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Bethesda’s latest can’t help but feel shallow by comparison.
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Bethesda games have always been incredibly shallow. How is there anyone that doesn’t see this?
I think it’s the time of development. Bethesda games used to be shallow, but they also came out moderately paced. Now things like starfield take the better part of a decade and it’s still just as shallow, which has some people a bit underwhelmed. Personally it’s been so long since a Bethesda game came out, as a person who isn’t a Bethesda fan to start with, I forgot how shallow Bethesda games were.
They still average about 6 years per major release… Fallout 4 came in 2015, and if you don’t count Fallout 76 as a major release, that was only 8 years ago, right in line with the dev time they’ve pretty much always had.
Honestly all I see with starfield that failed to meet expectations are one good and one bad:
Good: The performance and stability are actually good for once. This was unexpected, but welcome.
Bad: The writing and story are boring, bland, generic, and uninteresting. This wasn’t expected because usually this stuff is at least semi-decent. There’s usually something that at least has a cool basis. Starfield doesn’t. It’s all references and tropes and nothing particularly interesting or unique. It’s hard to even be motivated to wanna shoot bad guys beyond “well, they’re the bad guys and I am here to shoot 🤷🏻♂️.”
We didn’t expect the story to be bad? The only games of theirs that had good stories were Daggerfall and Morrowind. Oblivion’s story was… fine at best. Skyrim’s was hot garbage. Daggerfall’s story is pretty impenetrable too.
I honestly can’t remember more than a handful of characters in any of their games. Of the characters I do remember, I think the jester assassin from the dark brotherhood is the only one I had any kind of affection for.
And the issue is that even their best games, like New Vegas, show their age. None of their past writing in games stands up to modern levels of expectation for big budget video games. The fact that Starfield isn’t any better and is perhaps at even a slightly lower level than their previous games just makes it seem too outdated.
Importantly, New Vegas was not made by Bethesda
The problem is people defending the games as perfect 10/10 GOTY. And just the general gamers who get super whiny and mad if anyone complains about anything in Starfield, saying that’s just the “Bethesda genre”.
Yeah, the amount of “it’s supposed to be that way” I see is crazy. It’s fine if it’s supposed to be like that, but it doesn’t mean people are wrong for not liking it.
It also doesn’t mean people are wrong for liking it…
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Idk man, Skyrim felt pretty deep in its time period. I spent so much time becoming a member of the thieves guild, and it felt important and immersive. It’s shallow compared to BG3, sure, but it also came out 20 years prior.
It’s kind of amazing to me that Larian bumped up the release of BG3 by a month on PC because they didn’t want to compete against Starfield (and given the two big patches, maybe they could have put that extra month to good use), and it turns out it was Bethesda that should have been the one worried.
I haven’t played Starfield. But I have been amazed at the depth of Baldur’s Gate 3. You can see the handcrafted world every where you look. And this makes a world you enjoy spending time in.
I’m enjoying Starfield far more than I expected.
That said the NPC interactions are incredibly sterile in comparison to the full mo-capped acting of the BG3 NPCs. The Starfield NPCs feel like mannequins just spitting out their lines.
That’s like 75% of the work for BG3. There’s absolutely some work implementing DnD mechanics into code and designing encounters, and obviously the assets for the world have to be created as well, but the vast majority of their time was spent on dialogue choices and designing the story in general.
It’s a great game for it, but we’re a good ways away from being able to do the same in an FPS/TPS with real time combat that isn’t absolutely brutal. BG3 could be what it was in terms of interactions because it was a CRPG. But it had to be a CRPG to do it. ARPG isn’t the term for what Starfield is, but games with reasonably rewarding action take too much work on that element to invest the time into every encounter that BG3 does. Balancing probabilities and maps for encounters for a CRPG isn’t trivial, but it costs way less to do than building out all those mechanics and skill trees into real time physics.
They’re different games with different goals.
I finished bg3 tonight. The credits are 35 minutes long and it felt like half of it was all the actors. Such an expansion game, even the animals have voices (if you can speak to them)
It absolutely a masterpiece and I’ll be playing it for a long time.
I’ll just also be playing Starfield for a long time because it’s a different game that scratches a different itch.
And the animals are fucking hilarious! I enjoy the cats most of all, especially the “film noir PI” one in act three. I wish he could become another pet in the camp.
Gotta join the cat society in act 3
There is a cat society!? o_O Not yet through act three, I hope I haven’t missed it.
