r/truegaming • u/ExotiquePlayboy • 9d ago
Starfield will be considered one of the greatest games in 5-10 years
Hear me out before you get the pitchforks:
I've been gaming for a long time and to this day, I have never found a game that marries aerial combat with an RPG like Starfield does. Some of my favorite games have been Ace Combat and Hawx. The opening sequence in Starfield where you have to fight off the fighter jets or whatever is super memorable but more importantly fun. I think for this feature alone Starfield should be critically acclaimed. Remember that aerial combat in Halo: Reach? That's probably the best level in any Halo game and Starfield managed to recreate that feeling.
Now as for the engine, a lot of people are saying "well Elder Scrolls 6 is going to release on that old ass garbage engine"...what? This engine is freaking insane.
Look at this example of 0 gravity being simulated in Starfield: https://x.com/SynthPotato/status/1701537488718762416
If this is not one of the best engines in gaming right now, I don't know what to say.
However, I will concede that maybe the story and plot were not amazing but I think Starfield will be remembered for the gameplay and engine.
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u/alQamar 9d ago
The opening sequence in Starfield where you have to fight off the fighter jets or whatever is super memorable.
Or whatever.
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u/Pandaisblue 8d ago
It's crazy how different experiences can be, hah. Every Starfield space combat is just one blended memory of 'meh' in my mind. The enemy charges straight at you shooting at center mass and then flies away until it reaches a predictable distance and turns around and does it again. There's no need to manage the power mid combat or target certain systems or hardpoints or anything.
The AI is(was?) so hard coded to aim perfectly for the 'center' of your ship that if you purposefully built a hollow ship they'd shoot in the hole and do zero damage.
Like, it's...fine, I guess. It's never something I ever cared about or thought about beyond the moment I ended every combat.
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u/VFiddly 6d ago
Even as someone who liked Starfield and will still defend it, I would never have expected anyone to describe the opening sequence as memorable.
It's by far the worst opening of any Bethesda RPG. There are some highlights to the main storyline, but the opening quest is shockingly poor by their standards.
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u/PhasmaFelis 9d ago
Look at this example of 0 gravity being simulated in Starfield: https://x.com/SynthPotato/status/1701537488718762416
That's fun to watch, but 3D physics engines have been around for 20+ years. This one isn't doing anything special. Half-Life 2's Source engine could do this if you set gravity = 0.
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u/Mevarek 9d ago
So because it has aerial combat and zero gravity physics . . . it will be remembered as one of the greatest games in 5-10 years? I think your argument is lacking a bit of substance and I'm just not sure I can make the logical leap from those two premises to the conclusion.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse 9d ago
I think OP is the first person that I've ever heard of having a positive opinion on Starfield's space combat. Everybody else has been lukewarm or negative on it. I think it's kind of telling that the first Starfield DLC, Shattered Space, had zero space combat in it.
It's also telling that OP has referenced several arcade flight games like Ace Combat and that one level in Halo Reach (which stand on their own merits), but not any actual space flight sims like the Elite series, Star Wars: X-Wing series, or even Star Citizen (which has a very distinct pace to space combat with its own non-Newtonian model). If Starfield is your first dedicated space flight game, then it's not too surprising that you're enamored by it but it's very middle of the road if it's your fifth of sixth.
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u/havok0159 8d ago
The only neat thing I found in Starfield was the zero-G mechanic. It was a fun implementation and was really neat how you got pushed back by shooting your guns. It was also barely used. Starfield needs a complete multi-year makeover to be a good game, and it will not get it. Modders might take up the challenge but it won't change the blandness of the base game.
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u/OffendingBender 7d ago
Yes, the zero G was great. A nice nugget of originality in an otherwise very stale game. What a wasted opportunity not to really use it anywhere in a game set in space. What were they thinking?
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u/VFiddly 6d ago
Glad I'm not the only one who thought this. I loved the zero-g combat and was baffled by how little of it there is in the game. They easily could have put more in given how much of the game is set in space stations and spaceships, but I think it only comes up once in the main storyline and a couple of times in minor quests.
