Starfield Video Game Review

I began playing the new video game, Starfield, immediately when it came out, and I have clocked 18.9 hours in it. It is thus a good time to review it for the benefit of my readers, based on my experience with the game. Note that I am greatly enjoying Starfield, and that I was drawn deeply into it in a manner which did not happen to me with video games since Cyberpunk 2077.

My System Specs:

• AMD Ryzen 5700X CPU.
• 32 GB RAM DDR 4.
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB VRAM.
• MVMe SSD.

Rating: 7/10

TL;DR:

This is an enjoyable game, but flawed. It is also a very typical Bethesda game. If you enjoyed Fallout 4 and Skyrim, by all means give Starfield a try. If not, you may consider waiting for a discount on it in a few months, as well as for quality-of-life and graphics mods.

I made an effort to keep this review spoiler-free.

The Good

• Starfield's space and ground combat, while not perfect, are highly enjoyable to me, with a vast array of weapons having different "feel" to each.
• The engine runs smoothly on my good machine at 54 FPS on average, on maximum settings, with relatively few bugs in my case so far.
• Side missions are quite often very fun and interesting, with different worlds having different flavors. As expected from Bethesda.
• The musical score is amazing!
• I like the crafting and outpost system, which is an upgrade from the Fallout 4 system, which I liked very much.
• I like exploration! While the content is procedurally generated, which is a disadvantage, I enjoy visiting the various planets and feeling like a space explorer.
• Mercifully, the game lets you "fast travel" quite easily, with certain limitations, conveniently even between star systems, though I usually avoid doing this as flavor. But, see below for the associated flaw.

The Bad

• The engine used by Starfield is Bethesda's own Creation Engine, in what is marked as its second version. However, the original engine from 2011 still shows up very clearly under the layers of new paint, with all the associated aspects. It feels like a 2011 game in some respects. The engine aged poorly, with multiple content "cells" gated by loading screen between them as in Skyrim/Fallout 4 and with graphics that look dated even on maximum settings.
• Enemies are not very varied; you have alien monsters on life-bearing worlds, which are often similar to each other across worlds, and about 4 hostile or semi-hostile factions repeatedly thrown at you.
• Space travel is by fast travel and cinematics/loading screens. On one hand, I like the convenience of this, as noted above, but on the other hand, this reduces from the space travel flavor.

The Ugly

• Starfield's main quest is downright boring. It has no urgency to it, no existential threat, no portal to Oblivion, dragon attacks, or abducted children. The story itself involves exploration and some artifacts, but, so far (almost 20 hours into the game!), nothing interesting.
• "Dungeons" are recycled! I entered a mine on one world on random, then went to a main story mission on another world, and lo and behold, it is the same mine exactly! Not even slightly changed as in, say, Dragon Age 2. Which was a huge disappointment from a game with such a massive development budget!

The Bottom Line

Starfield feels like Fallout 4 in space. It is an enjoyable game, marred by a dreary main quest, content recycling, and an aging engine. If you liked Fallout 4, as I do (I have 323 hours on F4!), you are likely to enjoy Starfield very much. If you dislike Fallout 4, you should consider waiting with its purchase for a good discount and for quality of life and graphics mods to come out.