Why Bethesda Games Are Getting Worse

[@Narny]

What was your first Bethesda game, and how did it impact your enjoyment of Starfield?

[@Fabulous-Spider]

skyrim for me...i can go play oblivion but tried morrowind and it didnt end well. fallout 3 was my first fallout game thu i love new vegas. i tried starfeild on game pass for like 5 bucks. i was very bored. im not hopefull for ES 6

[@lawree374]

Oblivion , then Skyrim, then Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Couldnt get into Fallout 4 , played for few hours and got bored. Tried Starfield on game pass. 1 hour and I was out. Considering how many trully great games we have now, Starfield feels like bland slop , playing it feels like wasting my time.

[@rajatwtf]

Oblivion, then fo3, then Skyrim.... All magical fo4 and fo76 decreased my excitement progressively, so much so, that i was cautious on star field launch and waited to see others before buying it. Thank God for that

[@catboypleasepet-jt4ot]

I started with skyrim but honestly I like morrowind more I don't ever really play much skyrim anymore without 400 mods while I can play morrowind with little to no mod changes I don't even like graphic upgrades much

[@Wr41thgu4rd]

Morrowind. Didn't have a PC at the time of release so I traded some CDs to Electronics Boutique and got a used Xbox and a copy. The only game I put as much time into in my teenage years was phantasy star online for my gcube.

[@HeyHiHowdy6969]

Hang on babe, a KZbinr I've never heard of just popped into my recommended with an hour long video essay.

[@KovCapyWizz]

All 'board the essay train!

[@Andrew-nn3jr]

Im supposed to be getting ready for work.....im still in my robe

[@Mr.Petroleum]

On my college lunch break watching this

[@VulpusArmory]

@@Mr.Petroleum I am in the middle of college game dev class

[@thesilverbrow2382]

And it was actually really good

[@blaze595]

What's so frustrating about Starfield, is a lot of it's ideas can be summed up as "this could've been interesting; too bad they did the most shallow, generic thing possible with it".

[@achiiiesheal]

Yeah i found it very boring in almost every way. This is the first Bethesda game that I havent 100%, yet it was so bad for me that I quit at around level 15. It's not the space theme either because I've 100% mass effect. It's just dull

[@Kevalanium]

@@achiiiesheal Its not that bad im level 60

[@hoilst265]

The higher Todd rises in the company, the worse their games get. There was a series of oral histories on PC Gamer that highlighted just how vanilla Todd is: one of the game designers had to use the ol' Desired Option/Bad Option trick on him. Todd hates ANYTHING that isn't generic high fantasy, so the designer would come up with some weird option that he wanted in the game but knew that Todd wouldn't allow in a thousand years...but then also came up with an *even weirder* option that he knew Todd wouldn't choose in a million years, so Todd would pick the first one out of desperation. That's right. He literally had to work *twice as much* when dealing with Todd.

[@joshuabacker2363]

@@hoilst265 It's not just Todd, in fairness. Alot of the other staff are clearly more "Fail upwards" types (Like Pagliarulo, whose writing is just plain awful) But it's also due to the company's structure. They got bigger, which makes it harder to coordinate things, and they have to please their board. It's a big, awful cycle of bad things feeding off eachother so that the company gets worse and its products more mediocre over time.

[@hoilst265]

​@@joshuabacker2363 For anyone who's wondering about who Emil Pagliarulo is and what his writing philosophy is, he heads his writing keynotes at conventions with a slide that reads "Keep It Simple, Stupid". I think Emil's definitely come up under Todd, as he's someone who shares that philosophy. Like, seriously? They write a game around a Chosen One called "The Dragonborn" who has latent powers he gets unlock after a series of trials, and in Starfield the Chosen One - because you're always the Chosen One in a Bethesda Game - is called "The Starborn" who has latent powers that get unlocked after a series of trials. Really? Come on. I can see how this panders to the board - it's very safe. See, there's no risk! It's exactly like our last game and that sold eleventy billion copies!

[@courier6960]

I think deep down we all knew that the “old” Bethesda was gone when one of their major selling points for Fallout 76 was that they had no human NPC’s, as one reviewer put it “which is a weird selling point, it’s like saying ‘look at all this work we didn’t do!’”

[@Direwolf9818]

The thing with 76 is that Bethesda and Todd never wanted to make it, zenimax told them they did. Because just the year before I believe they shared a promo for single player games. So out of spite Todd announced it with a release date, crazy part is that was the first time the developer heard about the release date, and that’s why we got the game in the state it was. Now you ain’t gotta believe me because my only source is trust me bro cause I trust my bro who works in the gaming industry.

[@courier6960]

@@Direwolf9818 Oh yeah, and from what I’ve read and seen myself, fallout 76 was literally like a “black hole” of development. Nobody wanted to work on it, everyone on the project knew that it was never going to work, and it was taking developers and resources from other Bethesda related games and studios (Starfield, the elder scrolls 6, Redfall, wolfenstein young blood) to get it out the door. It might help explain why some of those other games turned out as bad as they did…

[@Ryotbh]

True, I might be misremembering, but didn't Todd also state that people played the Fallout games for their gun play (which they most certainly didn't!).

[@haewymetal]

There is a very simple reason: They outsource most of the work to India. Wasnt it Starfield that had 30 minutes of credits dedicated to mostly India?

[@homelessalcoholic2716]

​@@courier6960To be fair, 76 is in a much better place than it was all those years ago. It's got a fun community, real NPCs now, and is a decent option for someone who just wants a casual multiplayer experience. As an RPG, it's not very good, but it's fun to build a cool camp and engage in community events.

[@GhostCorvid20]

The dudes hair clipping through the helmet, thus spoiling the big reveal is the greatest Bethesda moment of all time.

[@nothobbesmufc949]

really sums them up as a company 😂

[@alebobe9204]

*the most bethesda moment :p

[@Tentri]

what I hate about Starfield is that it is the "big Xbox game" the series X was advertised as a console "without loading screens" and then their flagship game is just loading screen after loading screen

[@anyoldthing]

honestly, i could even cop all the loading screens, if there was just something in them.

[@fearlesswee5036]

@@anyoldthing My thoughts exactly. I'm willing to wait for something good. The problem is more the game is unfun, boring, and soulless, *and* it takes forever to load.

[@ethanfreeman1106]

@@fearlesswee5036 my problem with the game is that it isn't a game but a list of chores that somehow feel worse than actual chores because there's still a sense of physicality to doing actual chores and you actually clean up the house or contribute to something meaningful. the only thing that's fun about starfield is talking with other people about how shitty it is. the pointing and laughing.

[@youngnat]

⁠@throwthrow-c7eDon’t give too much credit, notice how you didn’t mention the release on ps4? Cyberpunk went from really hated to overrated 2 years after release.

[@DatAsianGuy]

@throwthrow-c7e it was definitely bad on pc as well, maybe if you had a good rig you didnt suffer any performance issues, but anyone who didnt have the mjölnir in pc-form had an experience as bad as the ps4. the minimum and recommended specs were complete and utter bullshit and I couldnt run that shit at all on launch day.

[@Swannilization]

"The Moment" is so brilliant. For me, it was realizing that there were only a handful of cities in MULTIPLE SOLAR SYSTEMS! Skyrim had more.

[@Boomer04888]

For me, it was when after about ten hours, I'd seen the exact same UC Listening Post, the same Melted Glaciers, the same cactus-looking plants, the same Cryo Lab, etc on every other planet I visit. Why would I explore any planets at all when I've already memorized the layout of all 10 dungeons they made for 1000 planets?

[@milesperhour9256]

I think everyone could agree that if they only gave us 9+ planets (if there was only a place in space that had 9 planets and countless moons) that aren't random generated

[@LiterallyJustF]

I had a retroactive moment. I refunded the game after playing for one and a half hours but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why it didn't click with me. The moment came when I played the new Warhammer Game and felt more immersed in this ridiculous setting and 3rd person shooter than in a full blown rpg focused on realism.

[@TitleTalkTCL]

Great video. The Bully music in the background just hits perfectly.

[@SisyphusGamingChannel]

for me it was the nightclub. Dear jesus.

[@tmbfreak_16]

Starfield's playtime would be reduced by about 75% if the player, or anyone in the galaxy for that matter, had a cell phone 😂

[@TheHighborn]

It could also be reduced by 10% if opening a door didn't trigger a loading screen so long, you can grab a coffee and take a shit. I'm on a PCIe 4 SSD btw

[@PrinceoftheVioletFlame]

@@TheHighborn weird everything loads within 10-30 seconds for me whenever I play starfield and i have a mid computer

[@stevengreen7484]

@@tmbfreak_16 dam this is so true!

[@HamanKarn567]

That's every game. Like in Mass Effect why do I need to travel back to the citadel to tell some dude I found his lost cargo or destroyed some pirate ring when I'm a high ranking officer in the military and a spectre. I can just make a call from my ship. Or in Kotor or any Sci fi game.

[@tmbfreak_16]

@HamanKarn567 true, but other games are interesting and fun in spite of that

[@comfy128]

A big red flag I noticed is that the air ducts in Starfield are gigantic. This isn't a creative decision, it's because in Bethesda games (since at least Fallout 3) you don't actually crouch your character. The character model plays a "crouching" animation, but it doesn't actually get shorter, so you can't fit through normal sized ducts. They literally changed how every single level in the game looks instead of adding a proper crouch feature like Half-Life did in the 1990's.

[@joshuakim5240]

This reminds me of how Bethesda games don't actually have hitboxes or hit detection in accordance to the player model, yet ironically do have this for enemy models for body part targeting mechanics. A Skyrim character crouching can have enemies literally swinging above them yet still somehow hitting them because the sneak crouch is just an animation without any actual hitbox alterations from a standing character. Arrows will literally float above a crouched character and remaining floating due to hitting and sticking to the unseen standing player hitbox.

[@snuglife3697]

This explains a lot. I thought they were just trying to make stealth gameplay more obvious as an option since it's so underdeveloped

[@sjfs231]

goddamned quake has a functional crouch

[@R3dd_1247]

HALF LIFE MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️👀👀👀

[@UndeadDragonWarrior]

Just a quickie: Oblivion blew my mind when I learned you could dupe the Poisoned apple, and put it on benches. People would then pick up the apple then EAT IT, which stunned me, like at no point did I have to encourage it, or initiate it, just put the apple down, and the NPCs would eventually eat what food was on the plate, it was hilarious. I was a youth at the time, and this amazed me, and I found it hilarious that I did it for a while, I always kept that apple on me.

[@amampathak]

You can see that spirit in somethign like Kingdom come deliverance, thats the analog bethesda experience.

[@ethanfreeman1106]

@@amampathak o yea that game is actually better than i expected. such a great roleplay experience

[@Nightweaver1]

Emergent gameplay is great when games have it. Starfield has none of that.