Haha I don’t think there really is but one of the cats talks about it. I forgot its name, one of the strays in the streets
The writing of BG3, both storyline and interpersonal for every NPC, is top tier.
In Starfield, it’s like they put together a committee of pretentious artsy fartsy people who think that their Tumblr page makes them writers and a bunch of execs.
And anything that combination of creatively dead asswipes came up with was canon.
It’s a combination of trying to hard to be clever with the most derivative shite story I’ve seen in a long ass time.
Starfield would be a better game without its main story.
If it was allowed to put all the focus on being someone in this games universe, it would be far better than any elements of the main story existing in the games universe.
Joining Constellation or not should also be an option.
And Constellation should’ve been more of a JRPG style guild with people focusing on various branches of enterprise in the game and giving missions for those. A questhub rather than this club. They all already have their own specialization.
But seriously, the main story is just all levels of meh.
Starfield falls into the classic Bethesda problem of here’s your story, go do it, also here’s a bunch of unrelated side quests.
Also feel free to murder literally everyone you come into contact with it probably won’t matter.
Sarah begs to differ.
Let me guess: She’s an essential character and can’t even be killed.
“Millennial writing” is the term I’ve seen used
I mean, BG3 is an incredibly well-crafted and focused RPG, but you cannot in good faith compare it to a game with orders of magnitude more NPCs and voice lines, they’re simply not comparable.
Quality, not quantity.
I cant speak to the qualiry of starfield, but i do t think the teo games should be compared.
Bg3 is extremely story driven and incredibly immersive with detailed and intricate combatz catering to many different playstyles in an almost sandbox format.
Starfield is a vast exploration and semi combat focused rpg. Relying more on managment of inventory, crafting and development of kit.
Personally its not my style, skyrim was great but i always got bored way before completing it so i dont think im gonna enjoy starfield.
Tbf, Bethesda is a big team owned by Microsoft, a company with DEEP pockets.
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I’ve played both for > 30 hours (200ish for bg3) and bg3 is so much deeper. Quests feel meaningful and have multiple options to complete, plus they’re not just go here grab this kill that quests. The facial/body rigging in bg3 is in a different league compare to starfield, Bethesda has always had wonky faces and lip sync but it just looks really bad coming from bg3’s full body/face mocap of real actors and then looking at starfield’s horse chomping wheat talking animation and washed out faces.
I will say starfields ships and guns are great, the guns feel good, customization is fun and impactful, ships are the same way. I could spend as long in the ship builder as I do character creation in BG3 and that’s great. Starfield has promise of modders can fix some of the jack and barrenness which I’m sure they will. BG3 doesn’t need modders help to be great
That’s a gripe for me tho.
Modders should be adding to the game, not fix issues and fill potholes Bethesda couldn’t be arsed to finish.
Why am I paying Bethesda when the modders are doing the heavy lifting?
You’re asking the same question people have been asking Bethesda for 20 years.
At a certain point you have to come into a Bethesda game with an expectation of jank, that’s their “charm”, then modders polish the rough rock for a few years and you have a nice gemstone at the end of the ordeal. Is that a fair expectation for consumers? No not really. Is it ever going to change? Not likely, the company will fail before Todd makes them finish a game before releasing
That’s the tag line for the article, not OPs thoughts.
Between Elden Ring’s UI-free exploration and Baldur’s Gate 3 character interactions, I’m sadly doubting Starfield will do for me.
I just skip through the dialogue shit in Starfield. The fun is in the kleptomania dungeon crawling and just turning off your brain for stupid time. BG3 requires brain on. The last good Bethesda RPG that actually had depth to it was Morrowind. I feel so bad for all the younger people that never got to experience the good years of CRPGs. Not that bad tho… They can get their asses on GOG and get the old classics.
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Just move to Skyrim and the DB quests is so generic compare to Oblivion. Giff me Whodunit
They did one good thing in the Skyrim DB quest: The guy you can kill by making it look like an accident. If they had all been more like that, or even with using disguises and just basically putting some Hitman into the game it would have been way better.
The disguise thing really irks me because even Oblivion had a better use for the system (the gray mask) and the system exists even in Starfield, but only Starfield seems to utilize it to near full potential, actually allowing you into restricted areas without question if you have the right uniform.
The uniform disguise thing is literally mods that existed for Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout 4 for sure.
I know exactly what you mean. Me and my team are working on a very old school rpg that hopefully will be very immersive. We are working on Unreal Engine 5 and we are set to produce a playable prototype very soon!
i see you everywhere, nice to know you have good taste in games 😸
It’s not fair for the rest of the Triple A games this year.
