I mean, we never got more than half a minute of gameplay before they jumped to something totally different. Nothing to gauge what the actual gameplay loop is like and how all those systems feed into each other. The bigger previews are all kept under closed doors and hush-hush.
I am not saying it is end of the world, I will still buy the game Day 1 since it is Bethesda, but it is kind of unheard of to have no actual gameplay showcased so close to the release in modern gaming era. It definitely do not radiates confidence in the game from MS. It is supposed to be their big game, yet they just show bits here and there
They wouldn’t have sent reviewers copies of the game two weeks in advance if it was as bad as you make it sound like.
Review embargos = game bad
Review copies sent 2-3 weeks before actual release date AND no review embargos = game good
Remember FO76
Plus: the release schedule for Starfield (deluxe version 6 days ahead of the regular version) would be a death sentence if the game was actually bad
But, most importantly: NEVER PRE-ORDER A VIDEOGAME
I can’t wait until Starfield releases so that the doom and gloom posts finally stop.
I’m not expecting much myself. Another Skyrim or Fallout launch most likely.
To give (dubious) credit where it’s due though - Bethesda has a history of not providing pre-release copies. Doom is a good example: the press was not given copies before day 1, yet the game came out really good.
(In all honestly I suspect they did that for the very reason to be able to say later: don’t panic, all’s good, remember, doom was the same)
I’ve not played any Bethesda games day one, but from all I’ve heard it will either be a shot show or the best game ever and no in between.
I’m just glad it’s on game pass.
Daddy Todd said that they were learning from other game releases (*cough* Cyberpunk2077 *cough*) and wanted to avoid making the same mistake.
On one hand thats good in terms of promises, but it really spells bad newa for the company if its still a shitshow after those statements.
There will be bugs. Lots of them. If there is no progress halting bug in the game someway halfway through the main quest, that will be miracle and I will question whether it is Bethesda game at all. All bethesda games are bugfests on release, but at least they give the community keys to the game and then we got unnoficial patches, that fix like thousands and thousands of bugs over time
Eh, if it disappoints at launch I’ll sink back into AC VI and get S rank on most levels. Hopefully by then they would’ve fixed starfield enough so it’s playable.
Last time I trusted Bethesda, we got Fallout 4, a game I still believe is just straight-up unfinished and lacking in story content. I think I’m just gonna hold off and wait for a few patches anyway, it’s not like I’m a speed runner or anything that needs the bugs.
I know right? Last time I trusted BGS, I got a buggy game that quickly got better, and I played it, off and on, for most of a decade. Bastards.
Fallout 4 biggest issue was that it was just Skyrim with guns. And releasing 4 years after Skyrim, most people already felt the Skyrim fatigue by that time, me included. Starfield has at least that advantage it is not looking like carbon copy of Fallout/Skyrim formula, after all, it is a space game foremost and that can pour some new life into bethesda game design.
I’m a bit confused by that take. Fallout 4’s character progression works differently than Skyrim, the weapon and armor modification is completely different due to the gathering and breakdown of materials, and the way those populate the world dramatically changes the gameplay loop, the world itself was totally different, there was settlement construction, voiced protagonist, I mean shit, even the pure fact that the main combat gameplay was “finally enjoyable” gunplay makes the moment to moment gameplay fundamentally different from magic, arrows, and swords.
You can extremely whittle that down to “Skyrim with guns” but aside from being open world power fantasies with certain bethesda trappings like Radiant quests and AI schedules it’s absolutely not just a skin of paint on Skyrim, those games scratch a different itch.
If anything Starfield is absolutely taking a lot from those Fallout 4 specific innovations such as settlement construction expanding to ship construction and weapon and armor modification through materials coming along.
Exactly. Starfield feels more Fallout with space than Fallout feels Skyrim with guns.
I don’t agree with either of those comparisons but the latter is a bonkers take to me.
I mean they do use the same engine so there will be some similarity but that also lets them shorten the time between games, so we had to wait a ton of time for starfield but I bet the next elder scrolls and fallout games will come out much sooner now that the engine is updated, cant wait
I wonder if part of that is due to the capture issues mentioned in the Digital Foundry podcast the other day - essentially the captured footage of the game we’ve seen doesn’t look as smooth as the actual gameplay when they demo’ed it at Gamescom. It’s unclear why that is but whether it’s a resolved issue in a newer build of the game or still present but only observed in captured footage, I can imagine them wanting to minimise the amount of longform captured footage that’s out there pre-release to avoid showing the game in a way that portrays it as having performance issues which aren’t actually present during gameplay. Particularly with the controversy surrounding 30fps on console