[@TheFlyingFish692]

@@amampathakI been saying this since I played it! Kingdom come deliverance is the closest thing to that experience I felt when playing morrowind

[@jordanjoepetts]

Oblivion was so ahead of its time in many ways. I also liked to use “Frenzy” on the NPC’s and watch as the game world quickly responded. At the time, it felt like a living breathing world which continues whether you’re there to witness it or not. I wonder, with modern technology, what Radiant AI could do if allowed to be at its full potential 🥹

[@ZombieMurdoc]

Here's a penthouse for all your hard work, no you can't cook food on the stove, you have to build another one in the closet box.

[@efxnews4776]

@@ZombieMurdoc Bethesda is like Hello Games inverted, while Hello Games give us a mini game to cook recipes, BGS gave us just a stove. While HG adds Fishing to No Man's Sky, BGS just throw a fish at us. This is essentially BGS this days...

[@MrQwertyman111]

@@efxnews4776 Yeah, it's kinda fascinating how HG made from the most hated company into almost a paragon of a great developer, while B went from a beloved studio into nothing more but a trend chasing mediocre dev team who likes to damage their own games with updates noone asked for.

[@ZombieMurdoc]

@@MrQwertyman111 It really bothers me how Bethesda leans on the modding community. Hello Games fixed and improved and fixed and improved, while Todd said "let the modders do it, we have more half finished games to publish"

[@BirdOfHermes83]

​@@MrQwertyman111And then those updates make the game almost unplayable! 😂

[@MILDMONSTER1234]

@@MrQwertyman111 if you criticized Bethesda back in the early 2010s you’d be lynched basically too

[@jeremyscungio16]

My moment was when i read the same note in 3 bases across the galaxy. I thought this game was unique todd

[@vernolopia]

oh boy xD

[@milanhvozdik3379]

16 times the note

[@AC-ut3nk]

People leaving note around in a space sci-fi world instead of a 3d hologram is a very lazy writing. Even Deadspace did it better in term of technology. To make it worse they wrote a dialogue conversation about people talking to eachother in a piece of paper.

[@jeremyscungio16]

@AC-ut3nk I'm saying me finding the same note about the same vegetarian menu on Tuesday in 3 different bases across the galaxy that also look exactly the same

[@Varangian_af_Scaniae]

I got my moment after 1h 45 min. Got to two completly different radiant bases outside of Atlantis. One had a female chief the other had a male chief, both of them said the exact same line and I experienced that within 2 minutes of each other. I just quit the game and uninstalled! Piece of trash. The worst things about Skyrim and Fallout 4 was everything radiant. And I remember everyone complaining about it after both game releases. What do Bugthesda do? Make a whole radiant game!🤦‍♂ Duck them!

[@Durgenheim]

Bethesda is a perfect example of the Ship of Theseus paradox. This isn’t the same company that made all of the beloved games from a decade-plus in the past, because almost all of the people who made those games are gone. People are what make an organization what it is; the name attached to it (and the IP it uses) are often completely immaterial.

[@Blackpapalink]

That's not just Bethesda. That's most AAA developers. Bioware, Rocksteady, Rockstar. You can count on both hands the amount of people that's been in these companies since their prime, and I guarantee that none of them are developers.

[@SomeCanine]

I don't think there's any gamer who looked at the procedurally generated planets in Starfield with nothing on them and thought "That was a good idea. I'm glad Bethesda did that."

[@cameronsimmons8743]

Some will have you believe it was.

[@MrSpaceinvader95]

its weird that i would rather play no mans sky than a new bethesda game thats so similar

[@Lucaswaston114]

@@MrSpaceinvader95not weird because no man sky os actually a good game, and honestly all Bethesda games are mid Af.

[@Suhov]

I am. It very likely to refocus Bethtesda games in future(if there is any). And probably prevent game designers abusing procedurally generated content in general, since generative AI is still a big fad.

[@Cramblit]

@@Lucaswaston114 No mans sky is as bad as Starfield stop lieing... It's as shallow of a game as Starfield in everyway.

[@darlingvonf5057]

My wife was playing this game, she was having fun but the immersion was broken when her characters parent didnt show up to their wedding. Not because they had a problem with the groom or she forgot to invite them. Just the devs didnt think of putting them in the wedding sequence. After that there was no salvaging the immersion.

[@pennywhackerfannyfartle9183]

What a stupidly obvious oversight. Completely lazy game design I got the game for free & still feel cheated

[@TiaKatt]

They show up at the universe's tamest dance club, but don't bother to show up for a wedding? Beautiful. That's pretty lame.

[@Odysseus_Dagoth]

It would be fine for a smaller company. But Bethesda have been doing this for more then 20 years. How can you not make a functional cohesive game with the backing of Microsoft and years of experience?

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

uh ok

[@Dungzoo]

Unfortunately, this oversight matches some people’s real life experiences 🤣😖

[@zach4968]

The falling wizard in Morrowind is possibly my favorite way a game has introduced the player to its wacky world and it's such a great bit of non-expository storytelling. I've never seen anybody witness that for the first time and NOT get super curious and use the scrolls 😊

[@ethanfreeman1106]

and only to find out the obvious conclusion (duh) that you'll fly and fall to your death in exactly the same way. you knew it was gonna happy, you saw it from a mile away, but the game greatly tempted you so. that was such a genius game design.

[@mathias9542]

Personally i just rode the book and my curiosity was filled aswell as my pocket after selling the scrolls

[@josephpercy1558]

In all of my MW playthroughs, I've actually never used the scrolls once. I've always sold them for the extra gold.

[@snnn2535]

@@josephpercy1558 Ok special kid, we all saw you being special. Now let the adults continue the conversation.

[@D64nz]

​@@snnn2535There is always one...

[@coopertrout4355]

Starfield's beginning would honestly work better if, when you woke up after your weird space-vision, the artifact has already been boxed up and loaded into Barrett's ship. There's some dialogue to build up the importance of the artifact and make you curious about it and you get the chance to ask Barrett "Hey, what is this thing anyway?" but when he starts to explain the pirates attack and he gets shot. You get your combat tutorial, but afterwards a second wave of pirates show up and it's made clear you can't beat them off. You're directed by the gravely wounded Barrett to take his ship with the artifact and run to Constellation while everyone else holds off the pirates. There's no time to give an explanation for why it has to be you, but Barrett says Constellation will be able to explain. You take off, the pirates give chase and taunt you, telling you everyone else is dead and that trying to spool up your jump drive while they're right there would leave you a sitting duck so you have your space combat tutorial. And that's how the game starts. There's an immediate reason for the player to pursue the main quest because they probably want to figure out what's going on, but they can also just bugger off and do whatever if they're so inclined.

[@sugarpolecat4781]

BGS could have done literally ANYTHING else than: "You are the main character, the story can't continue unless you press YES". Your plan sounds like too much effort and we know they hate doing more than just barely enough.

[@johnmagus6341]

Things like this blow my mind. How, IN ANY FUNCTIONING REALITY, can some random KZbin comment have a beginning one million times better and more seamlessly than a billion dollar company? How?

[@JStuve]

> that's how the game starts And then nothing else ever happens? Lol there's no salvaging Starfield dude. It would only work better if a different studio made it.

[@t-rexreximus359]

It really bothers me that you are just handed a ship at the start for no good reason - before you even have the time to want one! Perhaps we should have to steal a pirates ship escape the planet. Or perhaps Constellation give you the Frontier ship as a reward for risking your life & safely bringing them the Artefact. Or maybe you are given the opportunity to buy the Frontier at a big discount once you join them. Vasco could fly us to New Atlantis (& as a passenger in space you’re probably thinking - man I want my own ship one day!). It should be earned. ..Imagine starting Skyrim & being handed a dragon to ride and free horse right at the start. 😅

[@jumanjingus]

@@t-rexreximus359 Reminds me of FO4, how you're handed a minigun and power armour in the first 10 minutes of the game.

[@Codex_0613]

laziness, over-reliance on the modding community, cost cutting, mid to downright terrible writing, incompetency, refusal to ever learn from their own mistakes there are just too many flaws to count, I'm not even gonna bother writing it all down

[@kenlen8029]

You should.

[@hubertET]

@@kenlen8029 For WHAT reason? We know already. Bethesdrones? Bethesdrones NEVER change and NEVER learn, they are fanatics of BGS and gnome howard.

[@kenlen8029]

@@hubertET Starfield is the best game ever made with the Shattered Space addition just being the cherry on top.....

[@hubertET]

Poor b8

[@readyplayersolo8297]

Where's Kirkbride when we need him?

[@fattiger6957]

I played Starfield for about 10 hours and the word that I think is the most apt to describe it is "soulless." The game completely lacks passion and humanity. It's what you would get if you told an AI to make a Bethesda-style space game.

[@ThePsychoAnon]

I agree. I played Pokémon emerald for the first time recently and it’s absolutely full of soul and the developers spirits. Starfield is a giant soulless corporate product made to be Le mass appeal epic Skyrim!! Complete lukewarm horseshit churned out by freakish American headcases chasing a paycheck/the message.

[@laisphinto6372]

AS a Fallout 4 and Skyrim Player i dont wanna buy starfield despite all the Trash These Games get they still have a great world that IS interesting to explore you enjoy wandering in them , starfield has nothing. Starfield IS the stereotype you make Out Skyrim and Fallout 4 to BE a Game without a Soul at least in These Games you have Something in starfield you have nothing

[@ArthurSmorgan-ot6rl]

The new saints row is good to

[@ryanjoseph4806]

💯

[@peeledapples4176]

It's a piece of science fiction media that doesn't really have anything to say. That's a cardinal sin. The whole point of good sci-fi is using the genre conventions to convey some kind of message or socio-cultural critique.

[@LoFiSymphony]

My moment was when I fell into the water below Neon during a thunderstorm. I was terrified and was frantically trying to get onto one of the giant red pylons because I was sure some massive sea monster was about to eat me. It was thrilling. When I realized you can't even go underwater, and that the most fun I'd had in the game so far was something that I made up in my own head, is when I knew this game was a dud. It's the first BGS game I've ever uninstalled.

[@FirstFamilyCharger]

Oh man that’s brutal

[@DarranKern]

Lol you paid for this

[@scrotymcboogerballs6452]

Fallout 76 for me, i made it one single day of playing it and got utterly bored to death, the base capture and defense shit was annoying, i had no fucking idea what to do story wise, no direction, exploration was pretty boring.....made it maybe 12h and i never played again Im definitely not preordering ES6, thats gonna sit and simmer for at least a month or 2 for really in depth honest reviews to come out before i even consider buying it, their track record is no longer good

[@l-_ōlVlō_-l]

​@@FirstFamilyChargerI can imagine the silent reflection afterwards, that kind of dissapointment is the worst

[@andreaholcock8992]

Tbf there are chasmbass and sharks that spawn down there and they do damage

[@ThrobbGoblin]

The psychological-horror section about Boxes is pure cinema.

