Eochaid

They never said “star trek in space” because, first of all, that’s redundant, and second of all, would invite lawsuits. I’m not even necessarily saying that they’re copying star trek in any way.

I’m using Star Trek as an illustration of the positive sci-fi genre and the tone they were putting out in their marketing. No, its not literally star trek - but unlike their other titles that are either distopian sci-fi or a semi-dark epic fantasy, this one has a more positive tone - there’s a sense of hope and compassion that even persists in more distopian areas like the well, cydonia, ryujin, and ebbside. And furthermore, the main story’s focus on the excitement and wonder of exploration, and traversing the unknown, is a love note for Star Trek and all the sci-fi novels strewn about the environment.

And though this clarification is quite separated from it’s context now, I only brought this up to say that this game is far more hopeful and optimistic than their previous games and I feel like their marketing illustrated it quite well. And the reason it matters is beacuse the lack of the “darkness” and “grittiness” you are looking for can be explained by this difference in tone.

Wait, so first you were complaining it’s not dark enough and now you’re complaining it’s too dark and not utopian enough? Bro…

Also, I said they were trying to capture the tone of a positive sci-fi story like Star Trek, not create star trek fan fiction. The game world shows significant progress towards solving various social, equality, and health issues, but we haven’t quite gotten rid of money, and as such, greed. For this reason, we still have economic disparity, corporate evil, pirates that do evil things for money, and a monopoly banking system that uses it’s power to use an abuse it’s opponents.

Furthermore, there’s plenty of people who have a problem with an overbearing singular government and want to do things their way - thus why the freestar collective and crimson fleet exist.

Its earth + 1, better, but still flawed. Which is honestly, a lot more realistic than star trek ever seemed to be. Perhaps they wanted to show a “missing link” between current humanity and star trek humanity. There’s progress, but there’s still work to do. Which, given the lack of aliens, its probably a good move to make sure humanity still manufactures drama.

Regardless, the theme and tone of the game can be best described as “hopeful and wide-eyed optimism”, which is very different from the distopian unease of Fallout and sweeping fantasy epic of Skyrim and, starfield was very clearly marketed as such from day one.

The blood looks way better than vanilla Skyrim did…

Also you’ve gone from calling the game “corporate” to “tame/sterile” which seems to be an admission that you now understand this was a purposeful and consistent creative choice towards building a “positive sci-fi” world ala Star Trek. A choice they were pretty clear to market and a choice you disagree with. That’s fine. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, it just means you weren’t paying attention and bamboozled yourself into thinking this game was ever designed for your sensibilities. Not every game made by a studio will be the same - especially when it’s a new IP. Hell, Tango made Evil Within and Ghostwire then turned around and built Hi-FI Rush.

Oh well. But since it’s a Beth game, you can be rest assured that there will be a ton of mods to help your realize your dream of watching people die and decompose in the most realistic way possible. Heck, there are probably already a bunch that do.

Okay, but just because they’re not titillating the desires of teenage boys doesn’t mean they “sold out” or “got more corporate”. They’ve been pretty consistent about presenting their creative vision for the game since the beginning.

Also, you’re premise is wrong. I just shot the hell out of someone iin the game and there were absolutely blood splatters all over the wall and floor. Have you played the game, or are you meming influencers?

That said, I would never consider Beth games to be particularly risque. They’ve always faded out sex scenes. Oblivion and Skyrim aren’t particularly bloody games. Fallout’s bloodiness is more in line with the IP and considerably tame compared to Obsidian’s games.

Maybe you’re thinking of mods. I dunno.

There’s literally no evidence they ever considered another tone. They were clearly going for a Star Trek tone, not a space opera.

The only thing I said about NMS was that it bores me. The story is thin and nonsensical, characters are nonexistent. It’s a great sandbox with impressive technical merit, but that’s not enough to keep me engaged.

