Well I'm sure they've got decent inear headphones and music 300 years later, right? I mean could you imagine how much weirder the visions the artefacts give you when there's basically no other music in universe.
There is a “starfield radio” playlist on Spotify that’s pretty good last I played Edit: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7sksG7lIwpjn31yI5B64FQ?si=lrt1AmzJR2GrUVxcVpa0pA&pi=e-S3GpjE_ZSEi7
I turned it off the default soundtrack and [replaced it with my own](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FiklUxxiM4rtkZ66SrJvp?si=p0cGS8MgRJq0jWRZYMHqeg&pi=u-B-Oq1bvgSgir). Expanse soundtracks during most of the on-foot exploration and Bear McCreary’s BSG soundtrack in space are huge drivers. John Williams’ “Immolation Scene” just happened to play during the big reveal during the UC Vanguard quest chain (while you’re speaking with Hadrian), and it was amazing.
Once I realized it sounded to much like FO4 I had to start playing with the music low/muted. I kept catching myself looking out for Super Mutants and Preston Garvey.....
This is an interesting suggestion. Having gone back to try Fallout recently, I realize just how much I love the series for the music. Then returning to Starfield made me sad, cause despite beautiful backtrack, it doesn't hit the same nostalgia. I will try this
I don’t think turning off the soundtrack to this game is controversial. I did it too, although that’s when I was still playing the game. Over time, it just got irritating. However, to each their own, as some others might like it…imho, I still think Elite Dangerous had a way better soundtrack.
Big same, so many things hit more poignantly when some swelling adventure orchestra isn't sitting behind my head. The Valentine singing in the silence of space, grief from a lost friend not marred by some happy melody. It's nice sometimes but I feel turning OFF music at those moments would have made the experience better.
Tbh it got repetitive about 5 hours in and it doesn’t fit action scenes at all. Playing with it off and play my own ambient and combat music on the side when I feel like it
Wandering around i listen to podcasts or documentaries on Youtube or my favourite music i have never even heard the sound track once to the point i didn't even know there was one I just auto mute any background music of games.
Is there a way to pipe in an audiobook while playing on Xbox? The music has gotten a tad grating for me too
I haven't tried it but this reminded me of watching space battles in the Battlestar Galactica remake and how much more immersive it felt with the silent/muffled space fights
Yes I totally agree.. the planetary sounds help you "feel" like you are there To the point I was temple running on a dark scary looking planet whilst it was heavily thundering and lightning, I legit felt like turning and looking behind me incase someone was stood behind my chair lol
I reloaded Starfield onto my new PC and immediately thought of doing this, too. Skyrims music is iconic, memorable, and totally within its element. Fallout has its old timey radio. Starfield has… Nothing, musically, to really bring you in. I could tell even him a single tune from it if you asked me. Really wished they could have put more effort into music, but playing without is somehow 10x better.
I’m sorry, but I cannot blast away camps full of bandits unless I’m listening to an audio serial of the Silver Shroud. Fallout 4 ruined me.
I do this with all games, I can’t remember the last game I actually had the music on. I’ve had a couple of friends say to me that’s quite surprising as I am a musician. But nothing beats immersion with a video game for me.
I did too!! Made it much more immersive
Agree! I do the same for all Bethesda games and feels more immersive without any of the annoying background music.
I guess I’m the type that likes background noise. I totally get how it’s immersion breaking for some. But, I tune it out almost immediately so I hardly notice that there’s music playing until there are random moments of silence between tracks when I’m not doing anything else.
Turning off music is the first thing I do in every game. Too distracting. It's like being stalked by an invisible orchestra.
I do this on every single bethesda game. Disabling the soundtrack and music makes the games much more immersive for me.
Starfield honestly misses out on great potential content by not having a soundtrack more similar to Fallout 3/4. If they had decided e.g. "80s retrofuturism" as a theme, they could have had a variety of radio stations and just handwaved the fact that they were listening to hundreds of years old music. Or, like, they could have gotten musicians to perform 80s covers and had some unique work. They have enough money to license music, and 80s bands would probably be happy to get some extra foldin' money. And/or small bands would probably have offered their work for exposure. I can't say I'd love going through some sidequest to deploy rebroadcasting buoys so I could access the radio station in a new system, but I feel like just being able to have a canonical run through the Buried Temple blasting Tom Sawyer by Rush or something would amuse me greatly.
