Starfield is My New Diablo

Open World? Spaceships? Random Generation? Loot Everywhere? Yes Please!

Alex Rowe
5 min readSep 7, 2023

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One of Starfield’s many item chests.
ROG Ally screenshot taken by the author.

I was pretty darn excited for Diablo IV over the course of the last several years. Unfortunately, while the final game is a technical achievement as far as artwork, sound effects, and music go — the core game isn’t very fun to play.

It’s designed more like a slow free-to-play slog than the Diablo games of the past, almost like it was meant to benefit from the still-unfinished Microsoft Activision deal that would have seen it show up on Game Pass. On a subscription service, its cruddy pacing and microtransactions wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue as they are inside a full priced seventy-dollar game.

Game Pass just got another big RPG in Starfield, and its direct-action gameplay and single purchase monetization design couldn’t be more different from Diablo IV, yet I think it hits many of the notes I was expecting from the next generation of the iconic hack-and-slash loot series. Starfield takes Bethesda’s traditional open-ended design and mechanics, and pairs them with a wildly huge amount of content.

The game’s marketing promises 1,000 planets to explore, and indeed, there are a ton of procedurally generated worlds in the game to go along with its impressive fully written story. These worlds function…

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Alex Rowe
Alex Rowe

Written by Alex Rowe

I write about gaming, tech, music, and their industries. Audio producer, video editor, and former magazine game critic. Look mom, I’m using my English degree!