SUMMARY
- This Christmas was not great for Bethesda as as they woke up to negative review on X.
- Many players believe that Starfield has not lived up to the the quality of previous Bethesda games.
The holiday season, particularly Christmas wasn’t a great one for Bethesda’s space odyssey Starfield. While the rest of the world opened presents, Starfield opened X (formerly Twitter) to highly negative reviews. It was the first single-player game from Bethesda since Fallout 4, which launched in 2015. This made sure Starfield was released amidst a lot of hype and anticipation.
While some fans found that the game lived up to the hype and met their expectations, others found it not up to the mark. Several users believed that Starfield falls short of other great games Bethesda has made in the past like Skyrim.
Starfield gets review-bombed
A user named ‘Synth Potato,’ known to post a lot of reviews and gaming industry-related content, recently posted a detailed review of Starfield on X. The user is the Managing Partner & Director of X, and Content at GamePassTracker. They were formerly associated with RockstarINTEL and GTAonlineNews too.
I know Starfield has issues but I really think it does NOT deserve to be rated this low on Steam right now
Is it outdated in many aspects like load screens, limited exploration and procedural content slop? Yes 100%, but I really think the storylines, quests and general freedom… pic.twitter.com/xBjpVYRHh5
— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) December 26, 2023
The user writes, “I know Starfield has issues but I really think it does NOT deserve to be rated this low on Steam right now. Is it outdated in many aspects like load screens, limited exploration, and procedural content slop? Yes 100%, but I really think the storylines, quests, and general freedom in who you want to be aka the Bethesda RPG loop that you get into as you stick more to curated content makes up for a lot of it, it’s far from flawless but not bad enough to be a Mostly Negative on Steam”
They further say, “In a way, I do also hope this is a wake-up call for Bethesda to up their game in terms of animations, seamlessness, and PC optimization for TES6, This level of technical regression compared to other RPGs needs to end with Starfield, Creation Engine needs a MASSIVE upgrade or new tech to be built ASAP, I still have faith in Bethesda’s games, I enjoyed the hell out of Starfield but we can all agree they can be much better.”
The user ended the review by expressing hope that the future updates of the game adding vehicles and DLCs will be focused more on curated content rather than procedural exploration. They add that Bethesda has to see that procedural content repetition isn’t working out for them. Instead, they must give players one massive island on a single planet as the focus for a DLC where everything is handmade. This will reap more positive responses for exploration.
Starfield reviews
Starfield has a Mostly Negative rating on Steam with a 6/10 rating. The game had over 1 million concurrent players across all platforms when it launched in September. This made it one of the biggest launches of the year.
On the other hand, Starfield’s Metacritic page reflects a Metascore of 83. While some users did not enjoy Starfield’s planets and exploration, others have experienced some technical problems with the game. Nonetheless, irrespective of the mixed reviews, it has been record-breaking for Bethesda, but not without being review-bombed. Some users clearly rated the game negatively because Starfield is an Xbox console exclusive.