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u/just_a_pyro 9d ago
That's not at all how it would work in zero gravity. Milk cartons would keep flying instead of stopping after a little bit as you see in the video. Also it still has poltergeist bugs dating back to Fallout 3, where objects clipping each other start jumping and flying about.
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u/VFiddly 6d ago
Yes, the zero gravity stuff in Starfield is fun but not actually realistic. The space combat does the common thing where it's treated as being basically the same as aerial combat, where the ship always moves towards wherever it's currently pointed, ignoring momentum.
I get why, it's much more intuitive and proper zero g spaceflight is something that only really works if you dedicate the whole game to it, but it's certainly not realistic.
And of course they didn't commit to having no sound in space, but even realistic space sims don't tend to do that.
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u/bajanga1 9d ago edited 9d ago
I’m not convinced at all. The space combat was truly god awful in most cases I played. I tried tons of ships and they all felt the same to pilot. The guns all feel the same so there was never any variety in how I tackled enemies. If I got into an unwinnable situation I was fucked and no way out other than to die 20 times trying to leave. Just felt bad man. What made me quit entirely was spending so much time to get the best class of spaceship only to realize I wasted all my money on a giant maze that I had to pass through anytime I wanted to board my ship.
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u/toolReference 9d ago
Of course! Thats the average way discourse develops for ususaly incredible mid games.
"I remember playing this game when I was [target age demographic/ formative years] old and I loved doing [best part in gameplay loop]!"
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u/N0Sl33ptill0Blivion 9d ago
I dunno, for me Starfield is peak BGS laziness. I've tried 4 times to get invested but I just can't seem to get past its flaws.
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u/Cranjesmcbasketball1 9d ago
You are certainly entitled to your opinion but I disagree and found it to be extremely boring and brought me no sense of wonder like previous Elder Scrolls and Fallout games did. I had no urge to see what was next or was even pleasantly surprised by any of the dialogue, exploration or worlds I set foot in.
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u/Neo_Violence 9d ago
You know you can just say you liked a game without resorting to hyperbole?
Seems like too many fall back on ridiculous claims to grab people's attention. All this under the presumption that this is not simply a troll/rage-bait post, which I am inclined to believe considering OP is arguing with the physics simulation capabilities of the engine, which we all know is the number 1 guarantee of fun in a video game.
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u/BareWatah 9d ago
It can be, e.g. minecraft is intended as a survival game but the PvP part is huge. I personally love how the building interacts with parkour and the knockback system, it really creates some hype moments and makes it feel like you're escaping on a hair's edge in any mode which has building + PvP
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u/CourierFive 9d ago
Really, zero-G is big thing now? Just to remind you, freaking Crysis, a 2007 game had proper zero-G segment.
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u/st4rscr33m 9d ago
The gameplay was okay IMO, and the engine was as usual. It'll probably be remembered for it's unmotivated story and terrible exploration.
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9d ago edited 9d ago
As much as i enjoyed the space ship parts of this game it all felt pretty shallow after a while. Just like the rest of the game. This game does nothing good enough for this premise to be true.
That being said if the next Starfield is mainly about flying your ship, space dog fights, and interacting with other ships id be way more on board.
I just want to be the captain of the millennium falcon/enterprise/Normandy not be the space dovakiin.
Why hasn’t anyone copied the premise of Futurama and turned it into a video game?
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u/FuthorcGaming 9d ago
I think it will go down as a game that had the potential to be a GOAT but was a sorely missed opportunity.
If Bethesda pull off a No Man's Sky with updates, then maybe...
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u/OTJeffrey 9d ago
>Remember that aerial combat in Halo: Reach? That's probably the best level in any Halo game and Starfield managed to recreate that feeling.
Oh hell no LMAO. That level wouldn't even crack Top 5 in its own game, let alone the entire series.
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u/Locked_and_Firing 9d ago
These 2 points alone are not enough to label the game a hit in the next few years. The story is still really bad, the characters are unlovable, the flight is kinda clunky, among many many other things. I would say the only redeemable quality is the combat and the only good quest in the game is the UC quest line
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u/Renegade_Meister 9d ago
I get it that not enough games with aerial combat have RPG elements, and quite frankly that's the appeal of Starfield to me. But then I think about the other elements...
