DrDamn I agree with all of these points, especially the one about exploration,
I think that if you go into this expecting a space sim then you will be disappointed. However, if you consider it as a space sim built within the template of a Bethesda RPG, then you can see that it’s been very successful. From the point of view of how Bethesda make their games this is pretty much as good as you’re gonna get.
I know some people have a problem with Bethesda, but really this is just how they roll. At this point they are in a same place as From Software to me, they have a very fixed template for how they build games and they are not going to deviate from that in any significant way. Imagine if From made a space sim, it would not be anything like No Man’s Sky.
I must say too that, for me, Starfield has gotten better as its gone on. It’s definitely not a game that front loads its experience. It expects that you’re going to spend a lot of time with it and it drip feeds its content with that in mide. There’s a sort of low key confidence to the design that I admire.
Personally I’ve played more this in the last week than any game in recent memory. For its flaws, and I think it does have some big ones, the whole thing is just very compelling.