Bethesda Game Studios
PC, Xbox Series X/S
A FEW months ago, in my review of Tin Can, a game that takes place in a tiny spaceship escape pod, I wrote about the joy of small video games simulating a single area in exquisite detail. That has been on my mind as I play Starfield, a galaxy-sprawling role-playing game that does almost the exact opposite.
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Starfield is the latest behemoth from Bethesda Game Studios, a developer known for its gigantic fantasy and post-apocalyptic worlds in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. This new title attempts to go even further, giving you 1000 planets to explore.
The moment I heard that marketing line, I was wary. We have been here before with No Man鈥檚 Sky, a 2016 game that boasted 18 quintillion planets. Yes, that鈥檚 a real number, albeit one so high that these worlds would be impossible for human developers to create. Instead, No Man鈥檚 Sky and Starfield both use procedural generation to build their worlds, with sets of 3D assets combined according to predefined rules to create huge numbers of possibilities.
鈥淲e have artists who hand-built the rocks, partly from scanning real rocks in our world and changing them,鈥� game director Todd Howard . 鈥淎nd then we have algorithms that create the landscape of a planet.鈥�
The result is, as I feared, rather like reading the dull, predictable output of ChatGPT. While you can theoretically land anywhere on any planet, in most cases, your choice doesn鈥檛 matter. When your ship sets down, the game will randomly generate some generic landmarks in the distance, forcing you to trudge along to discover an abandoned military base, or cave, or even an abandoned military base in a cave.
This is a marked contrast to Bethesda鈥檚 previous games, which have all felt handcrafted to a much greater extent. With near-infinite 鈥渃ontent鈥� to experience, Starfield devalues most of it so it feels pointless. Even planets in our solar system suffer from this problem. I landed on Venus, anticipating a toxic hellhole (see page 46), but found yet another generic rocky planet with no signs of the near 500掳C temperatures I was expecting. Once I entered the nearby abandoned military base (this one had been overtaken by space pirates!), I laughed upon seeing paper files sitting out in the open atmosphere, with no signs of them spontaneously combusting.
As I continued playing, I learned to avoid engaging with anything that lacked signs of authorial intent, and my experience massively improved. The main story of the game 鈥� a galaxy-wide search for mysterious, vision-inducing artefacts 鈥� is a standard, if enjoyable, MacGuffin hunt, while the side quests have drawn me deeper into the game鈥檚 universe. That is before I even mention the ship-building and base-building tools, a seemingly endless crafting system and an extensive skill tree to upgrade. There is a lot worth engaging with here, if you can avoid the boring stuff.
I must admit, with a game this huge, I am yet to come close to the ending, but I can鈥檛 help feeling that, if you took all the worthwhile quests and locations and cut out all the procedural generation, you would still have enough material to fill an entire solar system. Sure, that鈥檚 no 1000 planets, but in reality, neither is Starfield 鈥� it is a bunch of thin encounters, spread even thinner to create a veneer of scale. Once you have pierced that, it is hard to shake the desire for something more substantial.
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Bethesda Game Studios
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The Outer Worlds
Obsidian Entertainment
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If you are looking for a stripped-down Starfield, this 2019 role-playing game hits a lot of the same highs.
Jacob Aron is 快猫短视频鈥檚 news editor. Follow him on Twitter @jjaron