I believe it can be great in 5-10 years if they made planetary exploration more intriguing...but it is absolutely not right now.
There are so many gamer expectations around planetary exploration, if No Man's Sky and Star Citizen are any indication.
So when it was announced that many locations would be proc gen except for a dozen cities, I knew that this would expose Bethesda's glory or jank for what it is, and it ended up exposing the latter, as the proc gen content was effectively deemed worse than other major Bethesda games.
They need to bring back their worldbuilding "magic" that there's meaningful or interesting things for me to discover from FO3/4 and other games that made me not care about the visual or functional jank so much.
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u/Derelichen 9d ago
I don’t see it. Starfield doesn’t offer much in the way of story, plot or world-building — it already fails to meet three of the essential tenets of the good RPGs of its ilk. It’s possible for a game to be lauded if it’s lacking one, or maybe even two, of these things, provided that what it does do is remarkable, but Starfield just doesn’t meet that bar for most people, I’d guess.
Mechanically, it doesn’t feel very inventive either. Combat feels like standard first-person fare, but it lacks the dedicated attention that proper action/shooter games receive and fails to make its systems stand out in any meaningful way. Outside of the combat, procedurally generated content in general may become more prominent in the future, but I don’t think Starfield has done anything mind-blowing with the tech, apart from applying it on such a large scale.
Starfield feels neither memorable nor ahead of its time narratively or mechanically. Of course, I could be wrong and it possesses some intangible quality that will catapult it to stardom, and time will likely be kinder to it than contemporary discourse, but I don’t see it being considered one of the greatest games ever by any stretch.
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u/Hudre 8d ago
So you're logic that Starfield will be one of the greatest games ever made is because it does aerial combat in an RPG? I think that's a pretty niche feature that doesn't carry an entire game.
The problem with their engine is that things like floating milk cartons aren't actually important compared to those dull, glassy-eyed NPCs.
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u/BalmoraBard 7d ago
I really like it but that’s an apparently unpopular opinion. Something about Bethesda games has me putting 500+ hours into basically all of them aside from oblivion (idk why) and arena (its just Daggerfall but worse in every single way to the point it’s painful I only have like 100 hours in it)
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u/VFiddly 6d ago
Even as someone who actually enjoyed Starfield, I think this is way off.
Especially when you talk about the opening. Overall, it's actually one of Bethesda's better main quest lines... but the opening quest is a pile of shit. It's a shockingly boring intro. You spend the first 5 minutes just wandering around some mines, talking to characters you'll never see again, contemplating the majest of all these grey rocks. Then you do a generic fight with some generic bandits. That's it. Most of their game openings seem like they at least thought about how to do something memorable and exciting, this one is really low effort.
The zero gravity in Starfield is impressive, unfortunately the game doesn't make much use of it. I was actively seeking out zero gravity combat encounters, because they are good fun when they happen, but there just aren't very many of them. It's a shame and an oversight that the developers apparently didn't think it was worth highlighting this.
It really just seems like you're not able to separate your own tastes from more universal appeal. You like aerial combat a lot, that's fine and cool. To conclude that the game will then be considered one of the greatest games because of that... is way off. Most people are not that interested in aerial combat.
If what you were saying was true, surely Ace Combat and Hawx would be considered among the greatest video games to be made, instead of what they actually are, which is relatively niche series that most people have probably never played.
Starfield was a game I enjoyed quite a bit when I was playing it, but I've had very little desire to ever go back since I've finished it.
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u/Charybdeezhands 9d ago
Fallout 4 just received a shiny new update, the main quests still have game breaking bugs, the exact same bugs it had at launch...
In what world do you think they're even capable of improving the worst game they've ever made!?
It is so heavily flawed in every aspect, from conception to implementation.