BG3 is a hard act to follow considering it was molded from the wishes of players for several years before release.
It’s totally fair. Other companies _could _engage in more dialog with players and take feedback into consideration before release, but they’d rather lean on their prior accolades and slowly leak teaser trailers and whatnot to build hype instead.
It is obvious that Baldur’s Gate 3 was a labor of love, and they really put their all into it.
I think you mean, time for Bethesda to get their act together rather than create trash. I love skyrim, morrowind, and am excited for starfield, but larian is a bit smaller than Bethesda who is owner by zenimax who is owned by Microsoft and therefore has the folks to make awesome things. And yet you have BG3 as a masterpiece. It’s all excuses to me. I wouldn’t call it unfair. I’d call it fair. I’d say larian is even handicapped, and they just kicked the pants off Bethesda.
You’re not wrong in the slightest.
You’d think that Bethesda would spend a few years of the decade they take to make games to be better.
A lot of times those big companies get in the way of making something perfect. They demand unrealistic timelines, shut down more creative paths, and structure a release around their stock performance. Smaller companies have more creative and direct control over their process.
Also borrowing tons of source material from DnD.
Yeah I finished my playthrough of bg3 just in time for starfield. Been playing it constantly since. Loving the game. Hard to compare the two as well, they’re rpgs sure but very different. Should pc gamer start writing articles about the lack of base building in bg3?? Bottom line is if you like Bethesda games, you’ll like Starfield. Didn’t like Skyrim or Fallout very much? You won’t like Starfield.
I like Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas, hate Fallout 3, 76, and Starfield. The former are not comparable to the latter.
I am on the same page as you. New Vegas especially since it was really Obsidian not Bethesda and it shows. FNV is in my top 5 of all time. I liked Skyrim enough. Not a fan of Fallout 3, 4, or 76 so I have a feeling I am not going to like Starfield much. Though I am going to give it a try anyway.
At this point, I feel like everyone complaining refuses to play Starfield because they want to play Starfield. Like how about we start writing articles that Call of Duty isn’t as in depth as Escape From Tarkov? Both are shooters, so they both should be the same thing.
Case in point to my previous comment elsewhere, you. The titular gamer who gets angry and defensive for any criticism of Starfield.
And I would say you have proven mine. Including even the childish shit like “titular gamer” and assuming people are angry because they disagreed with you.
Like bro, I get it. There’s some things to complain about. Including the landing system. I’ve played Bethesda games since Morrowind, and I’ve found things to not like about all of them. But at some point yall just need to focus on the other 98% of the game. Yes, it sucks you can’t land. If that’s the main thing yall complain about, then that just tells me it’s probably a pretty good game.
Stop projecting your anger at people being able to see the good in the game.
This is an interesting take. I adore Skyrim and just yesterday started playing BG3. I am enjoying it, but I never did anything else with DND (parents thought it would make Jesus sad or whatever) and so I am finding it more complex from the get-go than I would like, but I’m trying to learn. I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
Skyrim, on the other hand, was very easy to pick up, start playing, and just…explore and discover. Because of that, I was eagerly anticipating Starfield but sadly I do not possess the platform required to play it so I am reading the reviews to see if it’s worth buying an entire XBox for. If it’s as great as Skyrim, yes. If it’s meh, no.
So, reviews like this make me wonder if the author enjoys and/or is already familiar enough with the steep learning curve for it not to get in the way and by extension the game itself. Would they have been fine with Starfield had they never played BG3? And is Starfield “simple” enough for me to have a great time, or is it too much of what the author complains about here? - Repetitive quests, limited choices, etc?
It’s a hard question to answer, and the stakes are higher for me because of the console thing. I guess I could send the console back at least if the game isn’t for me? Idk.
I’ve got a steam deck. BG3 runs fine on it and surprisingly so does Starfield. (albeit both on low graphics settings, but I’m cool with that). BG3 is also ok because it’s turn based. Though, so far, any blips in fps in Starfield haven’t messed up my being able to survive firefights.
BG3 has a steeper learning curve for sure. I love the character interactions and the voice acting is superb. Starfield is easier to just pick up and start playing. (though my first time navigating my ship was a WTF moment and the game threw you into a ship battle right away) The early battles are easy enough that even with flailing, you survive. Over time I’ve gotten more accustomed to the controls. FWIW, NPC dialog and interactions are more janky for sure than BG3. BG3 is so smooth and realistic with dialog and expressions.
