I have tried repeatedly to give the game a chance, and I think I've just been ruined by quality storytelling and character development in games. Because to be brutally frank Starfield commits the greatest sin you can commit in gaming.
It is BORING.
People say it gets good around the 20 hour mark, and now at maybe 12 hours into it (and three weeks of not playing it) I cannot find anything that would make me want to do that extra 8 hours.
There is nothing to make me care about the characters, the story, and it feels like one of those "playground" games that makes Far Cry 6 look substansive.
And I SHOULD like the game. The space combat feels a lot like Freelancer (a game I spent years creating mods for), I usually like CRPG's... but.
You know, it FEELS like it was supposed to be a MMO and then was back-tracked on halfway through development. Sure, it has a very very large "world", but there's nothing in it. Even the core planet I can never remember the name of is this vast expanse -- like the hub on the Citadel scaled up 200x -- but the stores and places to interact are farther apart than walking from Helgen to Riverwood, To the point they needed to add a transit system to a single map... But there's little to nothing of interest or value to fill that space.
The writing and characters are equally bad. The dead stares on every character are ME:Andromeda levels of "my face is tired" and generally feels like they just ripped off models and design from "The Outer Worlds". The voice actors do a competent enough job, but it's like they were handed scripts written by Tommy Wiseau.
It just failed to engage me as a player.
I dunno, maybe Fallen Order, Days Gone, and HZD spoiled me as a player who's more interested in an engaging singleplayer experience where they tell me a story. Much less take the time to make me care about the characters.
I mean seriously, in Days Gone when Addy asks me to get her a liston knife, I lost it. I knew what that was for... No, Oh no. No no no, you're not taking...
Simply put -- for me at least -- Starfield is not a good game. It seems technically competent, but it breaks no new ground and feels like the effort was put everywhere except making you care.
And the action isn't fast paced enough for Carmack / Romero levels of "Story? Games don't need a story!" where you can get away with Michael Bay levels of vapidity.
In that way I guess you could also say it's poorly paced.
I get it.
I found I kind of like the game but I got distracted so took a break.
my big complaint why do all the characters faces (and the ones you can use for yourself) look like they came out of the post bomb fallout when there is the medical facility literally next door that can do plastic surgery and massively remake your appearance. I am not saying EVERYONE should be movie star "pretty" but they should range from scars/pox all the way to drool at the pretty person
as to how I got into the game what helped was essentially doing some side quests.
scanning moons/planets to get 100% survey data.
do the quest at Demos shipyard to start bringing in 1000 units of lead
gather credits and upgrade your starting ship, like increasing your cargo, habs, drives and jump drive/fuel etc.
so far the "main quest" doesn't really engage me, which is why I get deathshadows complaint about it being boring
