It gets a super heavy recommendation from me. The game is absolutely excellent. It’s everything the Battlefield community has wanted from Battlefield for what feels like a decade now.
Do not let the graphics fool you. The game has solid performance, great gunplay, great progression akin to BF4, the class system feels excellent, they can do very large scale due to not having excessive graphics performance will be fully and solid, destruction is also fantastic its just got it all.
As someone who’s felt let down by Battlefield for a while now and put thousands of hours into it back in the day, this scratches that itch like you wouldn’t believe.
I’d say to jump right into the 124v124. At that level, one player is not going to change the tide too much. (Its more akin to the battles in Planetside 2 than your standard Battlefield due to the sheer scope.)
Huh, so this is what happens when you passive-aggressively diss your customers’ reviews and tell them “no, it isn’t our fault our game feels dated and like a step down from what we had before, you guys are just playing the game wrong”…
I get it from their perspective, featuring dwarves in a game doesn’t really help others find similar games in the same vein. On the other hand, they have a tag for pirates and Black Flag differs quite a bit from puzzle pirates.
Wouldn't a ninja tag technically say more about a game than a dwarf tag though, since a Ninja is a profession, meanwhile dwarfs are just short creatures fond of drink and industry?
This is the original meaning of the phrase “the customer is always right”. It’s been warped by “karen” types into a weapon used against minimum wage workers, but what it’s supposed to mean is “the customer is always right in matters of taste”. Meaning if a company doesn’t want to do something because they think it’s dumb but the demographic says “I like that” then the customer is right, and the company should do it. I know the dwarf tag isn’t about money, but it’s still a matter of listening to the customers on the platform.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Create a handful of small, dense "gamefied" worldspaces and people will complain that the world is not big and open enough and that it's not realistic or immersive to have such small and dense "planets". Create thousands or trillions (in case of Elite:Dangerous) of procedurally generated planets with realistical amounts of POI-s, and people will complain about boring, sparse worlds with little to do on and where it takes too much time to go anywhere. Try to hit a middle ground, and people will still complain.
Same thing with spaceflight. In Elite you can fly seamlessly everywhere in a system. Only real loading screens are jumps from one system to another. People complain regularly about long travel times (average being only a few minutes), how travel is not gameplay and how "boring" it is and that instantly warping from planet to planet would be so much better. And then people complain about warping mechanics in Starfield.
The developers can never win with the internet-dwelling "gamers" with these sorts of games. There will always be a very loud minority who complains that the game is not what they imagined would be their perfect game. Bear in mind that most people who like the game are busy playing the damn game and not leaving reviews.
As for overhype, oh, there was so much of it in space sim circles. People seriously believed that Starfield will be killing Elite and Star Citizen in one fell swoop. Of course, most of these people were already discontent with Elite and Star Citizen and when Starfield obviously didn't fulfill their wishful thinking, they're now even more discontent and loud.
Me personally? I'm waiting til I can get a new GPU so I can start tinkering with spaceship builds (really love the NASA-punk aesthetic, especially the interiors), guns and suits. And Starfield seems to have perfected jetpack combat, one aspect I really like about Elite, but which is kind of limited there (can't swap jetpacks, and the combat suit has a crap jetpack even after upgrading it while the suit with the good one is not that suitable for combat). Can't wait to make my Mobile Infantry build operating from a Firefly-class ship🙃
Not sure why you got down voted. You hit the nail on the head. I like elite but stopped playing after “mile wide and inch thick” syndrome became clear. I never got into star citizen because even though I got a ship it always gave me problems to run.
Slightly off topic rant: people talk about “space sims” like its an actual thing you can simulate (uhhhh we haven’t invented that stuff yet sir) and it drives me crazy. I like flight sims but even when I know the real thing is more difficult and complex I know the dynamics have some relation to reality unlike a super magical warp drive thing.
I feel like you’re straw manning the issues with the game. Sure some people are disappointed by the lack of depth in the setting. But there are PLENTY of other things to be not like: primarily in my book, the game should be called “Loading Screenfield” since you spend more time in loading screens than anywhere else.
There is a pretty big thread from a few days ago where people discuss the things that are underwhelming about the game. Overall, it’s not a bad game, but not great either. Considering the number of actually great games it’s competing with right now (looking at you BG3 and soon Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty), I think it looks even more meh in comparison.
the game should be called “Loading Screenfield” since you spend more time in loading screens than anywhere else
Not going to argue whether there are too many load screens before I can upgrade my PC and play it. What I will say, though: Starfield is not exactly unique in having lots of load screens, and I think that limitations of Creation Engine play the main part. Travel in Elite is also a load screen after every minute or two if you need to travel to any star system more than a few jumps away. Same goes for X3, which consists of roughly 50x50 km sectors connected by warp gates (loading screens) and in early game you'll need to always go through many sectors to reach anywhere.
Considering the number of actually great games it’s competing with right now (looking at you BG3 and soon Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty), I think it looks even more meh in comparison.