Both games have abysmal inventory systems. hahahaha! So far, I’m enjoying both games. I’ve put BG3 down for a bit to allow time for Larian to clean up Act 3 a bit more. I’m 85 hours in and all of the story threads are coming together and the consequences of my choices are getting thick.
Starfield is a hit with me too. It’s a grand exploration game. It scratches the Skyrim itch. It might be a looter shooter, but so far, I’m enjoying the quests. Eventually I will build outposts and build my own ship. There’s no VATs any more, except in ship to ship battles where you can use the targeting system.
Unlike BG3, you aren’t limited on how much you can develop your character. BG3 is capped at level 12 so you only get a few times to choose new spells/skills/abilities. Eventually, you’re at your limit. Starfield has so many skills you can get, that I imagine that once you get many hours in, you’ll be at such a high level and have so many skills that it will still be a blast to play. Early on, it’s all so new, later on, you’ll have so many options for things to do and how to do it that the gameplay will still feel fresh.
Long story short, I like both equally, but for very different reasons. Starfield is a big plate of good ole home cooking/mac and cheese. BG3 is a multi-course gourmet meal. I also have a steam deck, so I imagine that Starfield would play just fine on XBox.
Just heads up a lot of the act 3 bugs were addressed in the patch last week. I’ve encountered none in act 3 so far.
This is very helpful, thank you!
I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
As someone who has run tabletop games including DnD for a few decades, your approach is perfectly valid. While any complex system can be gamed for optimal outcomes, it was designed to be roughly even enough that there are not a lot of choices that penalize you too much as long as you pay attention to vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities which can often be overcome with potions and other magic items.
Do what sounds fun and then have fun is not missing out on anything other than spending time not playing the game just to squeeze out edge cases. Some people enjoy that and thankfully the game caters to both casual players and optimizers.
Thanks for this comment. I seem to have made all the wrong choices. Which can be seen by the fact that every conversation has basically led to me fighting entire towns to such extent that I can no longer find vendors to sell to :p
I was considering just re-rolling and trying harder to please the NPCs. But if the playthrough is salvageable, I will stick it out.
I dunno, sounds like a fun time to me!
Currently on my first playthrough as a team player, but strongly considering going full on antagonist on a subsequent playthrough. Heck, on the first goblin base at the beginning I even saved before entering and after getting buddy buddy with them I saved and then loaded the prior save and just went in crossbows blazing for the fun of it to see how different the outcomes were.
This game is going to be very fun to replay with different approaches!
I think the next playthrough I’ll have understood a lot of the basics better and understand how NPCs will react.
I really role played through this one as a weird barbarian stoner who would rather not fight if possible but when any NPC insults anyone in my party the fight is on.
Kind of like me in real life. But with a lot more crossbow action!
Hey thanks for this, I appreciate it. It makes me feel a lot better. Thanks!
I feel you. I spent a several hours learning about D&D character creation when I picked up BG3. And I spent a couple more hours crafting a back story that I used to influence my character traits. I’ve never played D&D before, but BG3 is the most fun I’ve had with a game in several years.
Well you’re like 75% of the way to straight out playing DnD, so I highly recommend that if you can find a local group. It’s magic.
Don’t fret too much about your early-game spell/leveling decisions. Pretty early in the game, you get the option to re-spec any and all characters for a small fee. You can mess around with new synergies, or go so far as converting characters to an entirely different class, any time you want.
@OneCardboardBox @PrincessLeiasCat It’s also trivial to get that fee back with some pickpocketing! You can really abuse that NPC
Oh good tip! Thanks!!
Oh that’s interesting - I’ll keep it in mind!
You’re doing it right. Just keep playing, and you’ll learn as you go. Don’t be afraid to search for answers online, or compare D&D to BG3. Later, when you understand the system and a spell’s impact to your journey, you can talk to Withers and respec your character, changing your spells and abilities. You can also just use an online guide. Many of the guides have optimized builds that work really well. That’s what I did for my companions, since it was a bit much to learn every single class in one playthrough.
Edit: example, this Astarion build is off the hook amazing!
If I want a massive rpg with great characters and things to do, I’ll go play daggerfall. If I want amazing space exploration I’ll go play Elite or No Man’s Sky. The idea of any modern Bethesda game just sounds boring to me.