Lifeless, unreactive companions. Unrewarding level up perks. Ship builder is miserable to use, ships are even worse to actually walk around in. Space combat is behind Rogue Squadron on the N64. Somehow the base building is leagues behind F4. Every planet is copy pasted and generic. Even the inventory management is worse.
And the ending... Hey, you've spent 400 hours collecting junk and leveling up to be able to craft all the best gear/ships/structures? K, now delete it all and start again in an identical world, unless you roll a 1 in 10 chance to get a marginally different universe.
Genuinely awful, it will be remembered as one of gaming's greatest failures, and the moment Todd ran out of goodwill with the public.
Part of my soul died when I realised I'd spent like 20 hours working towards being able to grow cactus at my base, but plants will only grow on their homeworld. What a shit game.
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u/Juqu 9d ago
I have great hopes for Starfield.
Last february I enjoyed the base game for one 70 hour playthrought, I have not touched the game since. Starfields potential comes from it's possibility as modding base. Nothing great out yet, but in five years situation might change.
Starfield is definetly only 2023 release I can imagine myself playing ten years into the future.
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u/ketchup92 9d ago
I won't bring out the pitchforks or whatever, but i will acknowledge that the general gist of your post is wrong imho. You can't argue against taste, but objectively its gameplay loop past the main story just does not work at all. There is 0 reason to explore anything at all, which nullifies its main proposition of exploration.
To me, Starfield is a great example of what could've been a very good game. Ultimately it pretty much boils down to a bad and bland Fallout clone with a pointless addition of anything space. If they kept the focus withing a solar system, it might have been so much better but instead the fell for the classic quantity vs. quality problem.
It does worry me how TES 6 will turn out, considering this is BGS 2nd fumble straight in a row. (Fallout 76 and Starfield right after).
They had a winning formula yet decided to change it and almost no one likes it. (Fallout 76 got better after it became just like Fallout 4 with MP).
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u/WrongSubFools 9d ago
Nothing you said means people in five or ten years will look on it more favorably than we do now. You just gave a couple reasons why you like it now, not why it will age well.
And you gave bad reasons for liking it now, of course — everyone else here is rightly mocking you for that — but let's just underline that even if they were good reasons, that wouldn't make your point that its reputation will improve over time.
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u/mancatdoe 5d ago
Starfield has a lot of interesting pieces for an amazing game, but there are some limitations and design decisions that make the game a little bit average.
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u/Free_Newspaper4844 9d ago
I redownloaded it to play again and as soon as I saw how ugly the flying UI was I deleted it. The game is just bland and has no heart, like it was made by somebody who didn’t care that much.
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u/NLaBruiser 9d ago
I would never knock someone for enjoying a game I didn't, but I have tried Starfield 3 times and lose steam after about 20 hours each time. It's not bad, it's just Bethesda "standard faire". If you love Bethesda games, you probably really like Starfield.
But as a game experience I think it lags behind Skyrim significantly, which I don't think is great when they released 12 years apart - Starfield shows very little advancement in that period (the flying is prettier, but not much more complex, than Rogue Squadron on the N64. That game managed the physics of tow lines and bringing down AT-ATs on significantly less powerful hardware and software).
The ship building is just every base building mechanic we've seen for a decade+, in space. It's just Fallout 4 settlement building v. 1.01.
None of those being knocks if you enjoy them - just reasons I don't see this as any kind of massive step forward in gaming.
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u/chewwydraper 9d ago
The biggest downfall of Starfield was its exploration, something that Bethesda was traditionally known for. Planets were not interesting, and had the same things over and over again.
The cities were miniscule, and the player was expected to pretend that they were big. This took away from the "living, breathing universe illusion". You could get away with it in Elder Scrolls because of its setting, but not here. Even Mass Effect knew over a decade ago that you need to give the illusion of "big city" with background assets. Citadel did a good job of this.
The worst part for me was these temples and whatnot were supposed to be a new discovery.. yet every planet had an outpost like a kilometer away lol
The exploration aspect just doesn't seem like something that can ever be fixed, and that is ultimately the thing that holds Starfield back. The decision to go with procedural generation just wasn't a good one.