[@toeshotsauce3931]

You turned Starfield into a dissonant horror game with the cage breakdown. That's amazing.

[@TheGoodLuc]

A literal cosmic horror story, an empty world, that very poorly pretends to be rich.

[@TheKrensada]

Its even worse when you realize you are stuck in a time loop for eternity.

[@Calamity556]

The lesson from Starfield's story is: "Everything you do is meaningless and nothing matters." There must be a lot of nihilists that work at Bethesda lol.

[@leandrolezcano9524]

And then, they called their game a RPG for the sake of sales, I guess😂

[@chainsawplayin]

Indian state of mind.

[@avvc21]

​@@leandrolezcano9524like it is a RPG and has more RPG elements then there last few games

[@wdf70]

There is a pseudo meaning in that you grow more powerful but you don't form attachment because it will all be gone when you pass through the unity. Or stay behind and lose that growth of power. Showing your attachment to this universe. But let's be real, majority of the starborn powers are borderline WORTHLESS. And going through the unity is a massive waste of time.

[@para-mike96]

A lot of Bethesda employees are liberals, and liberals have this exact mindset so that makes a lot of sense

[@ChrisStavros]

The dialogue wheel system in Fallout 4 was just the worst. Choose between: 1. Yes 2. Of course 3. Ugh, fine. Yes. 4. I guess I have no choice. Yes.

[@skylinesenpai5554]

Thats so painfully accurate like ok fine, why am i even bothering talking to you guys when i got no choice to decide something anyway..

[@Majima_Nowhere]

It's more like 1. Yes 2. Yes, but be an asshole about it 3. Irrelevant question/speech check for cash (which leads back to yes) 4. No (story progress halts until you come back and say yes) Only slightly worse than Mass effect dialogue, which is usually 1. Paragon yes 2. Renegade yes 3. Neutral yes 4. Personal/lore question 5. "I should go." 6. No (and now that character will die later because they didn't like you enough, nice job)

[@ricardo.nobrega]

they forgot what a RPG is suposed do be like

[@burnin8able]

@@Majima_Nowhere I'd argue the difference there is that at least in mass effect you're not set into a "do whatever yo want!" style sandbox RPG. you're still playing as Shepard who has goals they need to accomplish, you as the player just get to decide a little bit of the how.

[@Diom_des]

I liked the voice acting though I prefer that over silent protagonist

[@JethPeter]

Morrowind. Teenager at release, hitch hiked 8 hours to a city and brought a copy to bring home. Spent weeks straight tag teaming 24/7 with my best friend and marking locations on the physical map. I enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim, but they never had the same impact as Morrowind.

[@GoosterHiista]

Honestly Morrowind was just a magical experience. My dad got a copy from somewhere randomly and gave it to me. I spent hours upon hours just exploring and figuring stuff out even when I hardly knew any English, which is impressive for how text based it is. Just taking the silt strider or a boat randomly and finding yourself in Vivec or one of the Telvanni towns for the first time and wondering what other wonders could be hidden around the corner. Not to mention the level of detail and hidden secrets in nearly every location. Truly made you feel like an Outlander.

[@Dia_tribe]

The worst part in all of this is all of the devs who poured their souls into this company have all been replaced, and the company restructured beyond recognition.

[@Maria_Erias]

Seems like it happens to every great studio. Blizzard, with its once-upon-a-time motto of "We'll ship it when it's ready," now churning out overpriced, soulless corporate-approved drek. BioWare and the amazing stories that they created with games like the original Baldur's Gate and BG2, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, the Mass Effect trilogy, even Star Wars: The Old Republic which may be only a mid-tier MMO but still has amazing, top-tier storytelling, all gutted and parceled out by corporate greed. What separates Bethesda from the others is that it wasn't some giant megacorporation destroying a well-known and loved studio, it was Todd Howard himself.

[@whitegoose2017]

​@@Maria_Erias Gaming industry as a whole just became incredibly lucrative so quickly it attracted a ton of bad actors. Venture capital investors, stockholders, e.g. all the sort of people who'd sell their sister for a quick buck. Like at first it was art but then it just became business. Like when does a beautiful piece of furniture stop being a work of art? When it's easily produceable with minimal effort. Same with games. Games are much, much easier to make today than they were ever before. Resources are there that weren't there before but the prices are ever going higher.

[@Gorbz]

The funniest thing about how Earth was destroyed, was that the issue with grav drives that caused it was fixed... by a software patch.

[@TheSleepiestPlurals]

yeah like, if it's that easy to fix, why didn't the starborn from the future or whatever just tell him to include the patch from the beginning?

[@avvc21]

​@TheSleepiestPlurals if I remember correctly it's because the destruction of earth is a fixed event. It has to happen at some point and at best they can only delay it. That's still not a great explanation but it's better than noting

[@efxnews4776]

​@@avvc21it's just lazy writing, Bethesda wouldn't want make a full Earth an i actually understand why, but at the same time, they could at least have made a spaceport on Earth and lock the exploration on the rest of the planet even gave the explanation that was due to security reasons Like quarantine) wich would make sense. On the other hand, they could have destroyed Earth, but them instead of that thriving galactic community we would have a grim and darker universe, in this way even the ugly npcs could make sense... At the end of the day, is just Bethesda that doesn't make any more sense.

[@TheSleepiestPlurals]

@@avvc21 yeah that "fixed event" stuff is already pretty flimsy when they use it in doctor who, it's much worse here if that's really what they're going for

[@AC-ut3nk]

@@efxnews4776 They could have just made up a plague event that took place on earth that happening after people visit other planet and now the earth is quarantine. So you can only visit on a spaceport near the earth.

[@unblessedcoffee1457]

"Starfield is bad" is my new favourite video genre.

[@DemethVLK]

Starfield is bad and overwatch is dead videos are taking over the youtube scene

[@immune85]

Seen that comment in quite a few videos now...

[@immune85]

@@DemethVLK That's simply not true, is it?

[@youarealwayscorrect]

Funny how people are still obsessed with hating it even a year after its' release. I guess even the underwhelming Bethesda games have a miraculously impressive longevity.

[@pko1683]

@@youarealwayscorrect it's a bethesda game and the first single player one since 2015, of course people are still talking about it

[@guts60]

The only time I had fun exploring planets was exploring Earth and Luna/The Moon. But then it quickly got boring, so I decided “I know! I’ll go to Mars and make a fully decked out base on Olympus Mons!”… only to discover the tallest mountain in the solar system isn’t in the game. And then there is the cash system. Oh my god, money is so easy to make. In Skyrim and Fallout 4, I am scrounging around to sell every little bit of loot and scrap, and that is fun. When I complete a dungeon, I not only finished a quest (or a part of a quest) but I obtained good loot for myself, maybe another character level and some skill levels, and a heap of shit to sell to buy more cool things. When playing New Vegas, I was constantly trying to figure out if and when I should sell a weapon because I might need it later for its higher durability and niche use case, and checking every ruined building for cool loot to keep or sell. In Starfield… you just fight a ship, steal it, register it, and then sell it. Bam, couple hundred thousand grand in less than 10 minutes. Mix that with quest rewards and you quickly become a multi-millionaire in less than a couple dozen hours of game time. I think I was a multi- billionaire in Starfield before I stopped playing. And what can you spend that money on? The same gun that you unlocked early in the game, maybe some ammo or supplies, and ship parts. So then we get to ship customization. Well, I try my hardest to not make my ship look like a flying box, so I have to really worry about function over form. In other words, the best looking ships have little functionality at all beyond being your form of transportation and some storage. I relegated myself to having two ships: the mother of all ships, ugly as hell but it is the ideal mobile base that kicks ass with heavy firepower and can give me anything I ever need in a base; and a cool ship I worked really hard to make look nice so I can brag to my friends that I managed to make something that looks good out of some decorational parts on top of a few boxes. And it was very easy to afford it all, to tie it back in to my complaints about Starfield’s economy. Building your ideal mobile base should be expensive as fuck! Not cheap as dirt. And then we have planetary base building, ugh. I don’t even want a proper settlement system, just please make it somewhat closer to Fallout. Please, for the love of God, this building system is TOO expensive, convoluted, tedious, and 100% not worth it! The only reason you’d make one is to make a landing pad that lets you buy any ship part instead of having to go to a specific city on a specific planet to buy their specific ship parts.

[@OneTwoMark]

Fun fact, the constellation crew were so obnoxious to me that the only reason I forced myself to keep playing the game was a hope that I could kill them all at the end. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and looked it up, as soon as I saw I couldn’t kill then I quit the game. It felt like my school teachers made those characters, trying to make them funny and cool but obviously not.

[@JohnPeacekeeper]

Meanwhile, Outer Worlds: Decent to awesome companions that includes a funny robot that can only talk in slogans... and they still give you the option to kill yourself and everyone with you by FLYING INTO THE SUN

[@bluegum6438]

@@JohnPeacekeeper Outer Worlds was kind of mid but leagues better than Starfield

[@0Synergy]

@@bluegum6438 Honestly its crazy how bland and generic Outer Worlds was, and then Starfield came out and instantly makes Outer Worlds look like a good game.

[@elmecaniconaranja1126]

​@@0SynergyOne of the main difference between obsidian in new vegas and in outer worlds was the refferences artists and writters had. 60s/70s vietnam era movies, 50s westerns, old mobsters films, docto who and Monty Python easter eggs and many more. Just by the taste they had you could see how they was able to produce such a good product

[@johnrichie7199]

Entering Grannies box and eating her muffin was sadly the high point in starfield for me as well.

[@Narny]

so true

[@Spacemongerr]

I didn't know Starfield was _that_ kind of a game

[@alexpecoraro893]

Not being able to kill any adult character was the tipping point for me. It really makes you feel as if your choices have no real consequences. That and the whole dialogue option system that you crushed me with.

[@drakescakes5629]

Yup. One of the biggest examples of this being great is in Morrowind. One of the major main quest characters has a full set of daedric armor (and one of the only places you can get daedric armor). You can kill him for it but risk ruining the main quest if you don’t wait until after you deal with him. Back in the day, you could’ve been waaaaayy past him and still get the message that it ruins the prophecy so it really made you think about it. Meaning its impact was great but you still had the choice to off him.

[@CropperTV]

I was gutted when I couldn't kill the fella that arrested me for STEALING A FORK and sent me on a huge quest mission to help him, only to turn on me because my NPC did something during a stealth mission that I had no control over. arghhhhhhhhh

[@emperorofscelnar8443]

Not only does it breaks immersion but makes it so you can’t make a true villain character.

