Starfield Review - To Infinity, But Not Beyond - GameSpot

Bethesda's spacefaring adventure has its moments with impressive scale, satisfying combat, and some worthwhile side quests, but its shallow RPG systems and uninspired vision of the cosmos make for a journey that's a mile wide, but an inch deep.

[JunonZanon]

Floods incoming.

[repsahj]

Oh my. >.<

[anast]

Now I know why they didn't give out a bunch of copies. It's going to get hit hard. Yes, I am enjoying this.

[sagapo]

87 on both meta and open critic so far. But keep enjoying yourself, lol.

[anast]

Those 10s were auto-given.

[Aloymetal]

It could be a 100 on metacritic and 11/10 on all websites and still wouldn't matter because that's what lord Phil said not long ago. But keep enjoying yourself...

[Tacoboto]

Metacritic right now with 44 reviews is an 87

Two points higher than Spiderman Miles Morales' 85 with 89 reviews
Same score as Spider-Man 2018 after 116 reviews.

I guess I don't know what you're enjoying? Are you looking at these like they're Redfall reviews?

[ABizzel1]

Not to aid him in his foolishness, but both those games have 2x the amount of reviews, while starfield has purposefully limited the number of review copies sent to the media which could affect them long term.

[anast]

The fact you have to compare it to the lowest bar is telling.

[Jin_Sakai]

@Tacoboto

This is Xbox new Halo, their new flagship title and while It’s not doing bad it’s far from GOTY contender Microsoft made it out to be.

And why are you comparing Starfield to Spider-Man? Sony didn’t make it out to be the next big thing like Microsoft did with Starfield. A decade in the making after all. It’s THE game as Phil said in an interview.

[MrNinosan]

How does it compare with games like The Last of Us Remake, The Last of Us 2, God of War Ragnarok, Demon's Souls, Horizon Forbidden West, Final Fantasy VII Remake etc?

[MarkSony2]

Miles Morales deserved a 90.

[Bobertt]

It's not the GOTY they hyped it up to be though and all the reviews i have seen so far say outside of gun combat it does a worse job at the things that made previous Bethesda games great. So for Bethesda at least it's better than Fallout 76 but not a return to form.

[darthv72]

...seems a lot of people are enjoying this as well (judging by all the good scores). The game sounds like it really gets better the more you play it. Some say its best to play through the main game first and then do new game + to really go out and explore.

I hope to enjoy it too.

[MontyeKristo]

Kinda lame that you enjoy something like that. A little bit sad, a little bit pathetic.

[Killa78]

To be fair, Bethesda was still a bargain at 8bn 👀

[solideagle]

Insomniac was a bargain (229 million) not Bathesda :D

[MrNinosan]

You forgot the /s and therefore less smart creatures will downvote you.

[Killa78]

Whoopsie!

[randomvoice]

So much for those GOTY awards... BG3 gonna sweep them now

[Soulsborne]

Knowing how shit TGA is at actually picking the right goty, TOTK will take it away from bg3. But i agree BG3 is wothout a doubt 2023s goty

[anast]

If TOTK takes it from BG3, the system will admit it's seriously flawed. There is no way a copy-paste game should get GOTY.

[Kneetos]

@anast Welp, guess rip Spiderman then

[Muigi]

I can’t put a top down turn based rpg as my goty.

[randomvoice]

@kneetos no one expects Spiderman to win a GOTY. It will be a fun game and even the devs know what they're targeting. Will probably be a solid title that will outsell all GOTY contenders apart from Zelda maybe.

On the flip side, everyone thought Starfield was gonna be a smash 95 on metacritic hit. The hype was like it was supposed to be the next Skyrim. Looks like it fell well short of that.

[solideagle]

it's sitting at 87 on meta, so It might still get few GOTY awards. Many are shitting on it because it got few 7/10 reviews...

[darksky]

It's only reason it's 87 on metacritic is due to the unrealistically high scores from Xbox fan sites. The bigger review sites gave it around 7/10 average. No wonder they withheld copies from many neutral review sites.

Not a bad score but I doubt this will dethrone ToTK or even Baldurs gate 3.

[anast]

The game was going to get auto-10'd. It's a 6-7 game. Or an 11 if you are starved for Bethesda content.

[sagapo]

@ anast: if you want to give a game a score, make sure you played it yourself. Now you act like a pathetic fanboy.

[randomvoice]

It will end up with 85-86 once all is said and done. Only sitting at 51 reviews. Scores in most cases go down overtime. After all the hype, it is just another AA level title at the end.

[WelkinCole]

To be fair BG3 is the game of the generation for me so far. Yes better than GOW for me.

