I can't recommend this game. I played for four hours and requested a refund.

Why?

The game is bland. The story is boring. You start off as a miner, find a mcguffin, then get treated like the hero of the galaxy. There's no buildup. The combat is similar to Fallout 4 but without VATS. You have a jetpack this time, but there's no real use for it outside of traversing the outside world. Speaking of, the outside world is incredibly empty.

I was willing to accept the emptiness of the space setting if it meant we'd get "immersed" in the sci-fi setting, but that isn't here either. There is no living in your ship. Your ship is just a place to jump between loading screens and play out a simplified ship v ship encounter. I explored the first planet only to realize that all the points of interest are distanced 1000s of meters apart and, yes, you must walk between them on foot. Creatures have the AI intelligence of mudcrabs. Bethesda really wants to impress you with 1000s of explorable worlds, but this fascination with widespread Radiant-style content essentially eliminates any sort of depth you could have in an RPG.

Bethesda is not known for its story telling through its scripts, but its worlds. Here, the worlds are just bland, open sandboxes for you to walk between copy-paste points of interest. Sometimes those points of interest are literally just a tiny cave with bug dung in it. And yes, you just walked across a barren planet to find that.

I've seen from folks that the game "gets good 12 hours in" and, sorry, that's just unacceptable. Fallout 4 was engaging from the moment I started the game. Starfield? No. Nothing feels handcrafted other than the designated space ports like New Atlantis, but even these cities are unfortunately populated with hundreds of nameless NPCs and carved up instances so nothing feels seamless or interesting.

The game just isn't fun. I can go play Baldur's Gate 3 and feel like nearly every NPC has a story or a purpose. Here, they're just generic "space pirate X". There's no immersive sim here to compensate either. I just don't care for this and if you're on the fence for this game then you'll probably not care for it.

I can't recommend this game. I played for four hours and requested a refund. Why? The game is bland. The story is boring. You start off as a miner, find a mcguffin, then get treated like the hero of the galaxy. There's no buildup. The combat is similar to Fallout 4 but without VATS. You have a jetpack this time, but there's no real use for it outside of traversing the outside world. Speaking of, the outside world is incredibly empty. I was willing to accept the emptiness of the space setting if it meant we'd get "immersed" in the sci-fi setting, but that isn't here either. There is no living in your ship. Your ship is just a place to jump between loading screens and play out a simplified ship v ship encounter. I explored the first planet only to realize that all the points of interest are distanced 1000s of meters apart and, yes, you must walk between them on foot. Creatures have the AI intelligence of mudcrabs. Bethesda really wants to impress you with 1000s of explorable worlds, but this fascination with widespread Radiant-style content essentially eliminates any sort of depth you could have in an RPG. Bethesda is not known for its story telling through its scripts, but its worlds. Here, the worlds are just bland, open sandboxes for you to walk between copy-paste points of interest. Sometimes those points of interest are literally just a tiny cave with bug dung in it. And yes, you just walked across a barren planet to find that. I've seen from folks that the game "gets good 12 hours in" and, sorry, that's just unacceptable. Fallout 4 was engaging from the moment I started the game. Starfield? No. Nothing feels handcrafted other than the designated space ports like New Atlantis, but even these cities are unfortunately populated with hundreds of nameless NPCs and carved up instances so nothing feels seamless or interesting. The game just isn't fun. I can go play Baldur's Gate 3 and feel like nearly every NPC has a story or a purpose. Here, they're just generic "space pirate X". There's no immersive sim here to compensate either. I just don't care for this and if you're on the fence for this game then you'll probably not care for it.