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The pressure of expectation adds a sour note to Starfield’s launch | Opinion
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This is by far the best article I've read about Starfield.
It's been a minute since then, and while there’s still plenty of console war idiocy to go around – imagine me here waving a vague hand at pretty much everything that’s been said about Final Fantasy XVI’s commercial performance since launch, for example – most game launches have been spared the worst of the online vitriol.One vociferous segment of the internet proceeded to lose what little was left of its collective mind – because it’s not enough for Starfield to be a good game. It’s not enough for it to be a pretty great example of Bethesda’s prowess in open-world RPGs. It’s not enough for it to deeply satisfy a niche audience. This was a game in which people had enmeshed part of their personal identity, and it needed to be world-changing; it needed to be the game which would catapult Xbox’s game portfolio onto an even playing field with PlayStation’s studio output, the game whose very name would be the mic drop that would settle any fanboy argument about which platform had better software.In the minds of many consumers (especially those who are far too online), this isn’t just a game launch – it’s a pivotal battle in the console war. Consequently, any criticism of the game’s imperfections (which are many!) is interpreted as an attack on the Xbox platform; any praise for its achievements (also many!) is dismissed as fanboy raving. The degree of hype focused around Starfield has probably helped its early sales, but it may not serve the game well in the long run.Both for Starfield’s sake, and for the sake of Xbox itself, I wish expectations had been managed a bit more realistically. It’s great that the Xbox platform has a major exclusive with a significant built-in fanbase – but Starfield would have really shone as a single part of a wider slate of games coming out this autumn, rather than a solo high-profile exclusive that’s expected to carry the platform through to the new year. Bethesda RPGs are not and never will be all things to all gamers; they’re wonderful games beloved by a decent-sized niche audience. Fill in enough decent-sized niches and you get a mainstream platform – this is how the console business has always worked, and for Xbox, Starfield is a good step on that path, but it is only one step.I wish that Starfield was being given an opportunity to be assessed as a (great, flawed) game, not as a potential platform saviour that the internet’s angriest men are fanatically and personally invested in, and perhaps more broadly, that we could leave behind forever the daft idea that a platform can sink or swim on the strength of any single game.