[@klarkolofsson]

That ”box speech” was excellent and gave me existential dread, in a good way. Your narrative voice works well for that sort of thing.

[@Nightweaver1]

Starfield is nothing but smoke and mirrors sold by a charlatan dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. I've lost pretty much ALL respect for Todd Howard at this point, and his studio. If and when Elder Scrolls 6 turns out awful and gets panned by critics, that studio WILL be dead, forever.

[@connieellerbe-maycock7115]

I played it for about a month, hoping it would get better. It never did, but it got even more boring. So I uninstalled it and went back to No Man's Sky.

[@crktritual]

I don’t like his stupid face either

[@Shmandalf]

Panned by critics? The critics were sucking Starfield's D so hard that people actually believed it. They never pan games they're being paid under the table to cover.

[@Voldemort_Pendlegrass]

Emil is arguably a bigger problem than Tod.

[@NoBody-hw6se]

Critics will love it and it will be shit.

[@Saint0bi]

I’ll never forgive Bethesda for making Earth accessible with zero repercussions (really? No law enforcement protecting the airspace around the cradle of civilized humanity?!) and then expect me to believe it wouldn’t be packed with tourists. Ugh come on!

[@qwejy]

I mean they create a realistic in universe explanation for it in the main story, there's mostly nothing left on the planet after certain events. I think it would be more fair to criticize the emptiness on the established planets that do have livable atmospheres with major cities on them.

[@goodguyguan3412]

​@@qwejyor we can stop saying "but this one thing is much more worse" and expect these money farms to actually put out good stories that can do both. In your explanation you took the bait saying earth should be empty because of story reasons but those same story reasons also say "humanity was rushed off earth so colonizing just started" in the subtext. That's the logic they used for saving time and making things so empty in production otherwise it literally wouldn't be the main story plot you fight over, whether spreading out was a good idea or not. If you accept one planet being that way, you accept the entire universe being devoid because it's just trash writing trying to explain why they didn't give a f*** about the feel of the game outside of giving it spaceship mechanics.

[@qwejy]

@@goodguyguan3412 I just don't think it's reasonable to expect a universe that full in terms of modern development capabilities. I come from having played Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky. They both sidestep and create alternatives to make their universes feel less empty. But Bethesda should have definitely been expected to create a more lively world, they were able to do enough of it in Fallout 4.

[@Breachidon]

What’s even crazier is that in the intro they say there’s some people who don’t think earth exists. Like how?

[@Slender_Man_186]

​@@qwejybut that still makes no sense, yeah the magnetosphere got screwed up by the warp technology this universe uses (which itself is a major plot problem), but that wouldn't mean Earth would suddenly be deserted, it would just be inhabited in more unconventional ways like dome cities or even underground networks.

[@brandenj576]

The reason why the intro to Starfield is so long and tedious is to stretch out the play time so you can’t get a refund on steam.

[@NevadaCowboy576]

If it was any other company I would agree, but because it’s specifically bethesda, I actually think that their standards are that low for a video game

[@FeiFongWang]

It's on gamepass for $1 with a trial, anybody who bought it on Steam before waiting for reviews was kind of asking for it.

[@nick-314]

Really didn't need it either, the number of load screens and fetch quests put me well over the return window and I didn't feel like I actually did anything

[@jameskim1505]

"It just works."

[@erikreppen9257]

@@jameskim1505 Underrated : )

[@johntyalt8723]

I made it around 10 hours before I realized just how mind numbing the side quests in this game are. Not just the copy pasted ones on random planets, but the ones given to you in big cities and the like. It was especially egregious to me due to having just come off playing Witcher 3.

[@RyanKaufman]

"Maybe I'm not in a box. Maybe... I'm in a cage" Beautiful. Probably the most I've felt from a video essay in a while. What a line, contextually perfect

[@CurtDegree]

I fail to understand why, in a setting where the Moon and Mars are readily accessible, when shown a future where developing grav-engine tech on earth would off-gas its atmosphere you wouldn't just... You know... Develop it on the Moon or Mars instead...

[@Hello-lf1xs]

I think they did develop it on the Moon, but grav-drive use NEAR earth is what caused it, at least as far as the story directly said

[@CurtDegree]

@@Hello-lf1xs Even being the case, that is still only 1 (and the closest) of increasingly distant options and in no way changes the nature of the plot macguffin at all. If the character is shown the future, and knows all the details of when/where/how the tragedy occures, while having common sense alternatives available that would take the player with a presumed average 100 IQ a half second to deduce (as opposed to the character that's supposed to represent a genius theoretical physicist).... It's still a really stupid plot device. Which was my entire point to begin with. The story is constructed in a way that it's major originating plot device makes absolutely no sense in the context of the narrative.

[@sonodietrodithe4iltuoincub848]

​​@@CurtDegree I don't understand your complaint considering that the grav drive explanation is probably the only ok thing in the game but anyway the guy saw the future of humanity in space where there is no capitalism and he had to choose between making the grave drive or keep humanity on earth he didn't have a solution for the atmosphere problem he just knew about it

[@randeli7785]

​@@sonodietrodithe4iltuoincub848 "The guy saw the future of humanity in space where there is no capitalism" Guess he didn't see the water city run by corporations that only value money & power lol.

[@ballisticwaffles]

Because almost unintentionally, Bethesda wrote the most accidentally anti-nihilist work in the modern era. The Starborn being an endless cavalcade of space redditors who cannot do objective good and are responsible for the death of the earth out of boredom is peak anti-nihilism. Rick and Morty space man destroyed earth because despite having infinite power and infinite chances he refuses to change anything in any meaningful way that's not minor, meager, or running a stupid non denominational space religion. Nothing matters except their presence is nothing but objectively negative to their surroundings. Its peak writing entirely by accident.

[@severdislike4222]

So a thing about Morrowind - It technically had multiple fast travel systems and not a one of them was really simple. One was through the abuse of "flight" mechanics. Another was more involved and required a notebook to be kept to log where the portals vomited you out and those were the ten propylon chambers. There were also the intervention scrolls and teleportation amulets. You can get to anywhere in vardenfel stupidly fast. The issue is - you had to figure out how to first.

[@ArkadyTunguska]

my favourite way of getting around morrowind fast is the boots of blinding speed

[@Chaun1998]

I had a map that I marked all the silt strider locations, boat docks, propylon portals, mage guild teleporters, and.... I think there was one more travel system on that map, and another map where I marked out the "borders" of the almsivi and divine intervention spells.

[@chriswhinery925]

Mage's guild teleporters were pretty simple. So is the Mark and Recall spells.

[@mmy2k48]

my favorite way to get around was to fortify athletics using a custom potion or spell and then spam jump. alternatively, skooma

[@Yzorixul]

1:14:50 Hearing the mass effect soundtrack made me feel so fking nostalgic. Hearing that first few keystrokes almost made me tear up. I wish I could play that trilogy for the first time again. In my opinion it's still one of the best stories, if not the best story ever told in a Videogame. Great Video, keep up the good work. Can't believe you only have 23,2k Subscribers.

[@partytimeninja3139]

You describing the scenes is more interesting then the scenes themselves. I would rather pay $60 for the audio book.

[@LoFiSamSero]

Yo fr. I loved hearing this guy speak

[@thomasmcsweeney7786]

Agreed, they have such a nice voice imo

[@aligmal5031]

@@thomasmcsweeney7786 he

[@LoFiSymphony]

I was thinking the same thing. The way he described the main questline made me kinda half enjoy it. Playing it live and I was laughing at how bad it was written and paced.

[@MilkTestingMan]

Holy shit I had no idea you are called Starborn in this game. The fact that they just said “Instead of Dragonborn, your called STARBORN because SPACE and STARS, not DRAGONS” makes me lose just about the last bit of hope I have for TES6. They just don’t learn or do anything different. They’ve basically released the same games just reskinned and with worse worlds and gameplay since Skyrim.

[@hypnotoad460]

Ah yes the new bethesda experience: >No more named NPCs >No more Unique weapons >No more NPC Families >No more cigarettes/swearing/religion/sex/anything offensive >No more interesting quests >No more interesting factions >No more player choices >No more interesting locations >No more neutral/evil companions >No more meaningful skills >No more primarily handcrafted content >No more 3-4 DLCs in 1 year after game release >No more Male/Female >No more NPC Cultures >No more NPC daily routines >No more being rejected by the same sex >No more beggars on the streets >No more every building has an interior >No more creativity This is not Bethesda. "Its not for you, don't like then dont buy! Smashing advice, I think I might try."

[@jeremylackey6587]

I quake in fear for the elder scrolls 6

[@lutherheggs451]

Its easy to figure out why.....MICROSOFT.....The FTC allowed Microsoft to purchase Zenimax and now Bugthesda doesn't really have to try because no matter what Microsoft isn't going to shut down the Fallout/Elder Scrolls studio, they need that content for WelfarePass. It doesn't even have to sell anymore, they just crap it out on WelfarePass and tell people "what are you complaining about, its part of your subscription".

[@thefactory7221]

There are unique weapons though. They're just cut from the base game and repackaged as a 7 dollar DLC you can't refund because it's middle-manned behind a cash shop.

[@peteschaub7561]

It's like the world of Demolition Man in a video game

[@publiusdos5925]

@@peteschaub7561 But, Todd isn't aware that Demolition Man was a dystopia.

[@ThinkerOfThoughts]

It's like Mass Effect 1 if the entire dev team got lobotomized.

[@oliknow]

and it's like what? 17 years between the games?

[@foreignuser_]

Starfield doesn't even hold a candle to Mass Effect 1. Mass Effect 1 is dated but it's a still a hell of a good game.

[@NotKelloggsCornflakes]

I made the mistake of replaying ME1 before Starfield's release. The former made the latter stand out as lifeless and boring. ...Or was it a mistake?

[@McDLT999999999999999]

DEI is like a lobotomy for a company

[@Hawk7886]

​@@McDLT999999999999999wtf does that have to do with anything?

[@alinaserafimova3368]

A lot of people commented on the content of the video, so I won’t repeat their points (it’s great), but I wanted to say that I loved your delivery. Soft, calm voiceover with no screaming or talking too quickly. Thank you.

[@gentriggerTTRPG]

I think the moment that the starfield illusion broke for me as you described was when I painstakingly moved around some items in one of my ship's rooms to make a minor edit elsewhere on the ship which reset all the interior items back to their default state. It made me step back and realize how useless the entire ship building system was and I just deleted it from gamepass

[@sdFreerey]

In the camp of people who started with Skyrim, went back to Morrowind, and realized pretty quick that something was missing in Skyrim. The fact that most quests only have one way of being done, that important NPCs are invincible, that magic was limited to a handful of effects always bothered me in Skyrim from the day I began. Compare it to what was there before and you start to understand the pattern of Bethesda’s descent.