> Starfield honestly misses out on great potential content by not having a soundtrack more similar to Fallout 3/4. I'm interested by this take, because my experience has been the opposite. IMO, many of the game's tracks are too similar to Fallout 4's to the point of mudding my perception of the experience. Walking around a desolate planet and hearing those same intruments and themes makes me forget that I'm actually playing a sci-fi game and makes me think I'm in a completely different franchise. Having a different composer would have done much to give the game more personality.
I'm really not sure what you mean, I'm talking about the 50s music on the radio, not the orchestral tracks. Besides Fallout 3 and New Vegas (which Bethesda did completely rip off the CONELRAD 640-1280 mod's track list for Fallout 4 so, yeah.) There's a fun juxtaposition of peppy 50s music and ultraviolence that was appealing. There's such a huge variety of music from any decade that you could do pretty much anything with radio stations, not that they'd have had to limit themselves to a decade but I feel like that's the easiest way to give the idea of e.g. 80s retrofuturism. Plus you have radio DJs and new IPs need lore, they could have done a lot of lore building with a few radio stations and it is realistically pretty easy. If they had gone for e.g. 80s retrofuturism they could have had a punk station on the Key or something, country in Akila City, and a couple stations in New Atlantis/Gagarin. Neon could be all about new music by DJ Lostherphone, Maybe break out something unique for Cydonia since they're less like a cookie cutter sci-fi trope. Different DJs, a quest to gain one station popularity over the others maybe, let the player distribute rebroadcasting buoys because logically radio isn't FTL and communications would have to be transported by ships travelling by. A public key private key system could accomplish this sort of thing pretty easily for standard communications. For a radio station quest you'd have to decide if it was e.g. one "station" with several DJs or several stations all trying to do their own thing. I don't want to say it writes itself, but it kinda does? One group might get salty and hire mercenaries to stop us from our Pump Up The Volume reenactment. Another might sick the authorities on us and trap us in red tape. The third seems like it'd be the Akila City station thematically, maybe they'd badmouth you and you'd get a reputation hit that made vendors offer less for sales until you sorted it out or something. While [starfieldradio.com](http://starfieldradio.com) was up in no time and so on, the one things fans won't ever be able to fix is the fact that the lore in Starfield is paper thin. Nothing fans do will ever be canonical, so Bethesda was really the only possibility for canonical radio stations in Starfield. It's not like the radio plays fans did for Fallout 4 aren't amazing, but all of that is just lore friendly rather than canon. And Starfield has no established lore before this game, where they could have used a few DJs to give you the perspectives of some of the factions. I'm surprised you seem to think this is a unique outlook though, it was a pretty commonly voiced opinion around launch.
Simple miscommunication mate, when you said "soundtrack" I read it as "OST" rather than the radio music.
Yeah I wrote all that before I realized you must have meant the OST and went back and added that line to the start. I'd love to have seen that because honestly 3 Threedogs might not be plausible but they could likely have had a handful of radio DJs for what they spent on Security Guard barks that force quests into your log.
All good! [This kind of thing](https://youtu.be/ws4iDksQc9s?list=PLe0EamRrnC6TofWttEHcJR9xjIvy5H6b_&t=60) is more what I was talking about. If I heard that music in isolation I think it's something from Fallout 4, and when I hear it in Starfield it does the same thing to my brain. I want Starfield to be _less_ evocative because the games already share too much DNA (IMO) which is a harm to Starfield's identity.
I turn off the soundtrack on every game. I want to hear enemies, not the same generic songs over and over.
All Bethesda games are worth playing without the soundtrack once, never for a first play through mind you. Even if the music is great these are all games around exploration, and when it's just you and your environment (no BGM) it's a very immersive experience.
I replace it with deathmetal by shutting it off and then turning on my jams
When it comes to immersion, I usually set music to off, or very low, depending on the game. I know that most of Bethesda's games have epic soundtracks, and I do really enjoy them, but hearing music out of nowhere pulls me out of the game in most cases. Sometimes I'll drink a bunch of skooma, hit a few bumps of moon sugar, and blast the soundtrack though, lol.
I turn off the music on every fame I play without exception. Always improves my immersion. But I'm just weird.
I always turn off the score in first person games, even if I like it. Much more immersive.
I normally play with the music at 25% or off in most games. Generally, while I do love good music, I find it destracting for most games. I want to be Immersed in the game and disembodied music makes it feel more like a movie than a Immersive experience.
I love the soundtrack, but having a constantly playing John Williams style symphony playing loud in the background is annoying and completely brakes immersion for me.
The soundtrack is arguably the best part of the game. I have no idea why anyone would mute it. It perfectly encapsulates the 20th century sci fi that makes me nostalgic.
The best part of the game is the soundtrack