Depends on whether one considers these (unarguably good, especially BG3) games as competition for Starfield. I think competitors to anything should be considered in the genre of that something--eg Infant Annihilator is not competing with Purple Disco Machine, they're just so wildly different things. I'm a big space ship nerd and for me neither BG3 nor Cyberpunk is not even remotely competing for attention. The competition to Starfield could be Elite, Star Citizen, No Mans Sky, X4. Either Star Citizen or No Mans Sky are maybe the closest competitors thematically.
Elite is the main competitor for me, and has excellent space flight mechanics, plus is the only game in existence to have a 1:1 scale simulation of the Milky Way galaxy. Starfield has arcade-y space flight (more of a space shooter than space sim), but seems to have done the on-foot gameplay better than Elite--especially when it comes to on-foot exploration and the life on planets. Starfield also has ship interiors and the ability build ships from ground-up. All of of this fills the niches Elite lacks, so in a sense they're more complementary than competitive.
Starfield is not exactly unique in having lots of load screens
Two things: First, that in NO way makes it better.
Second, I haven’t played X3 in a LONG time, but X4 has a similar structure of warping between systems. Thing is, there isn’t any load time when you warp. You’re not looking at a 5 second animation followed by a black loading screen for another 5 seconds just to travel from a planet to its moon. You also have to fly to those jump points, so you get to actually fly your ship. In Starfield, you just point at a blue dot and then load. Arrive in your system, get scanned, load some more. Etc.
I think competitors to anything should be considered in the genre of that something
Interesting. I don’t actually think of Starfield as a space flight game since that’s such a minor part of the game and you don’t actually fly much, you mostly load screen between areas. I think of Starfield as an RPG with some space flavor, which is why I compared it to two other RPG’s. You’re mostly quick traveling between locations and then talking/role playing. The space flight is a (sadly) minor part of the game.
In fact, I think Elite is a terrible comparison. But I get that the niche seems to be your jam so I get why you’d want to compare and contrast the two.
RPG with some space flavor, which is why I compared it to two other RPG’s
Sure, it is RPG first and foremost, space flight distant second. But it's certainly not your typical swords-and-spells fantasy world RPG. Mass Effect would be the closest, but has even less space ship stuff. In fact, I don't think there has recently been another thematically similar game.
Star Citizen and Elite are IMO thematically much closer to Starfield than BG3, especially when we consider the core game mechanics (turn based party RPG vs. realtime first-person gunplay). The former two and Starfield boil down to your character using a spaceship to travel between planets and space POI-s, dogfighting in space and gunfights on foot with exploration, salvaging/scavenging, trading, bounty hunting and other activities to fill your time with.
High on Life seems like a good, fun piece, now for 50% off. Considering it is still fairly recent (December 2022 release) and well rated, not a bad deal at all in my eyes.
HL is a ton of fun. Honestly I haven't even finished it yet, I tend to take games pretty slowly and since have gotten D4 and TotK so there's been a lot on my plate, but it's been fun.
Hogwarts Legacy was worth it alone for the beautiful reconstruction of the school; there's so much detail in it. Felt magical exploring it after having read it as a child.
Absolutely loved High on Life. Started it not expecting much but it was on game pass so I wasn't going to lose anything. Ended up barely being able to put it down.
You need to not mind Justin Roiland and that kind of humour because it's literally the entire game.
Going solely off your username, no PSN in Poland? Not that anyone should be forced to make a new account for a game they’ve had for months regardless of where they are.
Medium mode is a fun challenge at first, eventually becoming fairly chill as you advance in skill and confidence.
Hard mode is always fairly hard, especially on harder maps.
There are many resources to manage, but none that feel burdensome.
The game is extremely thematic, it feels alive with charm.
Graphics are excellent, though sometimes graphical glitches can still be encountered.
The water. It's so hard to explain to someone who hasn't encountered this system before, but water is life in this game, and it's both beautiful graphically, and extremely well simulated by physics. Learning to control the water, and see the shortest paths to end water scarcity with beaver engineering is an amazingly fun and unique aspect of the game.
Mods are well supported and the community is vibrant.
Cons:
Not a ton of content. They've been very good about adding new mechanics (badwater, extract, etc) but there's still just 2 races of beaver and a dozen or so maps.
No directed experience. In similar games I've enjoyed a campaign, challenge maps/scenarios, weekly challenges, a deeper progression system, just... Something to optionally set your goals. There's nothing of the sort in the vanilla game. It's fully open ended and there's only one unlock outside of your progress though the resource tree in a map.
All in all, I highly recommend it, especially at the modest asking price. If you love city builders, charming and beautiful art, thematic settings, dynamic challenge, and solution engineering, this is a fantastic game for you.
Other games I've enjoyed that scratch similar itches:
KSP
Cities: Skylines (but Timberborn has been far more compelling)
Factorio
Mindustry
Planet Zoo (Timberborn has less of a directed experience, but is otherwise completely superior)
Gnomoria
Banished
Tropico series (though I view this as more casual)
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