Starfield

[On2wheels]

I've watched a fair bit of relatively spoiler free coverage and it isn't great. The opinion seems to be it isn't terrible if you like the way the storylines are already done in Starfield, but it really doesn't add much new, and it isn't very long. Consensus of the folks I've watched is it is isn't worth $30 USD for sure.

Another complaint that I agreed with is that you can't seem to start the content unless you agree to join the snake cult. That cramps the RPG aspect of the game I think and seems an odd decision.

Also from the little I've seen the dialogue seems stale and not very interesting. There was one funny moment in a video I watched where there was a long dialogue piece happening with an NPC and the game actually switched to the idle camera mode, the rotating camera around the screen. The player laughed and said "Oh man! Even the game got bored!!" lol

There were a lot of comparisons to Far Harbor DLC for I think Fallout 4 (?) and how it didn't compare to that at all, nor is it anywhere near the calibre of Phantom Liberty as @FreeKnight said. And it still seems to have a lot of weird bugs -- NPCs not looking at you when in conversation, other NPCs getting in the middle of the conversation and blocking the speaker, just those kinds of lack of polish things.

I have access to it because I bought one of the Digital Premium Edition, and I will likely try it out at some point, but I'd have to play more to even be high enough level for it I think.

You don't have to join any cult or faction that would affect the rest of the game.

The story was boring and frustrating to me for almost the entire way through the main questline. It took far too long to feel interesting to me.

I saw the comparison to Far Harbor but Starfield doesn't have that appeal that Fallout does and this SS DLC doesn't do it any favours. Definitely not worth full price.

Spoiler: spoiler

The main story leads you down a path with a choice at the end, where both choices take you to the same outcome. That was a huge letdown.

 

[Lysrin]

You don't have to join any cult or faction that would affect the rest of the game.

The story was boring and frustrating to me for almost the entire way through the main questline. It took far too long to feel interesting to me.

I saw the comparison to Far Harbor but Starfield doesn't have that appeal that Fallout does and this SS DLC doesn't do it any favours. Definitely not worth full price.

Spoiler: spoiler

The main story leads you down a path with a choice at the end, where both choices take you to the same outcome. That was a huge letdown.

Well the review stuff I watched was on target then. Thanks for your take on it!

 

[FreeKnight]

Made a potshot at Startfield in another thread (because why not) and it got me curious how it's current player count stacks against previous bethesda games as well as some of the other 'bigger/biggest' rpgs of the last while;


That's not great for starfield. While it's doing better than Oblivion or Fallout 3/NV, It's pretty much getting pummeled by other entries (though is beating DA:I). That it's getting vastly lower player counts than Witcher 3, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 which are notably older is not a great sign of support to come or that the modding community will grow that much. Heck compared to the CP2077 and BG3 numbers, with BG3 being a nearly simultaneous release, that's pretty poor player counts.
I imagine Witcher 3 and CP2077 counts are notably increased if you include gog numbers in there as there was better sales for both on GOG a number of times (given that CDPR owns GOG) and starfield isn't available there.

Really hope that Bethesda will take some of the lessons to heart for ESVI. This makes me think we really need another 'open world AAA rpg' dev though.

 

[Izerous]

It's all time peak is actually pretty good compared to the titled in the list but for something only 1y old to have active/24h peak numbers that low compared to things like Skyrim and Fallout 4 considering their age is pretty bad.

Edit: Personally not impressed by Starfield and neither was a single person I work with. I don't think anyone in the office logged any real significant number of hours into it.

 

[JD]

If the DLC was free, or even if it was free to Game Pass members, it would probably see a bit of a spike in players once more.

I'll still stick to this whole concept of games getting a lot of bad press and altering people's viewpoints. Then they either don't play a game or they play it and dislike it due to all the negativity they read before playing. Or I just have totally different opinions than the typical reviewer site/channel, as both Starfield and Star Wars Outlaws fell into this and I played both games to completion.

 

[FreeKnight]

It's all time peak is actually pretty good compared to the titled in the list but for something only 1y old to have active/24h peak numbers that low compared to things like Skyrim and Fallout 4 considering their age is pretty bad.

Edit: Personally not impressed by Starfield and neither was a single person I work with. I don't think anyone in the office logged any real significant number of hours into it.

It was a massively advertised and hyped release so the "all time peak" (likely at launch) doesn't surprise me. Plus it was given away like candy with Ryzen CPUs and AMD GPUs for a while

If the DLC was free, or even if it was free to Game Pass members, it would probably see a bit of a spike in players once more.

I'll still stick to this whole concept of games getting a lot of bad press and altering people's viewpoints. Then they either don't play a game or they play it and dislike it due to all the negativity they read before playing. Or I just have totally different opinions than the typical reviewer site/channel, as both Starfield and Star Wars Outlaws fell into this and I played both games to completion.

Piling on can certainly happen, though in the case of Starfield, I think the dislike is pretty genuine. I think the discussion becomes more dominating when a game that is advertised aggressively, or hyped heavily by the developer (Starfield was both) turns out to either be a dud or nothing special.

Had Starfield been released by a dev like Spiders (Greedfall) or even a better known studio that doesn't typically do RPGs you'd have the game largely forgotten after a bunch of reviews that said "Good first effort with some serious flaws, but impressive nontheless 7.8 or 8/10"

Starfield was hyped as 'revolutionary', a game like no other, etc and it was a thinly reskinned BGS game moved to space with even more loading screens. It's fine for people to enjoy it, but I think it's an honest argument by most that it's not a great, or even 'really good' game. Hell I love Nier on PS3 and it's one of my personal favorites and think every gamer really ought to give it a try, but if you asked me if it was 'revolutionary', 'great', or 'GOTY?', I'd laugh and say "Nooooooo. It's 7/10. But what a 7 that was!"