Nice - I got both PS5 and a Series X this year.

2023 has been a good year for gaming overall.

It's this years punching bag but Bethesda has been that for a while now. It's the "cool" thing to hate on it and it is profitable to hate on it, the amount of clicks these rage-bait articles and hours long YouTube videos to say how much Starfield sucks must be getting is clearly something worthwhile considering Starfield haters can't shut the f*ck up about it despite hating it, like, move on dude, Lol.

Not a surprise though considering how much hate the game was receiving before it had even released though, Starfield is the most talked about game of the year and that's a fact and it was heavily talked about before it had even released but there was a lot of "this game will suck!" before it was even in players hands. Bethesda rage bait is strong nowadays.

This drop all of a sudden is suspicious, it's such a drastic drop and it's months after release. Ratings like these are usually reserved for games which are either completely and utterly broken beyond belief or are being review bombed like Overwatch 2 "Worst Rated Game Ever" on Steam. I can buy someone thinking Starfield is a 7/10 or even 6/10 but 28%? Lmao.

I don't see how Starfield at its worst ain't just an "alright" game, there is nothing offensively broken about it, or offensively bad about it to justify the 28% average rating on Steam and I've no doubt it's just some review bomb hate bandwagon for various factors (probably the replying to Steam reviews got PC gamers panties in a twist too).

My favourite complaints are "I've put 300 hours into Starfield and it sucks!" or "Starfield is so outdated, it sucks and Bethesda hasn't evolved since Skyrim, now excuse me while I go back to playing Skyrim!" Or the articles talking about how Starfield's outdated and sucks but look at how many people are still playing Skyrim! Lmao.

I better not see people say "Avowed ain't like Skyrim! It sucks!" 💀

I now wonder what the reception would be to an Oblivion remaster or even worse, a Morrowind remaster, Lol.

Ah well, it is what it is, Starfield has still undoubtedly been a success for Bethesda/Xbox anyway, in terms of players, engagement and Game Pass and I loved it which is all that matters to me, it seemed to resonate more with console players and players will only increase as Bethesda continues to support it, I am looking forward to the expansion and Bethesda fixing some of the things I took issue with.

Most one-sided poll ever.

The person who voted for "no"

It also feels off, because it has not the bullshit that in my eyes make such a stuff worth it:microtransactions, lootboxes, predatory bullshit. Starfield has none of it. I can see a game that starts without this kind of shit and adds it later on through patches gets negative reviews by people that played hundreds of hours, because they are the target of this predatory bullshit. But all Starfield has is, that it may be a mediocre game, depending on your tastes and that it has the usual amount of Bethesda jank. I mean I saw in Skyrim Mammoths fall from the sky, rocks without a backside texture (making them invisible from that side) or corpses that stood upright. And I bought the game years later with millions of patches already. But nobody seems to care here. Starfield made a decision: they wanted a realistic human universe. That lead to space mostly empty and planets looking kinda samey. Because it is realisitc. Would I personally had liked an approach with a more phantastic universe more? Absolutely! But I can recognize that this was not a decision according to my tastes without it making the game bad. Do I think it was rightfully snubbed in awards? Sure, but not because it is a bottom of the barrel game, but simply because other games were better. It is not great, but definitely not the shit it seems with recent reviews.

You’ll be back the moment you need to use their customer support ;)

Really liked this part, very mature take

For me I liked the realistic focus, it gave me Expanse vibes, Lol. It set itself further apart from things like Halo and Mass Effect too, it feels more "hard sci-fi" than both of those (still with a sprinkling of fantasy elements though like those two also have, Halo delving more into fantasy than the other two, Lol). But I've said it before as well, I love space and find space to be one of the most horrifying and yet beautiful things that we can see, I loved those moments in Starfield where I was in the middle of nowhere, cold vast emptiness, looking up at the sky and seeing an absolutely stunning vista.

I get that isn't for everyone though, I would accept the criticism that instead of 1000 planets they could have instead focused on a few galaxies and therefore populated more planets with colonisers and things to do. They can keep a galaxy for each major faction (United Colonies, Freestar Collective, Crimson Fleet) and also a few extra galaxies populated by stragglers or people not associated with any faction, then maybe a few galaxies not populated at all, maybe too dangerous to colonise due to weather or wildlife, instead of doing 1000 planets focusing on around 500 or so.

Didn't bother me much though, I liked how big space felt, I'd just say that I wish United Colonies, Freestar Collective felt "bigger" in reach/population, it's sort of explainable by the "leaving Earth and following wars" why humanities population seems low but still feels too small, like humanity would struggle to survive as a species this spread out and these few numbers, haha.

Another thing that excites me about Starfield's "early explorers/realistic take" is that in sequels we're going to be able to see humanities progress as they advance technologically and since they're still quite "modern" in terms of tech it could open up each sequel to showing off a lot of advancement in human tech, I'm already thinking to myself "Should Starfield 2 be set 50 years in the future or 100? What level of advancement do I want to see?"

Compare it to something like Halo or Mass Effect and both those series are way more advanced than Starfield in almost every single way (weapons, armour, AI, space travel, ships, humanities progress into the stars, etc). So in those series you almost feel like humanity is already close to its peak while Starfield humans I would assume are absolutely nowhere near and we're going to experience that growth through the stages.

I'm already thinking for Starfield 2 "What new things will humanity achieve?" I don't want Starfield 2 to make too massive of a jump and skip all over that, I actually want to see the progress for myself and experience it, each new entry adding a new wealth of technological goods and advancements. Something I didn't really ever feel with Halo or Mass Effect.

They announced it too early and released it too late. (But it was too rushed and should have been delayed).

The graphics are shit.

It's too colorful.

It's not realistic.

Damn loading screens and there was a frame dropped after entering that city.  

It scored 84 on Metacritic so it's beneath me and I won't play it, but I'll definitely trash it every chance I get as well as the entire Xbox brand as whole because of it.

It won't sell well because it's not on Playstation.

Its good for Gamepass, that way nobody has to waste money on this game.  

Skyrim might have been buggy at launch but this ain't no Skyrim and it sucks!

Predictable.  

I have this absolutely crazy idea swimming around in the back of my head that could make me interested in this kind of game. What if we have a really big universe, mostly randomly created like No Man's Sky. Nobody knows what to expect. And at start only some systems close to the original system are settled by NPC. You can fly out into space and claim a sector to build a base if no one else did it before you. But unlike No Man's Sky you can hire or attract settlers and make your base into a settlement (No Man's Sky has settlements, but these are pregenerated and not built by you). These settlements will mine resources and produce stuff as you devise and you can start trading with the central world - or other players. Unlike No Man's Sky I would distribute resources very uneven, so trading is encouraged. Every system has *some* resources, but none has all. Main currency would be energy or an energy equivalent, as this can be produced only limited but is used up all the time. The world is running even when the player is not online, his settlement (or settlements) will keep producing, existing trade routes will keep trading. You can ally yourself with other players and you can start wars. You also can claim far-away planets. If you start your ship and stop playing for months, you reach systems months away, few other players will be near you. You can start your settlement there. Maybe other players will not notice you until they themself make such a travel.

Does this idea sound crazy? A multiplayer online world, constantly running, but players create the factions and start settle an initially empty universe.