Starfield is not a bad game but it shouldn't be "just ok" (7/10) with what it had:
- beloved developer (by mamy people, not me)
- exclusivity (they don't have to optimize for many platforms etc.)
- massive amount of money MS has
- long development time
They fucked up.
I think Starfield is an example of just how difficult it is to create a game nowadays. They gave themselves enough time to create a new IP. 7 years. MS then gave them an extra year for polish. Something zenimax never gave them before. They put in the work to make the graphics look way better than their past games when other bethesda devs like Arkhane and Machine Games simply phoned it in. The marketing showed that it had the elements to make a truly great game, but unfortunately, it just didnt come together at the end. I think the devs made the game they wanted to make. They just didnt realize that it didnt work.
Todd said he wanted to make a talky game to stand out from the crowd because there are so many open world games out there today. Well, he did that. It's just that the writing sucks and talking to people simply isnt as fun as going out there and exploring those Bethesda worlds.
I had the same feeling with cyberpunk. We take for granted how all these AAA games just work and hit 90 on metacritic, but one thing off and it doesnt work. Cyberpunk had the graphics, the city, and the combat, but it just felt like it was lacking something that the only managed to truly capture 3 years later with phantom liberty.
TLDR; making great games isnt just hard, it's a miracle we all seem to take for granted nowadays.