I love “Starfield,” but many people don’t.
I dig the casual, NASA-Punk vibe, crossed with plenty of action and adventure. Many other people actually revile the game for these very aspects. “Starfield” has been out for well over a year now, and has seen many improvements, the release of the Creation Kit for mods, and its first story-based DLC, and yet none of these things have brought any of the “Haters” to change their minds about the game. It has sold very well, and yet is considered to be a failure by many, because it isn’t topping the charts on Steam, nor could it top the popularity of “Balder’s Gate 3” in September 2023.
Here’s the thing, though. As much as I love “Starfield”, the Haters are largely right about the game. They are disappointed that it didn’t fit their expectations, wasn’t feature-complete upon release, and has been rather overpriced (especially when it comes to DLC and paid mods). They are correct, and I can’t argue that they aren’t, nor will I try to do so.
But…
For as right as these people are about “Starfield” and its shortcomings, they are also wrong in one huge way: This game isn’t for them.
Oh, I know… Bethesda sure made it seem like “Starfield” would be right up their alley. In the years leading up to release, I can see how a lot of folks would have pictured the game to be one way or the other, more like “The Outer Worlds”, or “No Man’s Sky”, or “Mass Effect”, etc. But at the same time, Bethesda never lied to us. They told us what the game would be, and I have seen a lot of Haters who simply inferred that the game would include Feature X, or be more like Game X than it turned out to be, and that angered them.
But they did this to themselves. Bethesda didn’t lie to you Haters, you lied to yourselves.
“Starfield” is only one example of this phenomenon, but there are many others. Gamers see a new game being hyped up, and they imagine how it will be, and convince themselves it will be something that it turns out not to be upon release. When a game like “No Man’s Sky” is hyped up to be the greatest sci-fi game ever, only to come out in a barely playable state, that’s one thing, but that’s not what we’re speaking of here. I’m talking about players hearing the hype, and creating even greater hype in their own minds, and fooling themselves into expecting that game will be the Moon and Stars, when it only claimed to be Albuquerque.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Albuquerque, mind you.
Let’s look at “Starfield” again, for some easy examples. The game is written to be heroic NASA-Punk, built around exploration and being a Big Damn Hero. But many Haters are mad that there is no clear way to be a psychotic criminal or pirate. Yes, you can join the Crimson Fleet, but then most of the random points of interest mini-dungeons which are populated by CF Pirates are friendly to you, which I’m sure they find frustrating.
Okay, but in that questline if you choose the Fleet, they are supposed to become much more powerful and increase their influence throughout the Settled Systems. Which means you are going to find them set up in a lot of abandoned bases, creating stations from which to strike out upon unsuspecting starships, right? So you would think you are going to run into more CF locations, and thus lose the ability to fight your way through those dungeons… Except that you totally can, as long as you don’t mind racking up a bounty with the Fleet.
In short, these Haters don’t like that you can’t be the Bad Guy with impunity, except that you can. Yes, it might upset most of the companions (there’s a mod that fixes that, by the way), but again, this game is built around being a Big Damn Hero, not a Pirate Psychopath. Personally, I enjoy the life of piracy in “Starfield”, but as a Privateer. Rather than taking down defenseless L.I.S.T. colonists, random merchants, and the occasional GalBank starship, I fight the traditional enemies (Crimson Fleet, Ecliptic, and Va’ruun Zealots) and steal their ships.
All the fun of being a pirate, with none of the evil.
In the end, these Haters are simply approaching the game wrong. They want it to be one thing, when it is something else entirely. Yes, in previous Bethesda games you could play all manner of character styles, so I can see why some people might find “Starfield” a bit restrictive. But it’s been over a year now, you know what the game is, and what it isn’t. Why continue to be mad about it even now?
As with my Privateer example, above, most of the playstyle examples that Haters have regarding “Starfield” can be resolved by simply adjusting how you approach the game. Don’t like the Outpost system, because the one in “Fallout 4” is better? Then use some of the many mods available in SF, and make it better. Want to have ‘slow travel’ in space, so you can roam around your ship while you are flying? There’s mods for that too.
But when you point this out to Haters, they always say “We shouldn’t have to rely on Mod makers to fix Bethesda’s shortcomings!”, and honestly, I can see their point. Except for one thing: Before the Creation Kit was released, these same Haters were angry that it was taking too long to come out, so that the modding community could start making things for the game!
Maybe Bethesda doesn’t need mod creators to “fix” their games? Maybe some entitled players need to understand that the game that Bethesda released just wasn’t for them?