Outer Worlds is pretty good but it’s an Obsidian title, for better or worse. The game world is bleak and terrible and it’s not any better at the end. Their writing is good and their characters are fantastic, and I enjoyed my time with the game but once I was done with the story, I couldn’t find much reason to keep playing.

Starfield, on the other hand, is really big and really deep. There is a crap ton of hand-built content - seriously, hundreds of hours in and I’m still struggling to see it all. The four faction quests feel like separate games in themselves. Starship building is awesome. Outpost building is overwhelming and little pointless, but still fun if you like that kind of thing. Yes, there’s a bunch of planets with generated content, but it’s surprisingly varied. There’s a ton of variation in flora and fauna and even the generated dungeons. There’s a few times i went to an abandoned something or other expecting just some pirates or something and ended up with a huge cinematic fight and loads of what seems to be hand-built content. Best of all, you can play the game how you want.

Don’t like planet scanning? You don’t have to. Hate the UC or Freestar Collective, fine you don’t need to do theor quests. Hate the ship builder? There’s plenty you can buy. Hate outpost building? Great, you can ignore it. Want to ignore the main quest and go be a pirate for a while? Go for it. The Crimson Fleet even gives you a couple of companions you can use if you hate how goody goody the Constallation folks are. This game rewards roleplaying choices more than any other beth title I’ve ever played.

Also, no spoilers but the New Game + mode is legitimately innovative. The story actually continues through it in wierd and wonderful ways. This is a game I’ll easily still be playing for years.

But my only advice is that you have to give it some time. It has a slow start and it’ll take a few hours to really start to click. So if you don’t want a game you have to spend a lot of time on, Outer Worlds will be a quick romp.

Overblown and knee jerk.

I’m enjoying the absolute fuck out of this game - hundreds of hours already and no regrets. This game is a lot deeper than anyone gives it credit for, it’s fantastic, and I’m looking forward to more of it.

No Man’s Sky bores the hell out of me and yet I’m having so much fun exploring planets and raiding pirate bases and being surprised by handbuilt content in what I thought would be a procedurally generated dungeon. Not to mention the surprisingly deep side and faction quests. Oh and so many hours playing with the shipbuilder.

I’m sorry you’re not having fun guys. But maybe you should focus on things that are fun for you?

Overblown and knee jerk.

I’m enjoying the absolute fuck out of this game - hundreds of hours already and no regrets. This game is a lot deeper than anyone gives it credit for, it’s fantastic, and I’m looking forward to more of it.

No Man’s Sky bores the hell out of me and yet I’m having so much fun exploring planets and raiding pirate bases and being surprised by handbuilt content in what I thought would be a procedurally generated dungeon. Not to mention the surprisingly deep side and faction quests. Oh and so many hours playing with the shipbuilder.

I’m sorry you’re not having fun guys. But maybe you should focus on things that are fun for you?

Tavern wenches shows more skin than Neon Workers.

The fuck?

People actually bleed in skyrim. Drugs even, I think skooma has better writing tham Aurora.

Uh huh…

SF is just corporate.

Or…maybe just going for a different tone that doesn’t fit your dark gritty sensibilities?

And here we finally have the primary motivation for this comment.

Well we won’t know for sure on those for a few years. All we have are old FTC docs and no public statements. Regardless, existing games aren’t going anywhere. But even if it happens for future games, well, Sony’s been sowing this harvest for some time.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/imran-khan-sony-has-locked-timed-exclusivity-for-some-huge-and-widely-known-multiplatform-games.263403/page-40#post-41953314

At least you can still play on PC on day one. Can’t do that with PS exclusives.

Um…Sony was in talks to pay for Starfield to be a PS exclusive - which would have taken it from PC for a year and from xbox permenantly - until MS bought Beth.

Also, Starfield is a new IP, not an “already existing and widely popular” one…

I’ll also mention that Phil Spencer publically admonished and fought against exclusivity agreements for years. He has said in interviews both private and public that he prefers a world where there are no exclusives. Until the market spoke and declared “exclusives” to be the measuring stick of a platform’s health, thus forcing his hand. And now here we are.

