What if Bethesda Game Studios made their coolest technological advancement in years, then hid it away as though it were just a meaningless gimmick?
That’s just what happened with 2023’s Starfield. I’ve been on a weird excitement roller-coaster with this game over the last 365 days. I kind of loved it when it first came out in spite of the overall mixed reception. I wrote a whole thing about door flaps where I marvelled at its modern high quality material-driven graphics. Then I got upset at Bethesda’s baffling negative PR campaign aimed at its own user reviews, before begrudgingly calling it one of my favorite games of the year anyway. I’ve mused about how things like fancy maps and cars won’t be enough to truly bolster its player base — and the whole time, I’ve continued to quietly play the game and roll it around in my mind.
One of the biggest marketing talking points around the game’s launch was about how it had a “thousand different planets” to explore. These planet surface locations are all randomly generated upon your arrival, and then further populated with things like abandoned factories, enemy-filled dungeons, and caves. I’ve seen online that a number of players checked these out briefly and then quickly lost interest. Although I personally saw great potential in the system, it didn’t really click with me for most of the hundred…
