The sad fact is that, even with vehicles, the sense of exploration and wonder just isn’t there in Starfield. Get in ship. Fast travel. Fast travel. Get out. Travel to the same POI you’ve seen before but now on a different planet. It feels like there’s no real exploration, just bumbling around in menus and experiencing déjà vu anywhere that isn’t a major settlement.
What I really really wish they’d do is just make a single planet and work their butts off making it interesting to explore. That’s what I loved about Bethesda games; walking in any direction and stumbling on something wonderful. There’s none of that in Starfield.
I’m looking forward to Light No Fire from Hello Games - hopefully they find the right balance between procedural generation and hand crafting that Bethesda sorely imbalanced in Starfield.
BadlyDrawnRhino@aussie.zone 6 months ago
I haven’t played Starfield yet, but from what I’ve read it seems to be the next step in the procedurally generated games that Bethesda is heading towards, and I really hope it makes them rethink things for their next game.
While I’m sure that there are people out there who enjoy the fact that there are infinite fetch quests in Skyrim, it’s hardly a feature that anyone really raves about. In fact, the Minutemen quests in FO4 were often the subject of ridicule when the game came out. But at least in those two games, the Radiant quests had the possibility of taking you to an interesting location you hadn’t been to before.
Like you said, one of the key features in any Bethesda game is the exploration, but the more they rely on procedural generation, the less interesting exploration becomes, and the gameplay and writing of their games just isn’t strong enough without the finely crafted world-building they’re known for.
exocrinous@startrek.website 6 months ago
Isn’t Daggerfall procedurally generated?
fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
And Arena. And they were pretty boring for exploration too. Fast travel was essential. It was a marvel at the time but walking over bland terrain for hours got old quick.
Back then, it was just epic to have an epic-sized game with decent combat and magic. They’re dime a dozen now.