BG3 is insane

[randomvoice]

For me that was Elden Ring but yeah man we've been spoilt as BG3 is amazing as well. Even GOW was amazing but being a sequel, it ran into the same think as Zelda: TOTK for me. Great but you've seen it before.

[Muigi]

Ok cool can we get the promised Fallout 4 update now?

[Viljong]

I rather continue mass effect LE then lol. I kinda predicted this i said some xbox insider reviews are 90 but othets low 80s and high 70s. But it seems to be little lower than i quessed. 70 at best lol. Did all the talent leavr when ms bought bethesda.

[anast]

The talent hasn't been there for a very long time.

[sagapo]

ME trilogy was great, Andromeda not so much, didn’t feel like a Bioware game.

[shadowT]

bad reviews for clicks

[ChasterMies]

How dare they give a bad review to a game you didn’t play.

[MEGANE]

🍿

[ocelot07]

Oooooof can't say I have been excited for this game. Doesn't look like it's a must play so I think I'll wait until Forza comes out before I get a month of gp then I'll give it ago.

[JokerBoy129]

Dude I'm loving the copium going on right now lol! The dude who reviewed this on Gamespot only plays JRPGs and gave Yakuza and Persona games all 8s and 9s lol. I don't think this type of game is his thing.

[SixFrvgz]

I think we know who's really on copium right now. Don't be silly.

Take your L and go sit in a corner.

[mastershredder]

Yeah. That’s about it. Enjoy your catchow Bethesda. Should stayed out of the MS muzzle, hype and empty promise land, ya greedy bastards. Discovered: Forever Tarnished Reputation

[Christopher]

Let's be honest, this game would be 100% the exact same if Microsoft bought them or not. This is 100% about Bethesda and Todd, nothing else.

[lodossrage]

Yeah I have to agree with that. I'm not a fan of Microsoft. But this game would have been what it is regardless of the bethesda purchase or not.

[MrNinosan]

Would've been 100% the same but playable on your preferred platform.

[__SteakDeck__]

@Christopher @lodossrage @MrNinosan Actually the game might of been worse without MS. Remember MS was the one who delayed it by a year and helped Bethesda polish it. Todd wanted to release this last year, when it didn’t look great. The game still has bugs, especially in the later hours. But it’s the most polished Bethesda release, and MS deserves credit for that.

[ocelot07]

Just watched a clip on YouTube. I'm I understanding right. You can't really explore on space? Can't fly towards planets and can't even fly away from them?

https://youtu.be/N6YSr25Z_h...

[MrNinosan]

Nope, that's No Man Sky for you.

[MarkSony2]

Oooookaay.... moving on...

[Rdeal]

Every other countries IGN gave it 9's and 10, just the twat that gave Outer Worlds a 8.5 , gave it a low score

[ChasterMies]

Other Worlds is like a 6/10 game. Seriously. Overrated.

[Psychonaut85]

Ouch. Damn that sucks. Xbox needed a win and this sounds like this ain’t it. Sony not doing any better with this bs PS Plus price hike though. (Sighs)

[__SteakDeck__]

What Sony is doing with PS Plus is scummy. But it’s not going to stop people from buying PS5’s and it’s not going to stop Sony from being the market leader.

[WelkinCole]

Pretty much sums up the xbox as a whole

[Johnh5223]

With the lack of western rpgs this game gets more points from Me being just that.

[Rimeskeem]

Weird that every Xbox site is giving this game 9+:
XboxAddict 10/10
Generación Xbox 99/100
SomosXbox 98/100
MondoXbox 97/100
TheXboxHub 9/10
WindowsCentral 9/10

Metacritic has also put IGN Spain and Brazil on who gave it high scores while the main IGN has scored it a 7/10 and remains off the list.

[MrNinosan]

Yeah, they put IGN on the PC review instead. Very strange mix of where they put what reviews.

[randomvoice]

Halo Infinite had the same shit. If that wasn't titled Halo, it would have had trouble hitting 80 on metacritics. Just a bunch of paid shill sites giving 9s and 10s due to nostalgia and brand name. Honestly from everything I've read so far, this is a 8/10 game.

[jznrpg]

Or checks -

[purple101]

I just watched 11minites digital foundry. My eyes hurt so much I immediately had to watch there Horizon burning shores review, just to see some beauty again and put my retinas at ease.

