I love the content in Starfield. By that I mean I love the ‘NASA-Punk’ style. I have played and worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade and while it’s maybe underwhelming for some, I enjoy the over all style choice for Starfield. The main question is this though, when your game is titled Starfield why can’t you actually fly around some Starfields?

This isn’t me trying to be obtuse I just literally don’t understand when even Star Wars games from the 90’s 00’s had this. Maybe not in a super accurate way or even well done. I think Lucas Studios in the 90’s and BGS are probably about the same footing. Just a nagging thought.

I love the idea of the ship building and ship components. I mean it takes a game like Elite Dangerous and makes it look sort of dumb for not having a better ship building system. Admittedly, ED is years in the making and an MMO and has its own issues and hasn’t spit out new ships in years.

I was personally excited to see BGS tackle something like this. I was staying very reserve about it and played Starfield as it first came out, but I was and am disappointed in the 5 load screens for any ‘real’ travel and the lack of personal phones/radios by NPCs. Those are the things that most disappointed me in truth. Everything else I could grin and bear. Even the bad planetary execution. I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos on game making and even worked on some stuff for my own unreal game and learned first hand how hard it can be. No, I didn’t finish my game. The planets though are just puffy squares. (You could probably search this YouTube video easily)

My question is this, if I can find YouTube videos about why/how this design is not the best or could have been executed more competently then should I really hold BGS or even other AAA studios to the same standard? These YouTube video predate Starfield but years in some cases.

I understand that the game engine doesn’t have to be the brightest and shiniest. I get that unreal 3-5 is basically (some might say a dumbing down) a simplifying and graphicalizing of unreal 3. My question is does BGS own creation engine 2? I’m unaware. I imagine there might be copyright issues if they alter that underlying code.

Another question I have is about tile sets and buildings. What’s a good ratio of buildings and tile sets for (a thousand) planets? I’m sure there is a game design teacher somewhere that could answer this. Probably more than Starfield has, but probably not a lot more right?

I’m also curious how many people have played a lot of other space sims aside from BGS’s Starfield. What other sims have you played? I love a good sim. I’ve played everything from No Man’s Sky to Astroneer to Elite Dangerous to Space Engeneer’s. I’m always looking for a new space sim. I don’t think Destiney, Destiney2 or more fps type games like those qualify as they are mainly focused on the fps and the space aspect is mainly a story telling asset.

One of the things I think Starfield does really well is balancing the space as a story telling tool and a real environmental asset that is apart of the game. (Poorly executed maybe but its role is somewhere near the mark)

I think maybe the biggest complaint people seem to have it that so many elements are near the mark for want the expected and wanted, but fell sort of short of the epicness of like Skyrim or Fallout4. Admittedly I held Starfield up to those standards at first and I think part of me still wants to, but just like New Vegas. Maybe this is an IP that needs developed and reworked by another company to force BGS to take more chances and to do better so we get a Fallout or Skyrim level game out of this IP.

Either way it doesn’t seem too many would disagree that Starfield as an IP will need a lot more development and maybe a different approach. I know with the amount of time and money put into Starfield BGS isn’t going to just tell Microsoft to just eat it on this new IP we almost certainly will be getting a Starfield 2 or a Starfield: shiny rock scroll series based on Starfield. My question is do you think this IP is going to actually take off?