[@foreignuser_]

They went from making PC-centric RPG games, to focusing much more on the console crowd. Just look at their UI design over time. Even the UI in Oblivion and Skyrim are terrible on PC. It's so ridiculous.

[@OsirisLord]

One of the things I do like about Morrowind that's died in Bethesda is factions being aligned against each other. There's the three Dunmer houses that are all enemies and joining one means you can't join the other. The Fighter's Guild and the Thieves Guild are at cross purposes when it comes to the law and so advancing high in one guild means you can't advance at all in the other. The Dark Brotherhood are at war with the local Morag Tong so you can't join both you have to pick. By Skyrim something changed in Bethesda and suddenly the idea that player choice could lock players out of content, that content could be permanently unavailable due to player choice became bad (this is in direct opposition to conventional wisdom about RPG design by other developers and also players). For some reason the design paradigm shifted and suddenly it became important that players should be able to see all content on a single play through. As a result Skyrim's factions all exist in isolation of one another. There are only two factions in Skyrim that lock you out by choosing, the Imperial and Stormcloak factions in the Civil War, and the choice between Vampires or Dawnguard. In either instance though what really happens is you more or less see the same content but from the other side and in the case of Dawnguard the big selling point of joining the Vampires, becoming a high vampire, is not locked out as later on players can chose to be turned by Serana if they join the Dawnguard. But both the Civil War and Dawnguard quest lines exist in their own spaces that don't intersect with the rest of the game. At no point does joining the Empire against Ulfric Stormcloak prevent you from entering his castle and walking right up to the guy. It's like he knows he's immortal by code. Following the pattern of Bethesda getting worse and stagnating with each game we come to Starfield a game that's terrified of players locking themselves out of content, a game Bethesda wants you to keep playing on the same playthrough over and over again for infinity. It's why the Crimson Fleet quest line is about working for UC state police undercover rather than actually joining them because how can you do the UC Vanguard or Free Star Ranger if you're a pirate. And even if you do actually screw over everyone and join the pirates you can still join the other factions because fuck it.

[@bmagada]

Its what was missing in oblivion too. It lacked the depth of story and the spell crafting madness that made mage playthroughs a blast.

[@GrandElemental]

@@OsirisLord I absolutely hate this. Questlines have become mindless checklists of brain dead content.

[@GasGas-eq5ey]

problem is that when you want a large world you need to sacrifice multi path stories, when you want a galaxy you sacrifice a lo more. New vegas did it best, have your scpecialization influence outcomes and routes but dont make it 3 4 5 6 route paths for one quest.

[@magnoresk]

Never forgot that fallout was an rpg first, shooter second. Fallout 4 was bad due to removing the essence of fallout from the player, choices.

[@juancarlosalonso5664]

Couldn’t agree more.

[@devanman7920]

Exactly.

[@allanredhill8682]

and yet it had still more choices and interesting quests then oblivion and skyrim combined lmao

[@gamo_art6957]

Idk if some mentioned it but in the “box segment” the music used is for cyberpunk with is incredibly smart too use as it has zero loading screens. To go a bit deeper the song, with is voices in my head, is played when v first meets silver hand, where silver hand realizes he’s trapped in v’s head and v is also trapped both physically in the apartment but also there weakend body.

[@vernolopia]

How to reduce Starfield's playtime: - Remove Loading Screens - Give the player a means of communication (phone or something, this is the future right?) - No more walking Simulator - Play a better game

[@DarkMan307]

that is what made me put it down with a sigh as i genuinly tried to enjoy the game, >wait through loading screen and land on corpo planet >spend 10 minutes walking through the city to enter quest building >accept quest leading me to another planet >either open map and fast travel to the planet or walk through the city again back to ship only to imersively sit down and then fast travel because there is no function to go between planets without fast travel loading screens >arrive at the new planet, walk into city >talk to my quest target dude, get the quest item i was sent to pick up >fast travel back to the first planets >walk over to the building, just to turn in the quest, then to get the next one, and i just completely gave up on the game, spent more time in fucking loading screens than i did doing literally anything else. every time i enter a building, then exit the building, then open the map to another planet, then walk over to a building, jesus christ man

[@Vargre]

How to reduce Starfield play time Play on a PC Get mods Fixed,

[@TwistdTrip]

How to reduce Starfield's playtime: - Don't buy it - Buy a ''good'' game - No more Bethesda bs - Success

[@MrQwertyman111]

@@DarkMan307 Come on, it's a feature! Watching that "cool" filler art during loading, or seeing your ship take off a planet for a hundredth time. It's all "immersion" and part of the "NASA punk" aesthetic. Are you sure you understand the basic of the game? Just kidding, that aspect of the game was awful as hell 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@zee-fr5kw]

@@TwistdTrip Starfield is a good game do you - thing doesn't work

[@DunceRuleZ12]

I had three "Moments" from the game. The first "Moment" was when I did a radiant quest at a science outpost where I was asked to find a colleague left behind in a cave, because they thought they saw a ravenous animal or monster. The outpost was on an ice planet devoid of flora and fauna. The second one was when I was doing the Crimson Fleet questline and I went through the mission on the ship orbiting the gas giant. For the sake of role playing, I had my character wear a full space suit, assuming that there would be no breathable oxygen onboard (or at least block out the smell of the old crew scattered across the floor). At the end of the mission, when you make your escape from the ship as it finally falls apart, I found that my character wound up with severe lung damage from all the chlorine gas that was seeping in as the ship fell apart in SPITE of me wearing the full space suit. What's the point of wearing something that's supposed to have environmental seals if my character coughs up both lungs? The third "Moment" was when I went on the planet full of these clones of historical figures, and one camp was making their case for why they should leave the colony, while the other makes their case, and Roosevelt felt that everyone should just stay on the planet and make do. Strangely enough, Roosevelt mentions that he's willing to have Amelia Earhart be the sole exception to leave. I never talked to Earhart. I wasn't even aware that she was around on the colony to begin with. Most RPGs I've played in the past wouldn't have mentioned her in conversation if I never met her. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I never touched the game again from that point onward since June. I never did do a full playthrough, and I'm unwilling to subject myself to such poor and boring design.

[@patrickmoseley8865]

Games are supposed to be fun. Bethesda used to know this, but they’ve ignored the player. Thankfully there are games like Elden Ring and Baldur Gates 3

[@naughtycicero1460]

I have one of those moments every time I have a conversation with an npc. It’s like there’s too much dialogue for one interaction, and worse, it drags on almost purposefully to bore you

[@SchamaliDhali]

Your last one is completely false and something mentioned in the video. Breadcrumbs are an essential part to any RPG. So on its face refering someone the player has not met is not strange and to be encouraged as a part of world building.

[@whitegoose2017]

@@SchamaliDhali Mmm but wouldn't a good story somehow try to introduce these breadcrumbs to you in a logical fashion?

[@004MostWanted]

​@@SchamaliDhali actually there's number of cases when YOU can mention in dialogue someone you haven't even met/heard about yet. Also there's moments when someone you talk to become aware of something that only you could tell him about but you specifically chose not to, in that dialogue. RPG my ass.

[@PoshJosey]

Emil Pagliarulo personifies the problems with BGS. They will never improve with people like him in charge.

[@raymondstewart3350]

It's weird that people keep blaming this Emil and the decision maker who decided to move him from level designer to lead writer.

[@PoshJosey]

@@raymondstewart3350 People aren't blaming him specifically for everything. However people like him, his thought processes, approach to game design, and decisions like promoting him to a lead designer are emblematic of the issues with BGS as a whole.

[@ethanfreeman1106]

@@PoshJosey very well said. Emil is far from being the only individual responsible for modern Bethesda's shortcomings, but he's a prime example of whatever that is going on inside the company culture, a symptom of a much deeper problem, if you will.

[@eikonise]

Also Bethesda is indirectly owned by Microsoft meaning they have no ability to take risks, have controversial content or in any way excel.

[@SugaryPhoenixxx]

@@raymondstewart3350 Because from the moment that emil became lead writer, the game stories became shallow, juvenile, & awful

[@Ghouleh3133]

Your voice is very soothing. Your arguments are very persuasive. I would very much like to listen to an hour-long video essay of yours about mostly anything.

[@antoniobrandao7139]

I think the problem is not only the (little) content there is. It's the lack of interaction and consequences. Let me kill who I want to kill and let me deal with the consequences of it. Let me make choices and let me be punished by bad choices. Bethesda is terrified of me missing some content... let me! It will make the game more replayable in the future. After a 120h playthrough in Baldur's Gate 3, I started a new one, different character, different options, different interactions and just a few hours in I came across a whole new area that I missed in the first one. That's replayability.

[@maddlarkin]

The earliest redflags for me which made me pass on Starfield were all in that first trailer, firstly it struck me as overly scripted, which having seen areas in game just built for a trailer (Cyber Punk 2077, any other quest in game like that one from the trailer?) Then they showed the crafting menu and I saw 'bonding agent' after having to deal with every crafting recipe in Fallout 4 needing adhesive that was a concern then I saw the player loot some pirates and the armour was 1 item that wasn't even removed when you took it and I was completely out, that level of non-interaction at the most basic level turned me off Starfield completely

[@fearlesswee5036]

And what's crazy is that stupid multiverse bs they shoehorned in could have at least perfectly allowed for true player choice; sided with one faction? Go to a new universe and see what happens with you side with the other. But no, all it does is serve as a gamification of the NG+ feature, robs the game of any kind of ending or conclusion, and sometimes you get a "le quirky and random!" universe variant where like, one of the Constellation members is a potted plant or whatever. A game with zero replayability adding a NG+ feature is so absurd it's almost funny. It'd be like, if one of those "SONY on-rails movie games" like God of War had a NG+. Oh wait...

[@potato_723]

@@fearlesswee5036 Yeah, I like this. No essential NPCs. If you mess up, why worry. Just jump to another universe. In a meta way, your character would have the mindset of a player starting a new save. It'd be really interesting, and could have unique roleplay and dialogue as your character becomes disconnected

[@Nikkska]

In my opinion; choice & consequence is the core of an RPG. If it isn’t (whether by quest decisions/resolutions or character builds) then it’s not much of a ROLE playing game. If you’re a master of everything, what’s the role to specialise in to enjoy new playthroughs?