Well there’s the fact that you omitted Sony and Nintendo from your criticism entirly, despite the fact that both companies have bought numerous studios and paid other studios to make games exclusively for their respective platforms for decades, thereby reducing their potential revenue for some benefit that’s clearly obvious to those companies.

And yet, when Microsoft does it…they are just limiting their potential market for no reason and it’s obviously a stupid business move. Sure. Seems a little sus, is all.

Either the entire fucking industry is guilty of this “bad business practice” or maybe there’s a calculated reason for it. Pick one.

What’s truly not surprising is Sony fanboys defending the benefits of exclusives up until Xbox has an exclusive they want.

Lol, Starfield was originally going to be a Sony exclusive. That means Sony was literally going to pay Beth money to deny Xbox gamers access.

MS just made the better offer.

What a wierd take, given that people STILL play Skyrim, Morrowind, and Fallout games in droves to this day. And that there are a ton of YouTubers that have made careers exclusively off of Beth lore and build videos and such.

Also given the post is about the game shifting to “mostly positive” on Steam. Which means the vast majority of reviews on steam are actually positive. And a lot of the negative reviews have to do with performance and technical issues, not the gameplay itself.

Also the fact that other “open world story-based shooters with rpg and crafting mechanics” are actually really popular - you know like Cyberpunk, or Mass Effect, or RDR2, or arguably, Jedi Survivor.

If you don’t like Beth games, that’s fine. They’re not for everyone. But it doesn’t mean your opinion is universal.

I totally agree. I’m having a blast with this game. Imo, the best thing Beth has ever made (yeah, suck it Morrowind stans)

I think the problem is that this game has a bit of a slow burn. It took a bit for it to open up and make sense for me, more than most Beth games. I think over time the hate cycle will die down and people will get it on a steam sale and finally sink their teeth into it and after a couple of years it’s going to be as beloved as Skyrim is today.

Nope, not true in the slightest. There’s actually a lot of variety in biomes, flora, fauna, characteristics - and a lot of them even have multiple biomes with different life per biome.

What i expect people are complaining about is one of two things:

1. Planet scanning is boring.
2. On noes generated dungeons

To the first point, I agree planet scanning gets pretty boring if that’s all you do for 5 hours straight. But there’s a TON of content in this game. Switch it up. Once you’re done with a mission, go explore the planet you ended up on and scan the things. Or don’t. Who cares. Planet scanning isn’t necessary at all. I think a lot of people see that planet scanning gives you a ton of credits and xp, go grind that one thing, and then complain that it’s boring.

On the second point, yes every planet will have a bunch of locations that are like “Cave” or “Covered Crater” or “Abandoned Facility” and such. A lot of them are small resource troves, but the facilities actually feel pretty handbuilt - if you check them out. But I think a lot of people see “Abandoned [whatever]” and think “oh autogenerated content, meh” without checking it out. I certainly have been guilty of that. But every time I actually decide to go in, I’m surprised at how much fun I actually have in those environments, how much environmental storytelling is actually there, and how well built the levels are. I feel like they hand built a bunch of these or components of them and an engine puts it all together.

The reality is that every Beth game ever has used procedural generation. And they’ve been getting better at it with each game. Skyrim felt less empty that Oblivion. Starfield feels less empty, overall anyway, than Skyrim. The handbuilt hub planets are way busier than any location in Skyrim. The procedural worlds feel more empty than skyrim for sure, but it makes plenty of sense, theres still plenty to do, and the amount of planets makes it feel less empty. And overall, there’s a LOT more handbuilt and story content than skyrim - by several factors imo.

I’ll also point out that the procedural content is just flavor. You don’t need to engage in it but it’s there if you want it. This game has a TON of handbuilt content - more than any other Beth game. The faction quests feel like a full game in their own right. The side quests are plentiful and quite deep. Complaining about procedural content in this game feels like complaining about the number of leaves on a tree.