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I hope Starfield's reception marks the end of all huge empty open worlds in gaming.

Reave

Member
I don't call walking/running for 10 minutes in one direction to find a small hut with one scientist sitting at table really compelling. Inventory management is also a huge turn off. I'm spending more time in menus than playing. Big meh.
Sure. Plenty of video games have boring or underwhelming moments. It’s just quite bizarre that Starfield is where some of you apparently drew the line.
 

Larxia

Member
It's space that just isn't compatible with human exploration while making it interesting.
I disagree, it just depends if you actually like space or not.
I played Elite Dangerous for about 400 hours and I loved it. Space in that game was incredibly immersive, and that feeling of loneliness, of endless space, was something very unique that gave me chills. There is a lot to love about Space, but not everyone actually like it when they realise it's not Star Wars.
 

Bkdk

Member
OP completely misses the point, starfield’s poor reception is the opposite of a big open world, they split the world up into a big disjointed loading mess. Had this been fallout 5 with some vehicle combat, it would have received way better with one massive seamless open world with everything in there.
 

OuterLimits

Member
I think it was due to overhyping
Todd with his lies
And the warriors that painted the game as GOTG, i was into the hype too but fell hard today
I'm going to wait a few months for mods to improve the experience and my new GPU

"and the warriors that painted the game as GOTG"

Unfortunately we now also have the warriors pretending a game that scored 87/100 is horrendous garbage.
 

Ribi

Member
Nope, peoples hyped up this game even when it was obvious there were gnna be empty planets. I read multiple comments saying they were gnna explore all the planets and they looked forward to exploring for years. When called out on it they said "who cares if they are empty"
 
People complained about the size of Hogwarts Legacy open world being too small and I was over here thinking HL was just right. I despise the Ubisoft model of making open world gigantic for no reason whatsoever.
 

Bernoulli

M2 slut
"and the warriors that painted the game as GOTG"

Unfortunately we now also have the warriors pretending a game that scored 87/100 is horrendous garbage.
87 is great and it will increase with more reviews coming soon it oonly needs 3 points but MC doesn tmatter just enjoy the game :messenger_sunglasses:
 

feynoob

Banned
Engagement! Haha.

What matters is moving hardware units, it's the only measurement of Starfields success. So let's see if it moves the needle for Xbox.
Hardware numbers is useless.
I can play starfield without owning xsx, due to xcloud.
This game is also PC day1, which also affects console sales.
 

Vblad88

Member
If this planet emptiness have some grounds in the story than ok, if it is just a "realistically fitting content filler"... why even bother... Would anybody play Tomb Raider or watch Indiana Jones if it would feature realistic presentation of true archeological work? C'mon...
 

OuterLimits

Member
87 is great and it will increase with more reviews coming soon it oonly needs 3 points but MC doesn tmatter just enjoy the game :messenger_sunglasses:

Doubtful it gets to 90, but since it is a Bethesda game it will definitely improve significantly over time. Content from Bethesda directly and user created mods
 
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NikuNashi

Member
Hardware numbers is useless.
I can play starfield without owning xsx, due to xcloud.
This game is also PC day1, which also affects console sales.
So MS should go third party, drop the boxes and put GP on PS5. Let's see.
 
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Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
You can make big open worlds that work, you just need to understand how. One genre that pairs up really well with huge maps are driving/racing games for example
COMPLETELY disagree. Maybe if you hate racing games otherwise.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
So MS should go third party, drop the boxes and put GP in PS5. Let's see.
Someone else highlighted this. But if PS let Game Pass on their platform (even if Xbox stopped producing consoles) - Xbox would still be highly incentivised to continue on their acquisition spree because this will starve PlayStation of revenue from game sales whilst growing their own revenue.

It can’t work.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
I've always preferred smaller open zone games like Baldur's Gate 3, Tales Of Arise, and Metro Exodus.
That's the reason I prefer Arkham asylum to the City and Knight, I like having freedom to explore and do things at my own pace but damn I feel overwhelmed by very large maps, I still play those games but if they're not Zelda, Xenoblade (in which I prefer maps that big) or some franchise I love for that, they're far from being priority in my list
 

feynoob

Banned
So MS should go third party, drop the boxes and put GP on PS5. Let's see.
Hahhahaha, that is a funny joke right there.
The only reason they are in this business is because they don't want sony dominate the home consoles in America.
You are saying they should give revenue to the same company they are trying to stop.
Anyway, that is not going to happen. If MS does put gamepass on PS, Sony will lose a lot of revenue. Because MS will eat those revenue through gamepass.
MS going 3rd party is more scary than them having Xbox console. They can put a lot of games on gamepass and have the funds necessary to put those AAA games on the service.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
All I want is variety, I can enjoy open world games like Elden Ring and Zelda but I don’t want every fucking game to be open world. I’m glad FROM sticked with mission structure for ACVI because it was right choice for the series.

