Let's talk about ambition it's one of those special traits that makes human beings so
incredible. When humanity puts its mind to something, it feels like there's nothing we
can't do. It can bring us unbelievable tech innovations, take us to the stars or help us
bring our biggest creative visions to life and the thing about our ambitions is that we don't
always have the tools to match them. Even the most monumental undertaking can still
feel a little underwhelming next to the picture in our heads, but that doesn't make us failures
our impossible desire to keep reaching for the furthest stars, despite the fact that
our universe is always expanding that's what makes us human. So let's talk about Starfield.
Hi I'm Giovanni Colantonio, and I'm here with my review of Starfield. Now it's no exaggeration to
say that Starfield is the most ambitious video game ever made. The Intergalactic epic is the
latest from Bethesda Game Studio, the team behind a little game called Skyrim you know
that landmark RPG that's been re-released for over a decade. I'm pretty sure you can play it
on a smart fridge at this point. it's clear that Bethesda wants Starfield to rise to the
same heights and become a generational classic. Bethesda has often referred to this game as the
outer space game and that claim has led to some impossibly big expectations from fans,
and it's hard to blame them. I mean we have our own Ambitions as players our dreams about
the kinds of games that we want to play can be just as grand as their creators,
but the higher the expectations the harder the fall back down to earth can feel. so let's just
get this out of the way up top: No, Starfield isn't the groundbreaking universe shattering
game you might be expecting. it's a perfectly solid but fairly standard Bethesda RPG that
happens to be set in space yeah it's big, but your imagination is probably a little bit bigger. okay
now that we're out of the hype driven fantasy, let's talk about what this game actually is. now,
the good news is that if you love bethesda's RPG style, Starfield really delivers. you're going to
spend a lot of time talking to NPCs but Bethesda knows how to make that Loop really compelling.
when I built my character I imagined her as a sort of Han Solo type she was a space scoundrel
who grew up on the mean streets of neon, which is this very cyberpunk city. and that wasn't just
background information. when I actually got to Neon I found that I could flex my history
and conversations to gain a little street credit with the locals and more easily persuade people.
"and I prefer a third party handle it would you be interested?"
it's those RPG touches that make my story feel personal. and while we're talking about story,
don't get too excited about the main plot in Starfield while it's filled
with some sci-fi Intrigue, a lot of it just boils down to hunting for artifacts,
which are just kind of metal mcguins. it's not that much more exciting than hunting for five
color jewels in a Mario game, even though it's dressed up in a more serious tone.
now what you should get excited about though is the wider world building here. all of my
favorite plot beats in Starfield happen in side quest, like this whole story line where I have
to commit acts of corporate espionage for a mega company. stories like that are where
Starfield actually gets intriguing for me, as it feels like it's almost a social commentary
on human beings. of course we finally travel to the stars and turn the entire galaxy into
a corporate Battlefield. it's a biting bit of satire, and it's one that plays around
with the different levels of ambition that the factions of its universe have.
and there's that word again: ambition. and it's there that we start to get into both
Starfield's most impressive feats and its biggest letdowns too. now,
on paper, the idea of getting to freely explore a thousand planets is incredible, and in practice,
it is to an extent as well. Bethesda has built a technical Marvel here by creating many diverse,
beautifully rendered environments that you can just hop into. it's massive in scope, and it's
hard not to be impressed by that but just because you have that much space doesn't mean that it's
all worth exploring, and most of it isn't. planets are basically a collection of landing zones,
sparsely populated with resources to collect or points of interest to scan and the occasional
cave. and as you can probably guess, those things aren't unique to planets. in my playthrough,
I came across the exact same cave, loot placement and all, several times. assets are copied and
pasted onto planets with little rhyme or reason to give this illusion that they're lively and filled
with stuff to do, but in reality, there's not much depth to it. you can scan aliens and plants,
but you don't ever really get a good way to catalog and show off that data.
it's also worth mentioning that this level of scope does come with a lot of performance and
stability issues. visuals swap between stunning and pretty dated. it can't hold a stable frame
rate in its busier moments, at least on console, and I experienced some of the gnarliest bugs I've
ever seen in a modern game here. really you're in for some true body horror. now what's equally
disappointing here is flying yes you can build your own spaceship and pilot around the stars,
but it's not as exciting as it sounds. you know the orbit screen in Destiny 2,
where you watch your ship hover in front of a planet while you load into an activity, yeah,
that's basically an interactive version of that. you just kind of hover in front of a planet in
blank space until you press a button to land. now there are occasional battles with ships up
in space, but they're fairly repetitive and just involve you hammering down your
triggers with little strategy. it's kind of just a stop gap between fast travels,
and that's honestly kind of a bummer. there's just not much depth to any of starfields biggest ideas.
despite setting out to make a definitive outer space game, it's surprising how few
options you have when it comes to choosing the kind of astronaut you want to be. no
matter how you want to play you're going to end up killing a whole lot of people. I mean
this is a shooter at its heart, and it's a perfectly enjoyable one at that. sure,
weapons lack impact, but additional skills and some neat Interstellar Powers help give
Starfield a solid enough action core. but there's just not much to do outside of that.
I love building outposts and tinkering with my ship,
but every system acts in service of that combat Loop.
and none of this is to say that Starfield is bad or or even subpar. it's a strong Bethesda
RPG with lots of quests to complete, some great moments of storytelling,
and impactful choices. but there's an inherent fallacy when it comes to huge ambitious projects
like this. Bethesda started developing Starfield 8 years ago, and that is a lifetime in the world
of video games. what would have felt revolutionary 4 years ago feels dated today. I mean despite its
size Starfield doesn't feel that much more groundbreaking than 2019s the outer worlds.
like the universe, the video game industry itself is always expanding. Bethesda reached
for the edges of what was possible with this game, but that bar is already so much further away now
than it was last console generation. and despite all that, I still walk away from Starfield pretty
impressed. while it might not be the outer space game I always dreamed of, it is still a staggering
technical achievement that shows just how how far one Studio could go to achieve its own dreams. and
let's be honest, the end credits aren't the end for Starfield. Bethesda games live and die on
their incredibly ambitious modern communities that keep their worlds alive for decades. if nothing
else Starfield is a sandbox full of possibilities for its most dedicated fans. I know we're going to
see some amazing things come out of this game, and that's the most powerful thing about Starfield.