In case you’re interested, let me give you a couple of links:
I already play Daggerfall unity, which is great. I never heard of Oolite, but it looks cool. I was looking around earlier today for a way to play the first 3 Elite games.
Miscorsoft ruined it for me. They honestly thought it was a good idea to freeze out a console that outsells them 2:1.
It was a shit move and fuck Bethesda for allowing it.
Lost me at “Disco Elysium had arrived and absolutely blown the doors off the RPG genre.”
I’ve never played a more restrictive game with worse dialog choices.
a) Can’t tell if brain damaged.
b) Can’t tell if drunk.
c) Can’t tell if high.
d) Can’t tell if stupid.No good choices. Thank god Steam let me refund it.
Looked pretty though!
Good heavens, I’ve definitely never heard this take about Disco Elysium. It’s universally beloved for being able to explore fascinating and well-written political concepts in a novel world, and it manages to do it in a totally hilarious fashion. Seriously, I’ve never had so much fun trying to smile before.
I expect more from my dialog choices than “You want some fuck?”
I mean. Disco Elysium is only an RPG in the sense that you get to choose which version of Harry you play. It’s not a blank slate situation where you can be whatever you want, you’re always just Harry. And it is barely even a game, at the end of the day. It’s a novel pretending to be a game.
In terms of RPG design, though, the one thing it truly did put into the forefront was the “fail-forward” ideas present in many interactions, which is something more games should take inspiration from.
Making failure interesting makes the story much more engaging regardless of your choices and your luck by discouraging save scumming and instead letting you feel good about rolling with whatever outcome happens.
I feel like I should go back and play it, but I was defeated by the ceiling fan at the start of the game and decided “Eh I’ll comeback later.”
Turn the ceiling fan off first
I believe it was the lights on it that did me in.
Evidently no one warned you how this game plays and what it’s about, and you walked in expecting Mass Effect or something.
That is not the experience Disco Elysium delivers, or attempts to deliver. If you want a game about being the savior of the Eight Kingdoms and immediately bringing your combat might and razor-sharp wit to bear on the scene a moment after you arrive, you can play approximately every other RPG ever.
I went into Disco Elysium completely blind, but by god that game is glorious.
I was expecting a Blade Runner-esque detective story, instead I got a main character who may be mentally defective. Not a fun experience.
Don’t worry, you are not alone.
I went into DE with no preconceptions. And by the three hour mark I was just sick of how stupid ‘I’ was. The game looks lovely, and I’m sure the story is great from all the great reviews. But it felt like a slog to get anything done.
Woof, you had more fortitude than I did. I lasted 30-45 minutes before going online asking “So should I start over with different stats?” and the response was “You just don’t get it, man…”
And I was like “Oh, I get it, I just don’t want shitty dialog choices…” and bounced.
The ambiguity of dialogue choices evens out as Harry recovers from his hangover but never completely goes away which honestly is part of the magic for me. Never being 100 percent certain what he’s gonna do and sort of trying to nudge him along in the right direction is the game. But it’s not a traditional RPG and nowhere near as deep mechanicall as BG3. It’s just really good in it’s own way. I also had a lot of interest in the politics of the game and a personal battle with drugs and alcohol in my life so it may have resonated more with me as well.
See, that was my problem. I would never choose to play as a brain damaged wasteoid, but that was the ONLY choice in that game.
So bad that I went online and was like “Sooo… did I fuck up my starting stats? Is this my fault the dialog choices are this bad?”
Nope, just the way the game is… Time for the game to go away. Which is bizarre because I had heard so much good stuff about it.
LOL, I have never heard of Disco Elysium. Must not be my type of game.
It is a really good game with a lot of depth, definitely a little more restrictive/slower paced - you’re mostly investigating a mystery not fighting and collecting tons of loot - and maybe not for everyone but very unique and detailed and funny.
If you’re interested in politics, existentialism, the human condition, coping with depression, addiction, trauma and loss and want to read a novel about these themes told through the story-telling medium of an isometric RPG then it is the game for you.
Despite claiming to be an “isometric CRPG detective game about solving a murder mystery” on its About page Disco Elysium is actually none of those things at the end of the day, and if those things are what you want you’ll probably end up disappointed.
Despite claiming to be an “isometric CRPG detective game about solving a murder mystery” on its About page Disco Elysium is actually none of those things
TBH, it’s a better depiction of actual police work than we get in most games.
It’s literally rated as one of the best RPGs of all time. Nothing quite like it. If you enjoy CRPGs, it’s a Buy.