THIS!
 

nani17

are in a big trouble
Yeah ok Todd we know it's you by the way your game is pretty similar to Outer Worlds as not fully open world and landing in random planets with sort of borders.
 
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bender

What time is it?
Fixed those typos for you pal. ;)
community-ken-jeong.gif
 

RAIDEN1

Member
It reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 5.....vast open barren lands, with you and just the russians.....absolutely boring, was I hoping it to be akin to a modern day Rambo 3? Maybe... :messenger_grinning_smiling: but I would quite happily trade-in the open-world for the tight engaging stories of Metal Gear 1-4.....cut-scenes or no cut-scenes
 

Madflavor

Member


Currently the 2nd highest rated topic on the Starfield subreddit, only behind Todd Howard's open letter thanking the fans. Now I don't know about you, but if it's been less than 24 hours since your game's release, in Early Access, and a topic complaining about their disappointment in the game reaches that many upvotes and comments in the very sub were the most dedicated fans reside, then that's generally not a good sign.

But hey, maaaybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe this is just a very tiny amount of fans that had their expectations set to infinity and beyond, and even after a months time we all agree that Starfield is a remarkable achievement in game design.
 

Fbh

Member
I still don't get why people talk as if this game is a failure. By every metric we have so far (reviews and active users despite being in a $35 early access) it seems like a successful game. It's just not the best game of all time (or arguably even this year).

I just hope maybe this time people will learn to set their expectations right? I swear every time a game with a big scale gets announced a lot of people start making up this dream in their head of a game with thousands of amazing hand crafted quests, locations, dungeons, characters, conversations, enemies, etc. "Most studios seem to struggle to make more than like 30 hours of good content before they start adding bloat and repetition, but I'm sure this one devs somehow made 9000 hours worth of the highest quality unique content"
The second Bethesda announced the game had 1000 planets anyone with a bit of gaming experience should have known what to expect.
 
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Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
You disagree because you haven't played good open world racing games.
Don't be like that. Name them and find out.



Currently the 2nd highest rated topic on the Starfield subreddit, only behind Todd Howard's open letter thanking the fans. Now I don't know about you, but if it's been less than 24 hours since your game's release, in Early Access, and a topic complaining about their disappointment in the game reaches that many upvotes and comments in the very sub were the most dedicated fans reside, then that's generally not a good sign.

But hey, maaaybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe this is just a very tiny amount of fans that had their expectations set to infinity and beyond, and even after a months time we all agree that Starfield is a remarkable achievement in game design.

I think it's an incredibly stupid, dishonest, and ignorant take. I would also like to hear them actually describe the mechanics of how they would pull off what they want, if they even actually know what they want.
 
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Vblad88

Member
Still, loading screens kinda scream "we are not yet in current-gen territory". This might add to disappointment heavily. I think people come to peace with 30fps more than the lack of "Magical SSD/DirectStorage" effect.
 

Mr Hyde

Member
Not to rant on Starfield, it looks great and I'm excited as fuck to play it on Wednesday, but I agree with the criticism of open worlds being too large, and devs tripping over themselves to surpass the scope and ambition. I for one would like for devs to actually scale back on their worlds. For example, as great as Elden Ring was, it's gargantuan size is just too damn big and time consuming, especially for me who likes repeat playthroughs and ng+. Every time I hear devs talking about "hundreds of hours of playtime", I'm kinda zoning out and just go "ah shit, here we go again." Just my two cents. But in the end, I play them because I love these type of games. So I guess I just have to roll with it.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Really great scores and all the major influencers and most early access people love it. This thread is a huge fail.
Did you just ignore the fact that the 2nd biggest post on the Starfield Reddit, is about how disappointing it is?

The sad truth is that if people didn't evangelize the game as the second coming or a 11/10 like Phil Spencer said, there would be no disappointment.

Imagine. Todd Howard: "It's not as big as it seems. We wanted to do a space action game with sparse RPG elements. You don't really fly to planets, and the main story is where the good design in terms of structure is. It won't change the world, and it is no Skyrim but we tried something different. Just as glitchy as before but it's a fairly decent game. We are proud of it."

Then you wouldn't have that kind of pushback. Too much weight was put on this game's shoulders and it's a new IP.

They promised the GOAT of GOATs, and even a few days ago Pete Hines was saying how you could explore every planet with no restriction, which is bullshit. The space travel is bullshit. Cool moments where "I stole a pirate ship and now another pirate group is stealing it back" sounds amazing until you realize that it's scripted to happen to pretty much every player.

Again, I will spend hundreds of hours in this game, and I will not regret a single second but like Bill and Ted, it's time to face the music. This is no GOAT. Hell, it isn't even the best RPG with Star in it's name during it's release week.

They hyped it too much. It's no Redfall that's for sure. And I liked what I played of Redfall. Got to the final eclipse boss but couldn't finish it. Not because it was bad, just because I had to give the Series X back.
 
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