Starfield

In Bethesda games in particular that meaning comes in the form of a deep submersion into new worlds, via the studio's ability to create a famously unparalleled, impossibly absorbing sense of place. Note, for a blunt example, the way Bethesda's games are typically named after their settings, over their people. Starfield's problem is its lack of one. It's a non-place, formless, joined entirely by menu screens and hyperlinks replacing the almost divine sensation of direct experience. Rather than being built in service of presentness and a sense of place, Starfield is set entirely in their absence.

For All, Into the Starfield It seems that even in the future, humans will still be mining the natural resources of a planet. I suppose it makes sense that once the important resources have been removed from the Earth's crust, we'll look to the stars to...

Starfield is filled with possibilities for who you can become and what you can do, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in gaming.

Bethesda has finally landed another hit. Starfield is the space RPG epic we’ve been wanting for so long. It has the incredible expansiveness and variance in design of No Man’s Sky mixed with the dialogue depth and creative quests of Fallout or even Mass Effect. The only thing that might bother some people is the heavy reliance on fast travel and that many planets only make sense when you build bases and production facilities there.

After all the hype and hope and anticipation, I'm disappointed to say I don't love Starfield the way I love other Bethesda RPGs. It's similar in a lot of ways, but Starfield never feels as instantly engrossing and transporting as Oblivion or Skyrim or as wild and weird as the Fallout games.

Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.

As an expression of a dominant video game design philosophy—one that presents players with more to see and do than seems possible to ever experience—Starfield is impressive. As a workable to guide audiences to what’s truly worthwhile within itself, it falls short in direct proportion to the enormity of its universe.

Starfield delivers on everything it promised and then some. It's the ultimate sci-fi game, giving players an incomprehensibly massive world to explore and letting them play however they want. Starfield has what it takes to be another Skyrim-level game that's played religiously for the next decade. It's utterly engrossing, an absolute must-play, and the best Xbox console exclusive in years.