Recent reviews by The3rdDerivative

A lukewarm entry into the sci-fi RPG genre, which ultimately failed to invest me in its story, worldbuilding, characters/companions, and most damningly its exploration elements. I'll be frank, the exploration gameplay loop, a core pillar of previous Bethesda titles, falls completely flat about 30 hours into the game. You can't go anywhere without a loading screen, breaking immersion, and the distances required to trek across planets in order to clear the same procedurally generated 'abandoned' XYZ with no means of travel outside of running/boost pack is vast. It's like Mass Effect 1 with the Mako all over again, except we're now in the 2020s, and the devs forgot/didn't care to even give you that. Rather than fun, it's a tedious affair stitched together by an endless wave of fetch quests and planet anomalies, which again, are largely meaningless and repetitive in nature.

Who knew exploring space could be so boring?

As for the preceding 30 hours, this game's main story starts painfully slow, introducing a cast of characters and companions that are more cardboard cutouts than actual people (in personality and appearance). Out of all the Bethesda releases, Starfield has some of the most watered down, uninteresting companions to date, which made trudging along with them difficult, especially when nearly every one of them made sure to second-guess and criticize my decisions. With that said, player choice is largely meaningless, made worse by the fact that a good number of NPCs are marked as 'essential' and aren't able to be killed until the plot allows it. Running a more evil-aligned MC is tedious, considering the lack of viable companions and the main story's persistence on forcing you into a specific path. I'll say that some of the faction quests are interesting and rewarding, but these alone do not make up for the main story's faults, which again results in a largely lackluster experience that sits around a 6/10. A rating that is rightfully deserved, and reflected in Starfield's current Steam score.

Before wrapping up this review, I'll say that ship and outpost building are fun, along with some of the gunplay. However, given the way perks/skills are currently laid out, the player will have to wait until later in the game to take full advantage of these features. While great, waiting to unlock these along with basic QOL elements such as sneak and the boost pack can make for an unfulfilling/frustrating experience.

It's no secret; this is Bethesda's most controversial and polarizing title to date. However, with the dust settled, and far more complete experiences available (BG3 and Cyberpunk 2077, to name a couple), I'd advise maybe waiting another 6-12 months on Starfield. It can be fun at times, but at the moment, there are too many missing elements to justify paying a baseline $70 entry fee. Bear in mind, this is assuming that Bethesda is willing to listen to feedback. Unfortunately, some of their earlier PR statements make me hesitant.

A gazillion guns... nuff said.

-> Think Destiny, only done right.