I made my character last night and got to the lodge. I started this morning at 08:00 and only logged off at 15:00, probably an hour of that was time lost in kitchen, phone etc. I haven't even completed Sarah's first mission and man does she bitch! Got to Mars and got embroiled in a mining quest line that took me places.
I've got to say, the space stuff doesn't bother me so much. I've come from everspace recently which was pretty much using supralight as hub travel and auto lock/orbit anyway. Its more fluid but to me it's just a nicer layer of icing on the same cake.
The graphics upgrades and animation upgrades are exactly what I wanted from a Bethesda game to get me hooked. If, like me, this stopped you getting into Skyrim and Fallout properly then this will be a welcome upgrade for you. Everything seems to have a sense of place as well. Moreso than Cyberpunk 2077 I'd say.
I've spent a lot of time today figuring out controls and adaptive context based on comments in the thread which has helped tremendously. There are definite improvements to be made over time, I don't mind the lack of minimap but the game does ask a lot of you.
I'd liken it to RDR2 in terms of contrasting opinions. If you didn't like engaging with the different systems in RDR2, like the camp management, speaking to the gang members, the general pace, hunting for resources, the satchel and context specific controls then Starfield might feel more of he same. If you did love RDR2 or grew to love it like I did then as long as you can get past the various instance loading screens then I think you will like this too.
I'm usually a follow the main quest person and pick off sidequests when I want but this is a rare occasion when I don't have some fake urgency thrust on me. At some point I need to explore for more artifacts, but there's no urgent need (no end of the world, no chosen saviour) So I feel freer even though I'm picking up lots of quests just by passing randoms. I feel I can just do what I want and it's really lit that creative synapse in my head. I'm doing what I want to do which is work towards being a smuggler and do other things if they pop up and look interesting. I'm not feeling stressed to max out an area/planet before moving on like an Ubi checklist. I'm going to be back to all these places frequently.
It's obviously not without issue but I do think they've created something familiar but with more depth than ever before. If you get distracted by the superficial design concepts they've adopted on some areas and let them ruin this for you then I think you will miss out on something really special.
And - to myself - I sound like one of those evangelists of skyrim who I used to think 'wtf am I am playing the same game?', but if they got the vibes I'm getting from this, I get it now.