[@Gooeygiuseppe]

It’s their obsession with giving the player EVERY questline all at once so that the player doesn’t miss out is the very reason why it’s a lot harder to roleplay than in other games, and the reason why Skyrim got so boring to me after a while It’s the equivalent of going to a two star restaurant and only ordering one thing but the staff comes out and gives you a sample of EVERYTHING on the menu and you’re either forced to eat all of the bland food or just not eat them the entire time and let them go to waste. Idk who or what made Bethesda have a shift with their quest design being solely in the hands of Emil, but that’s by far their worst decision they’ve made. They’ve lost the very thing that made Morrowind or hell, even Oblivion to an extent(Albeit solely for the reason that you have to go out of your way to find most of the side quests, and they’re not automatically added to your quest log without your consent because “content”), and it’s replay value If you really want, there’s really only two playthroughs you can do for Skyrim, and it’s literally just siding with the Empire or the Stormcloaks, and even that barely affects anything noteworthy in the world Whereas in the older games, if you chose different routes, no playthrough was ever the same It’s the reason why I quickly fell in love with KCD Sure, there are some things that won’t change the true outcome of every quest in the game, that’s a fact But you can approach nearly EVERY quest in a way that YOU think is best, you can fail quests by fucking up or not being on time, it barely holds your hand and every action you have has a consequence to it I remember that there was a part of the main quest where you had to find a siege engineer to make a trebuchet, and the usual options you’re given are to either use stealth to switch out documents saying that he’s free to go because he’s no longer under contract, or play his contractor at dice to let him come along However, what the game DOESN’T tell you that you can do, but still recognizes as a decision anyway, is simply beating up the siege engineer will force his hand to come join you right away It’s shit like that that is severely lacking from BGS titles and why I dislike them so much now They don’t realize that if anything, their games are not really as rewarding to replay because their players are forcefed every option at once, and there’s no real decisions that will change any outcomes to those options either There’s no need to do another playthrough if you complete every quest in Skyrim, unless you thought Emil’s writing was worthy of being put in the hall of fame of Humanity’s best writers for some reason.

[@JLM-y5g]

I don't think Starfield is conventionally "bad" or "good"; It's simply too mediocre. It is fun to hop into, turn a random outpost into a shooting gallery, then leave without a second thought... but it doesn't have any vision: - Cyberpunk wants to be a grimdark, drippy neon world where everyone's a bit of a villain. - Skyrim wants to be a High Fantasy that harkens back to Chosen Heroes fighting a great Evil. - Armored Core wants to be a mission-based, action mecha shooter with themes of transhumanism and the cost of warfare. - No Man's Sky wants to be a fully realized universe with a focus on exploration, inspired by many past Sci-fi writings and works (this one's arguably contentious, so hit me with your rebuttals). What does Starfield want to be? I don't really know, truth be told. It doesn't want to say anything affective, and it doesn't want to create any sort of friction... Starfield isn't built to be analyzed or read on its own, people have to draw comparisons because it has very little originality.

[@wastelanderone]

My rebuttal is that No Man's Sky was a photojournalist in space simulator. (isn't anymore though)

[@Shmandalf]

I'm honestly kind of surprised people didn't realize this from the earliest Starfield trailers. As soon as I saw them I could tell it was completely uninspired and didn't do anything new or interesting. The first two weeks there was an insane amount of cope, especially when I would say stuff like 'the game looks like a 6/10 at best.' The meta critic user score: 6/10.

[@monoriada117]

>It's simply too mediocre. lmao, no. It's simply trash. I've seen indies have much more realistic and interactive NPC's from 10 years ago.

[@Li-Fu7]

I think Starfield wants to be Tod Howard's exoplanet vista photo shoot game, but they felt like they had to tack an RPG onto it to sell it. I'm only half joking, though. When you look at Starfield like a series of models, rather than a game, it genuinely seems to make more sense as a creative idea. Ship building, starsky simulation, space flight, etc. It's all to be ogled at, not played.

[@JLM-y5g]

@@Li-Fu7 "It's all to be ogled at, not played." Brilliantly put.

[@artinotsoparty]

The most immersive thing at the beginning of the game is that dude reacting to the player stealing his sandwich and i'm not exaggerating.

[@firepit1432]

I agree. I really think they specifically focused on creating the potential for that interaction at the start so as to make people think this is still old school Bethesda instead of soulless Bethesda.

[@artinotsoparty]

@@firepit1432 its these small details that make the world feel alive and not a group of npcs staring you down with their dead fish eyes.

[@feeshlihzard286]

"My apple! Who do you think you are!?"

[@Exnem]

I recognized this when I first played Skyrim back in the day. I remember the gameplay trailer showing off Bleak Falls Barrow at E3 and I was like "Oh wow! So there's gonna be a lot of unique puzzles and such in the dungeons? Neat" then I found out how they basically just copied and pasted the claw puzzle in so many dungeons and I got so disappointed. The story and roleplaying also just went out the window with that title, it's one linear vanilla track for everything. Everything is just boring, and it's all about hollow spectacle and vistas. Aesthetics. "Look at that mountain! Wow, look at the landscape when you left the vault! WOWZA!!!11" Yet the material feel is not there, cookie cutter "chosen one" story they have done a trillion times only now you feel even more like a spectator. Sure, it makes for a more "accessible" experience but it also tarnishes it as a result. Bethesda always focus tests the fun out of any of their games these days. They overtest I think, which is ironic because of how buggy their games are. I think they just tell the testers to ignore the bugs, and then they never fix them. This is not nostalgia, I started with Skyrim, then played Fallout 3 and eventually I grew to dislike both and I now basically only enjoy SOME of the DLC of Skyrim and Fallout 3 and the other games (New Vegas which yes I know is not Bethesda but still & Morrowind). It seems for the core games they do not allow the writers and designers a lot of freedom, and only when they do DLCs do they let them make fun decisions. Oblivion had this problem too, while it is generally better than Skyrim nobody gives it's story accolades and for good reason. The good writing is in the DLCs. Fallout 4 has it with Far Harbour having an alright story while the main game story is crap. When Starfield was announced after falling out of love with Skyrim over the years, hating Fallout 4 at launch, and Fallout 76 that I was wise enough to not buy into, I basically had no gas left in the tank to even think of trying out the game. I saw all the red flags with the trailer, the story, the trope-y characters. It's not endearing, it's insulting that they expect their audience to eat this up, and no it doesn't matter that they do. This is just my playstyle, nostalgia doesn't drive me like some people who get mad that I criticize the game they started with.

[@nicholascazmay2126]

I mean, in Starfield’s case, they completely forgot what made their games worth playing in the first place - hand crafted worlds that felt worth exploring. Hundreds (thousands?) of algorithmically generated worlds was 100% the wrong call for this game. I honestly don’t understand how they didn’t see the writing on the wall after the No Man’s Sky debacle when that first released.

[@Zorothegallade-rpg]

Even just the feeling of heading out looking for adventure, be it a cave with some loot, a tussle with some bandits, or even one of the myriad entrances to Blackreach. Starfield straight up removed the entire possibility of wandering around. Click on the map, loading screen, and you're in the place with the single point of interest you need.

[@iyziejane]

Not just NMS, but they seemed to miss the entire genre of procedurally generated exploration Indie games on Steam. Expecting people to get excited about "1000s of worlds" in 2021 was very out of touch.

[@codymcallister9565]

And the weirdest thing is, No Man's Sky - in 2024 - is a more immersive space exploration game than this one. You get in your ship, and YOU fly out of its atmosphere, hearing the resistance of its clouds banging against your cockpit until you hit the edge and it goes silent. You fly to a planet. No boxes, constant things to find and do. It's actually so bizarre

[@bat-stranger3067]

I like procedural stuff but BGS clearly didn't know how to make that sort of content fun. Making the scanning way more tedious than NMS certainly didn't help with that.

[@michaelh878]

​@@Zorothegallade-rpgHow are caves more interesting than the stations on starfield. Both are equally low effort.

[@ayeyuh6920]

After BG3 succeeding in the way that it did, I have a theory that deep RPG games never *_really_* struggled to reach wider audiences. At least, they wouldn't have, if AAA developers hadn't stopped making them. Skyrim was successful because it was marketed like crazy, but because of that success it also set the precedent of "accessible = good". Casual players barely even got a chance to be exposed to in depth RPG before Skyrim changed everything. Now there are no AAA companies willing to take the risk anymore.

[@Narny]

Very true. Especially considering it's turn based. It means everything that such a huge audience is able to embrace a combat system they're biased against. The amount of people I've talked to that HATE turn based combat, but now say BG3 is their favourite game of all time is insane.

[@ayeyuh6920]

@@Narny Exactly. I'm sure the complexity would still be a turnoff for a big chunk of players, but there's also a ton of other casual players who just have never been exposed deep roleplaying systems. Because there's almost none in the AAA space. It just has to be marketed well and be a good game.

[@-tera-3345]

@@ayeyuh6920 I think BG3 just really hit a perfect balance between complexity and accessibility. It gave players an enormous amount of options, but was always completely understandable to them. I've tried suggesting the Pathfinder games to people who loved BG3 and want more, but it's largely bounced off. Because the PF games don't really pull any punches. They're a bit simplified from the tabletop game, but still try to recreate those systems as faithfully as they can. More casual players end up entirely out of their depth way too easily.

[@Li-Fu7]

I truly believe that true accessibility is rarely about making games easier, and more about providing a strong enough incentive/hook to invest the player in learning a game's systems. Baldur's Gate 3 is a perfect example of that. My girlfriend's experience with videogames was primarily through Sims 4, but stumbled into Baldur's Gate 3's early access after she saw videos on some of the character's and fell in love with the dialogue and world. She's now put hundreds of hours into the game and is currently playing through the game (again) on honour mode, the hardest difficulty with perma-death from my understanding.

[@Turnoutburndown]

Yeah like the previews of Dragon Age Veilguard are dropping now, and it does not look good from a complexity standpoint.

[@robinbanks6433]

It's honestly quite simple why Bethesda doesn't make good games anymore. Bethesda stopped making games that they themselves would play and instead started making games for the largest audience possible.

[@cttommy73]

Nah, they started making games only Todd Howard would want to play. Broken, buggy and very bland games.

[@reactiondavant-garde3391]

I think the main reasen is the leadership, the great ones who were able imagine really vibrante worlds or interesting games are left the studio ages ago.

[@6_Star_Neckphones_timelost]

They started resting on their laurels, simply trying to sell games based off brand recognition. There was a time when Bethesda’s name meant something and instead of innovating, they chose regurgitate the same tiresome formula.

[@chainsawplayin]

They stopped making games that earn them money, they started taking money to work on games, from Blackrock.

[@foreignuser_]

@@chainsawplayin Indeed we are no longer the customer. The games are essentially privately commissioned. Any sales are just a bonus and they get to laugh and mock the people who defend it while they sip thousand dollar adrenochrome martinis.

[@theghostwaves]

Fantastic video. Also your voice is smooth! Reminds me of Andy’s from Alien: Romulus.

[@wanderer2688]

I will repeat it every time, Emil Pagliarulo is the main reason Bethesda games are turning so bland. His main design philosophy for games is that the stories shouldn't be deep or nuanced, just very simple so gamers can sit and enjoy the action without thinking. Best choice for an RPG writing and design director.

