Long-Rant.
I'm legit a little concerned for Starfield right now, not because of any quality expectations but because of the ridiculous hyperbole and narrative around Xbox at the moment, the expectations which will be placed upon Starfield will be insane, it may be one of the most closely examined titles in history, the smallest bugs will blow up.
My worry is a lot of reviewers (and clickbait YouTubers) will look at Starfield from the angle of "Wow, Microsoft hasn't released a major exclusive in almost 2 years so Starfield better be flawless, 11/10, zero bugs, created by God himself" and if it's even the slightest bit buggy it's going to be "Wow, Xbox's next major exclusive in almost 2 years has some bugs, unacceptable, is the Xbox brand doomed?"
Basically what I'm saying is Starfield needs to be reviewed on its own merits, as an actual videogame, not on some silly arbitrary timeline between Starfield and the last major Xbox release. There are so many outrage and clickbait artists on Twitter and YouTube right now who are already coming to the determination that Xbox is screwed, that Starfield needs to be perfect with no flaws and that it's already in danger, Lmao.
It's only in danger because of clickbait and rage fuelled content creators who will find any fault they can to create rage fuelled Xbox doomed opinion pieces and get them clicks. Now Starfield has to be an absolute flawless masterpiece, has to be the game of the decade, can't be anything less than a 10/10 😄
If it's high 80s I bet we'll see even some "Wow, is Xbox doomed? If Starfield can't crack 90s then nothing can, is Xbox in trouble? Starfield isn't the saviour that Xbox hoped it would be". Some people also acting like Sony/Nintendo have never released 60s, even some reviewers who gave them those 60s, Lmao.
Like, I understand it's frustrating the first AAA since Halo Infinite turned out to be a dud and it hasn't resonated with the majority. Yes, Xbox and Bethesda share some blame here and they can be held to account and questioned on the issue, it is unacceptable to release in this state but where is the perspective? Redfall was in development before Xbox even acquired Zenimax, it wasn't greenlit by Xbox and what more could they have done?
These people know full well that it isn't just the graphics and bugs that people are taking issue with but the entire core of the game itself, alongside the AI and content, Arkane had 5 years and a year delay, to fix the major complaints of the reviewers it would have probably needed another 2 years at least, are people seriously going to pretend they wouldn't be ripping Xbox a new asshole if they delayed Redfall again by over a year to soft reboot it? Lol.
It's a title which wasn't in Arkane's wheelhouse, they tried something different and they failed, it happens. It means absolutely fuck all in relation to Starfield and Starfield's expectations shouldn't be increased simply because Xbox hasn't had a major exclusive in a while, why would I think that would or should change the quality in a title?
If Starfield is an amazing title then it's an amazing title and it doesn't mean fuck all when the last Xbox exclusive released, I'm not going to write up my own review with the mind frame of "this better be perfect because Xbox's last major release was two years ago, if I find a single issue then I'm going to be mad because Xbox last major release was two years ago" because that's stupid and not what reviews should be about.
Some will say this looks like an excuse but it's not, it's simply the facts of the matter, Starfield isn't going to be perfect, it will have bugs, I also expect it to have an amazing amount of content, a brilliantly versatile engine, a great and engaging story, and I don't expect it to have any game breaking bugs or major performance issues, however it won't be perfect because no game is perfect.
People also acting like or purposely ignoring that Xbox studios haven't released multiple high quality releases since 2020 and how consistent they've been since now, this is Xbox's first 60s since 2020. Before that, between Minecraft Dungeons in 2020 - Minecraft Legends in 2023, they didn't release a single title below ~75 IIRC.
But one studio making a title in a genre they're completely new to and screwing up and we're fucking doomed and nothing Xbox did in the past three years counts and all their future titles need to be 10/10 with absolutely no faults at all, totally the same standard we hold to all over titles, now how about that Jedi Survivor sitting at 86 OpenCritic despite being a technical mess.
Some are acting like Xbox just came into their home and snapped their dogs neck in front of them and took a shit in their kitchen.
This rant is mainly directed towards YouTubers and Twitter Personalities...I actively try to avoid the former though. Cause that is a large portion of YouTubers, clickbait outrage videos because that is what sells, negativity. Large part of this rant is aimed at YouTubers like DreamcastGuy. A lot of these YouTubers drag down the Gaming industry because they exist solely to complain and rile up fanboys.
The dialog around Starfield and Xbox is reaching hilariously over the top levels. You guys rated Halo Infinite a 9/10, Forza Horizon a 10/10, Hi-Fi Rush a 9/10, Flight Sim a 9/10, Pentiment a 10/10, Grounded a 9/10. But without a third person action/adventure "AAA" xbox is done. pic.twitter.com/fZS8AzXmFj
— xabbott (@xabbott) May 4, 2023
"If Halo were coming out now, it would need to be a 10/10"
Give me a break, now a 9/10 is suddenly not good enough, Lol. Then the other guy saying basically Starfield being a 10/10 won't matter, it needs to be "transformative" Lol. Transformative 10/10 is now the floor and anything less is doom. Xbox discourse is getting so f*cking dumb.
Feeling bad for the developers at Bethesda Game Studios with this rhetoric, coming from gaming media no less, in the final months of development which are usually full with crunch the developers are now being told that Xbox's existence rests on their shoulders and if the game isn't a perfect, transformative 11/10 then it's not good enough. Must feel horrible to work at BGS right now.
This isn't a defensive of Redfall but the new rhetoric around Xbox and now Starfield, feels like Xbox never gains any "straws" and only loses them from certain folk. And yes I understand that AAAs move consoles and Xbox needs more quality AAAs. No doubt they'll get them, they won't get them though if they're set up to fail from the start and every title now needs to be transformative, perfect, 10/10.
But the thing is, Starfield only has this spotlight now because it is Xbox exclusive, if they were still multiplatform and Redfall released like this it wouldn't be getting anywhere near as much attention and Starfield certainly wouldn't be suddenly doomed because of it, nobody gave a shit about Wolfenstein Youngblood which is also in the 60s and jointly made by Arkane, Lol.
Nobody said Starfield is doomed because of Youngblood and it now needs to be a 11/10, everyone was still wildly excited for Starfield. Because it's silly to doom a title made by a completely different developer in their actual wheelhouse, versus one who tried something completely new to them and failed, it's telling that the only Bethesda projects which have failed have been multiplayer projects, use logic.
A lot of the blame for this is on Bethesda's old management which included a private equity company (that owned a large portion of Zenimax) that was pushing for Bethesda's studios to get in on the live service craze to boost profits.
— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) May 4, 2023
That's how these (disastrous) games happened.