[MarkSony2]

Damn that's brutal🤣

[HyperMoused]

Its cool to hate MS saw this coming a mile away, ill form my own opinion later when i play it

[phatak]

I DONT EVEN COME OFTEN ON THIS SITE ANYMORE BUT GOTTA LEAVE A COMMENT IN ALL CAPS LOL, I AM A PC GAMER BUT OWN THE CONSOLES TOO AND GENUINELY WILL PLAY ANY GAME ON ANY PLATFORM, AFTER HALO INFINITE AND REDFALL I GENUINELY THOUGHT XBOX HAD A BANGER WITH STARFIELD, THEIR LAST SHOT AT COMPETING WITH SONY ON EXCLUSIVES, BUT EVEN THIS FLOPPED, SCREW XBOX AND RIP, THEY SIMPLY CANNOT COMPETE WITH SONY ON EXCLUSIVES, EVEN AN OLD GAME LIKE DAYS GONE THAT GOT AVERAGE REVIEWS IS SIMPLY ONE OF THE BEST GAMES IVE PLAYED ON PC, THEN THERES GOD OF WAR, HORIZON, SPIDERMAN, LAST OF US, RATCHET, DEMONS SOULS, GHOST OF TSHUSHIMA, THEY SIMPLY CANNOT COMPETE, ANY REALISTIC PERSON CAN TELL THAT NOW, I MAY SOUND LIKE A FANBOY AT THIS POINT BUT SO BE HIT, ITS SIMPLY OBVIOUS THAT MICROSOFT WITH ALL THEIR FUNDS STILL CANNOT COMPETE WITH SONY,RIP XBOX EXCLUSIVES

[__SteakDeck__]

Starfield didn’t live up to expectations, but it’s not a “Flop”. Lol

[S2Killinit]

Wow its getting torn to shreds

[DarXyde]

I'm gonna wait and see what the final meta is. I still think 88 minimum.

Commenting on this article because GameSpot and I tend to be in simpatico, but 7 is not at all a bad score. I always wonder how well received games would be received without the impossible hype people give them. Howard and Hines are partly (largely?) responsible for that, but it generally seems to be pretty well received.

Well done, Bethesda. And I'm sure the Xbox community will enjoy this game for weeks and months to come. Say what you will, but as a Game Pass title, I think this game is going to be VERY popular in the service.

[__SteakDeck__]

7 is not a good score from a game that was as hyped as Starfield, and from a legendary developer like Bethesda. Also it’s not just Howard and Hines that expolded the hype. When MS bought Bethesda, the games hype expolded 10 fold. Once Starfield became an exclusive, it was looked at as the savior to the platform.

[DarXyde]

I don't think that's fair, and that's my point: would the score be higher if there wasn't so much hype? To the credit of a lot of the Xbox fanboys on this site (I can't speak for the whole internet), their hype was mostly* personal excitement. Nothing wrong with that, but I can see why people would interpret that as hype. I saw a lot of "my GOTY" comments, which you can't really knock them for.

You also say 7 is not a good score... Why? 7 communicates to me that it's a solid game and there's room for some good improvement. Not perfect, not "absolutely phenomenal", but the aggregate score is floating much closer to 90 than 70. I think it's a home run for Bethesda fans and it seems to be the most stable game they've made with few issues. Credit where it's due: they've made a great game fans of their games will enjoy. Let's not hang our hats on this 7, mate.

As for being the platform savior... According to whom? Who believed this game was the savior? Maybe if you had no other reason to invest in an Xbox. But if you have one already, you don't really need a new one. It's like what people said about MGS4 as the "savior of the PS3". Great game, but there was plenty before that where I felt I justified my purchase. The whole savior narrative really needs to die.

[gerbintosh]

They need to change or upgrade their game engine. The characters look lifeless due to their eyes

[Zombieburger638]

All I’ve seen is people saying it is a new engine (same shit they said with fallout 4/76) or it’s fine because it adds that Bethesda “charm” whatever the hell that is.

[purple101]

This is a fallout - "Space mod pack", no doubt.

[talocaca]

Love how Xbox Addict gave it a 100 while IGN & Gamespot gave it a 7 and PC Gamer a 7.5

Which one do you trust 🙄

[Tapani]

Very well written review. The critiqued points can be seen in all the gameplay footage. Seems like the game just isn't written well nor is interesting or feel important to people. Just a task list to repeat the same thing again and again in new wrapping.

[jwillj2k4]

I saw a stream of this game that was pure comedy. It’s not so bad if you take it as a big joke honestly speaking

[Ninver]

The saga continues. On to the next savior I guess.

[DivineHand125]

I will be playing this myself when it launches next week. From what I understand so far, the game will have a slow start and your enjoyment of it is hinged upon your expectations of an RPG.

[Father__Merrin]

Looks like it's turned out a good game but not the blockbuster that was hoped. It had to have been on ps5 also for the world wide impact

[Thundercat77]

Well... so much for "game of the generation".

Looks like Starfield won't be able to save Xbox as it was expected.