[@chriswhinery925]

He was bad as a lead writer, he's even worse as a lead developer.

[@F4n3e]

Why the fuck is he there ?

[@mikewaters2126]

Nah. Don't take this as a defense of him, but even if he got fired, nothing would change. He's in charge because he agrees with Bethesda's philosophy. Anyone who replaces him would be exactly the same.

[@Chewberto]

@@mikewaters2126 Exactly. I don't think Emil is good at his job, but the fact that he has the job in the first place after years of backlash is a solid sign that Bethesda's own complacency is the problem.

[@vincelang3779]

So you have identified the villain, have you? Or is this just an iteration of the age-old, oh so human need of having (creating?) a convenient *_scapegoat_* ? It is pure delusion to think that removing this particular person from the equation will, in some nebulous way no one ever bothers explaining, return Beth onto the road to greatness. And now that Zeni is tea-bagging the filthy nut sac of Microsoft? They who, having ZERO talent of their own, simply decided to acquire a bunch of studios so they could chew that sweet, sweet SKYRIM cheddar . . . and then proceed to fire 40% of the workforce? Yeah. I'm sure Beth's "fall from grace" is Emil's fault. I'm so convinced. Keep dropping truth bombs buddy! 🙄🤣

[@Reedg333]

Nahh why did that "game of boxes" section actually give me goosebumps 💀 awesome video man

[@johankarlsson1776]

Sounded like he described something out of Lovecrafts stories, the music didn't help 😂

[@muneerosman8532]

Actually scared me since I had my eyes closed about to sleep. Some existential terror right there

[@Tornado5786]

Was looking around for this comment, best part of the video honestly

[@saephon3988]

Starfield is the opposite of immersive. It feels like a simulation crafted by someone - or some thing - that doesn't understand organic interactions. It's like you're a 3D entity stuck inside a painting, and every element of that painting intends on making you keenly aware that you do not belong.

[@BarbeAmaury]

It's not like litterally everygame is a succession of maps.

[@ArkngthandArchive]

Fantastic video! The part about the unintentional existential horror of Starfields lifeless cities was especially funny and well observed.

[@Gorbz]

That could almost have been a story hook towards the end - find out that the whole thing is an experiment, and the Starborn have the hope that, if they jump enough, they might find the way out into the real universe, rather than doing it because it is a thing to do.

[@_DaneB_]

You are a pleasure to listen to and you make excellent points! Im glad the algorithm brought me here! Subbed!

[@gergopahollo]

I think that a lot of Starfields fundamental faults can be attributed to two things: the design philosophy of BGS and regular incompetence when it comes to consistency. Their philosophy of “say yes to the player” and that the entire universe always revolves around the player character is similar to how superhero media tends to lose stakes after a while, trying to always one-up itself. Save the city. Save the world. Save the universe. Save the multiverse. It’s just tiring after a certain point. Why would I care about any quest? Nothing ever happens without me, they’re so afraid of me getting locked out of content that nothing I ever do can have any stakes whatsoever. And their incompetence really shows through because their idea of game design is simply dated. It’s not oldschool, it’s not retro, it’s just old now.

[@LymeGreen04]

Nah I don't agree with this. I can go play Skyrim or fallout 4 and have more fun than most games out now. That's not outdated. Starfield is just not that fun.

[@scarletina5137]

Starfield is made by committee, no soul, no life, incompetent writing, uninsiring and shallow. Then on top of this add a sprinkle of DEI and a huge slice of cheese and you have Starfield. The talent is gone and those picking up a paycheaque are living off the success of others. When was the last time Bethesda made a good game? It's all been downhill for a long time. They were lucky to get away with Fallout 4.

[@robynpress9534]

This is why I adore Elden Ring. They aren't afraid that the player will miss content.

[@filip1408]

You don’t save anything here, the journey is more personal in nature. On the contrary people die left and right because you chase the artefacts and power lol.

[@rageshot4352]

@@LymeGreen04 agreed, i think its more that BGS is better at large open worlds with a single world area that is hand crafted. I love the power fantasy and I'm not tired of it, star field doesn't have the same world building and cohesion that ES5 or FO4 have, the world is more boring to explore and experience because for every handcrafted thing you see its copied and pasted in 100 other places.

[@CharleB-sabres]

Remember when Todd Howard said they couldn’t make Elder Scrolls 6 yet because they didn’t have the technology? Hopefully the technology won’t be the same as Starfield

[@mrsullied]

Dude it will be. Todd never changes.

[@carlosleyva-calistenia6400]

When I didn't know better, I thought he was talking about some awesome game mechanic no one had thought about before. After the 3rd re release of Skyrim and no bugs ever patched, I started to think that "marvelous" technology was 3D asset scanning or some bullshit like that.

[@BigLongRandomNumberNameM-kf9vy]

@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 Todd was like "We're making Starfield because of new technology that enables it" and that was after Microsoft released a new Flight Simulator with Azure Cloud Compute and streaming and stuff. I literally thought that's what he was referring to when he said "new technology". Now that the game's released, I have no idea what he was talking about. AI upscaling to make up for the dogshit performance?

[@carlosleyva-calistenia6400]

@@BigLongRandomNumberNameM-kf9vy And even that doesn't seem to be the case. If I remember correctly, AI upscaling didn't come out of the box and even the guy who was making the AI upscaler for Skyrim published his own one day after release or something. I think it's kind of a bad sign they're so secretive about this "wonderful technology", when Todd was so proud about something so lame as increasing terrain heightmap resolution for FO76, so now there's "16 times the detail". With their current business practices, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out their "new technology" is some kind of telemetrics or something related to their paid mod store.

[@Adrian2140]

The fact that Starfield STILL costs like 50$, after all the debacle, is crazy to me. You can buy infinitely better games for much less, like Metro Exodus, Robocop rogue city or Terminator resistance. Or heck, you can just play Fallout London for free since it has the kind of writing Emil Pagliarulo could only dream of being capable.

[@Sigismund-von-Luxembourg]

Emil is the biggest problem at Bethesda

[@C1ockwork]

The writing in Fallout London is that bad?

[@Adrian2140]

@@Sigismund-von-Luxembourg I get what you're saying but I would argue he's the byproduct of the problem and not the problem itself. People getting into positions where they shouldn't be I would argue is the problem. They had a superstar team creating and designing the worlds/levels and somehow they managed to break them up too.

[@Magic-f9d]

Free on Game Pass

[@Varangian_af_Scaniae]

@@Magic-f9d Free for consumers! Some of us wouldn't use gamepass even if it was free. It's just slop for smooth brains.

[@mewgiah8057]

My first Bethesda game was Morrowind and then Oblivion. At least for me it was Skyrim when I first noticed something was wrong. The side quests and writing took a major step down from Oblivion. But despite that I still got lost in the world of Skyrim and put thousands of hours into it. However when Fallout 4 came out - i genuinely didn’t like it. I actually quit playing about 20 hours in because I found it boring. Fast forward to Starfield and it got even worse. So yeah as a fan of Bethesda for decades I’ve kind of just accepted we won’t get another great game from them again. Remind me of the same path BioWare fell into. The irony is that both developers were able to make incredible AAA titles that were accessible (Mass Effect 2, Skyrim) - and yet they both have struggled to make accessible games again that are incredible.

[@nlwiii]

the fact this is what took them 5 years to create is what’s most depressing

[@internetexplorer3596]

8 years

[@0Synergy]

@@internetexplorer3596 Not only that this was Todds DREAM game, you can find old comments back from the late 90's about him talking about his perfect game being a go anywhere do anything space RPG

[@extraordinarilybasic3250]

Most production jobs are stretched out and spread over dozens of salaries, cause modern entertainment is a giant money laundering/Ponzi scheme.

[@spacepirate1449]

25 years

[@serberus5233]

4000 years

[@osmanender]

I started my journey into the world of gaming with Morrowind. Or rather, it was my third game after GTA 3 and Mafia. I didn’t know any English, and despite my father being an English teacher, I had barely passed my English classes. After answering some questions in Morrowind, I was chosen for a knight-like class, and I felt so proud of myself. I remember spending a week in the village where I was born. My father's huge leather-bound English dictionary was falling apart. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was watching the night sky, climbing that tower. I was talking to people and trying to understand them. It felt like I was inside the books I used to read for 13 hours a day, skipping school-Dragonlance, Sword of Shannara, Elric, and so many others. When I got a double-edged axe like Sir Utah, I was over the moon. It was the game that taught me English. And even now, the sky filled with countless colors and thousands of stars is still in front of my eyes. Thank you so much for the video.

[@PeterPauls]

I'm 35 and when Morrowind came out I was 13 and when I was 14 I was able to watch movies without (not my native language) subtitles because I learned English a lot just to play Morrowind. :D

[@mb-electricalservices]

Powerful....❤

[@John-996]

All 3 were very important games. Dan Vavra was writer on Mafia 1 and went on to make Kingdom Come the same year yoy had RDR2 both these games are two of most alive and Reactive open worlds to Date and Kingdom Come 2 and GTA6 are the only open worlds i am hyped for.

[@roilo8560]

Is this a good way to learn languages?

[@batboy555]

Great game

[@CharliMorganMusic]

It's a publicly traded company. This is what happens to almost every company that goes public: short term gains are prioritized over long term growth because the needs of shareholders become more important than creating a good product for the customer.

[@Howitchewstofeel5gum]

Zenimax/Bethesda never went public, though, they only got bought by Microsoft. You cannot and could never buy Zenimax stock, only MS, and Zenimax is a drop in the bucket for their overall business.

[@Matty002]

it really always is just capitalism

[@marcusmaynard1526]

@@Matty002Yeah, Triple A companies monopolizing the market while it becomes increasingly difficult for indie developers to compete. Definitely is capitalism’s fault lol.

[@whitewall2253]

Being public has actually nothing to do with this nimrod, bethesda releases one video game every three Epochs and releases downloadable content on at best an annual basis until they get bored and bugger off to the next project. You want PLC bullshit look at every annualised FPS release and the companies who make them.

[@BurgermanForever-nh2vp]

Yep, this is the answer. Corporations wont care about art unless we force them to

[@trickeh2k]

I'd never expected the quality found here. Really nice touches of comedy just sprinkled here and there that actually had me laughing out load. Defo earned a sub! Well done, good sir!

[@FactsopediaOfficial]

Bethesda should study this video from top to bottom. I have never seen anyone wrap the Starfield experience with such true words as the ones mentioned here. Thank you for sharing the vision. And I hope Bethesda stumbles upon this video sooner than later.

[@traiges414]

The video is very good - if you like these types of analysis check out PatricianTvs 8 hours Starfield analysis. It is the most in depth and high quality video there is about this topic imo - All of his videos (like the 16 hour Skyrim series) are S+ tier when it comes to criticism of the Bethesda games

[@armintargaryen9216]

I used to think for quite a while that Starborn was just a meme people on the Internet created laughing at how you get space powers like it was Skyrim all over again... Turns out it's the canonic name, wtf Bethesda???

[@frankwoods1531]

They're not making new games they're just making Skyrim over and over again. To them Fallout 4 was just Skyrim with guns, Starfield is Skyrim in space (and guns) Elder Scrolls 6 will probably be Skyrim in (insert creatively bankrupt idea here) I was only able to recently realise this through movies. Hollywood has the same thinking pattern

[@johnwrath3612]

⁠@@frankwoods1531Skyrim actually had some depth, decent rpg systems and a compelling world to explore. It started to streamline some rpg elements, I didn’t love that, but Skyrim felt like it was made with passion and pride. Fallout 4 was more by-the-numbers and bland, but still pretty good. Starfield just feels milquetoast and lifeless by comparison.

[@MrFrogTube]

@@johnwrath3612 I'm going to have to disagree. Skyrim had almost zero meaningful choices.

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

​@@johnwrath3612 Skyrim had depth? Fascinating take especially in hindsight. It was slammed on release for removing depth and multiple reviews noted it was wide as an ocean deep as a puddle.

[@BETRvids]

One of the big problems with game companies is: they keep getting rid of the people who have experience because they're more expensive to keep employed, and bringing in new and inexperienced people who are fresh out of college. It's like taking someone who has only ever worked on a bicycle and telling them to build a space shuttle. Games across the board with Triple A companies are going to keep getting worse because of this practice. We keep hearing about how employees are getting mass layoffs in the gaming industry, while also hearing that CEOs are getting huge bonuses. Connect the dots.

[@DNSL_]

the box/cage analogy like it's some truman show type setting got me laughing

[@srujanrao1324]

I guess Bethesda knew no one was gonna play this game more than once, which is why they were so afraid of players missing any side/optional content, so it feels like there is no consequences for anything you do in the game

[@-tera-3345]

@@srujanrao1324 They put in so much stuff for you to do in the game, but no reason to actually do any of it. You can explore 1000 planets, but there's nothing to find on any of them. You can build your own base, but it doesn't actually do anything. You can design your own ship, but it doesn't really give you any advantage. (Outside of breaking enemy ai) You can restart your game while carrying over your stats, but there's nothing for you to miss the first time.

[@ethanfreeman1106]

@@-tera-3345 even the main ending sucked arse. i watched a bunch of kids role play in a minecraft server with a similar ending where they went into the portal to 'reset the universe' but it was done brilliantly and way more genuine than this. that realization and sudden comparison to bethesda when i was reminded of it by the similarity gave me a good chuckle. somehow that minecraft roleplaying server for kids had a better plot than starfield... the people who made the maps and crafted the quests within them had more inspiration, and the people who played it had way more fun. and it was free.

[@TheKillerham5ter]

I played Starfield for an hour on game pass, and it was so boring that I immediately uninstalled it and never touched it again. I’m extremely worried for Elder scrolls 6.

[@rbeforme]

Just because you didn't like something, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Crazy concept, I know.

[@hoilst265]

@@rbeforme If the intent of the thing was for someone to like it and the person didn't like it, then yeah, it's bad.

[@Funko777]

​@@rbeforme except there's hundreds of videos on KZbin made by people who also think it is objectively awful and those videos have a combined view count of well over 10 million because they were watched by people who also think Starfield is objectively bad. I mean the video you're commenting on is literally about how bad it is lmao it's not just that dude you replied to who thinks it sucks...There's so many better options out there for both video games and developers yet people will still defend this video game equivalent of mass market pigslop (aka starfield).

[@Marquis_Foxglove]

Just because you like something doesn't mean it's good. Crazy concept, I know. ​@@rbeforme

[@SherLock55]

In the woke world we live in today, most of these companies hiring DEI activists instead of talented writers and programmers, yeah I think it's very safe to say that Elder Scrolls is officially dead. Starfield was an absolute abomination and now they are going to put the final nail in the Elder Scrolls coffin.

[@artyomloukashov636]

As it looks, Bethesda went all-in on the "theme park" approach-a huge F park, a few big rides, tons of "You win!" shooting booths, and a cool helmet at the entrance. The only agency players have over the gameplay is customizing a tent in the outskirts. The only hope is that The Elder Scrolls department is in a separate building.

[@HookahOtaku]

Anyone whose played Dragon Age Origins can agree with me that this entire game feels like a Tranquil fever dream. From the dialog to colors... Emotionally Dull.

[@thegamesforreal1673]

Man, I bloody lost it when the NPC started talking about how they used to be an explorer too, and there's this PTSD moment where you turn around, stare at her for a fraction of a second, before mercilessly pulling a gun and going berserk.

[@abbywindy]

Y'know I was forced into the "arrested and made to infiltrate the 'bad guys'" quest line because I picked up a single chunks cube on a table in a store that had them just... Sitting around tables with other discarded trash. So yeah. I was turned into an undercover operative over $15.

[@CutterFly7181]

*to take out a pirate faction undercover, that you normally can wipe out in 2 minutes with mid game gear if not for the essential NPCs

[@anywhere_but_here]

i was arrested and triggered that questline by accidentally picking up the soccer ball in the Mars outpost lol

[@cheshirevapor618]

What's the song at 58:54 it's gonna bug me for days it's so familiar

[@oxnxd6669]

“The realisation… that there is nothing for you to do” with that laugh really caught me off guard. Great video

[@samwheller]

Bro, I came for the Starfield bashing. I stayed for your epic fucking voice.

[@pfannenstill]

It's hypnotic. Feels like time stops and I'm floating in a void. Listening to a story of how bad Starfield is.

[@leonardoballarini1163]

Man i couldn't tell if the voice was AI or not

[@pfannenstill]

@@leonardoballarini1163 when ai speaks like that, we're all doomed

[@ProfessorPesca]

William Hague, but he’s a beat poet.

[@Warmaka]

It's like a sane ZeFrank! Incredibly soothing, too.

[@bubblybobabubbles]

The mass effect music at the end really puts the nail in the coffin huh lol, it reminds me I could be playing a much better sci-fi space rpg

[@krejn]

Babe wait, a niche youtuber with only 2 lengthy videos is about to change my life!

[@Cadrieldur]

At this point, I have ~20x more hours watching Starfield videos than actual playtime. Not a single regret.

[@BobExcalibur]

If you've a ravenous agonising hunger for Nothing, Starfield will let your gorge yourself at the trough until your stomach collapses into a singularity of Absolutely Bloody Nothing.

[@Preston241]

lol well said

[@notgray88]

For as much shit as Starfield gets for feeling artificial, it's usually very uninteresting and disappointing, so exactly like real life!

[@TheNotSoLoneWanderer]

I had this naive notion back when Vermintide 1 came out that anyone making a first person melee game would look at it and say, "Oh, that's how you do it. Okay, lets just do that."

[@TheR6R6R]

In case you have the latest version of Skyrim, try getting the Comprehensive First Person Animation Overhaul, Dismembering Framework, Precision, and a mod that allows 1st person dodging. Hell, there are Victor and skaven follower mods (and Chaos Warriors). Not as good as VT, but it's something.

[@TheNotSoLoneWanderer]

@@TheR6R6R I know I could mod Skyrim into a better game, but I'm speaking about how naive I was. I also thought they'd see these awesome mods and go, "oh, that's what people want, let's do that."

[@TheR6R6R]

@@TheNotSoLoneWanderer Only time will tell with TES6. First person melee combat is so underrated. On the bright side, Obsidian's Avowed seems promising, even more so since I loved PoE II. I'll just expect the worst and hope for the best with Bethesda.

[@frankwoods1531]

@@TheNotSoLoneWanderer Lol it was more like "oh people will make our game better for us? Lets make them do all the work then implement a store to make mods paid content"

[@TheNotSoLoneWanderer]

@@frankwoods1531 Lel, it's like they had two choices. The Golden Path and The Shit Path and of course they chose shit.

[@Kim-br5yj]

Brilliant video, and also so relaxing.Earned a sub, may your channel grow BIG. Greating from cousin overseas in Norway 😊

[@t-rexreximus359]

Previous BGS games had: 1. Save files with thumbnail images! Makes it so much easier to find saves; 2. Every named NPC in towns/ cities / villages had their own homes/ bedrooms! 3. Named NPC’s also had daily routines & day night cycles. It made BGS games special & alive! 4. Slow mo ‘kill cams’, & combat/ stealth finisher animations (Skyrim/Fo3/4) 5. Decapitation (Skyrim)/ dismemberment (Fo3/4). In Zero G that would be wild 🤘; 6. The Ability to swim underwater; 😅 Given their are underwater creatures in Starfield this should be added; 7. Elevator Loading screens were hidden in FO4 so they appeared seamless - they can do the same in Starfield! 8. Radio stations for different factions in FO3/4! (In Starfield it could be downloaded when arriving at capital cities); 9. Puzzles for the Temples (dungeons) to get shouts/ powers (Skyrim)! 10. Skyrim has 5 major cities & 4 major towns. Starfield has 3 major cities. 11. Loading screens had 3D objects you can rotate as you wait. 12. Settlements had optional settlers. They should do the same here for colonies. 13. Evil/ neutral companions & many more romance options. 14. New titles / promotions as you move through faction ranks. Yes you rise up bizarrely quick, but imo it made it fun. 15. Factions in Skyrim all had interesting NPC members to meet at the headquarters with scripted moments. In Starfield - there is just the recruiter for Vanguard at MAST. & in Rangers there are just two NPC’s. So disappointing.

[@ProierThanYou]

I don't disagree with what you've said, but using Skyrim as the example of better design, instead of the extremely noticeable downward trend starting point is naïve. Like a few of your points from Skyrim are downgrades from previous games. Oblivion had much of the same issues, removing older design choices, and having some extremely bizarre levelling, but it did have some elements that were closer to older RPG design. Effectively, with Starfield, and everything release post Skyrim by Bethesda, you see the Skyrim blueprints in the design. More unkillable characters, bland questlines, dungeon designs that became straight lines to run through, the cities were considerably smaller than previous games too. The removal of any kind of spellcrafting, removal of RPG class systems and allowing anyone to do anything easily. Generally much weaker quest design and writing, with often only one way to do any quest. Puzzles and guilds were simplified to an extreme. Like skyrim isn't as bad as what would come after it, but when you look objectively at the games, it's clear that Skyrim is the elephant in the room of Bethesda's decline. It sold so extremely well and garnered such positive acclaim that everything after it has been made in it's shadow. Every design choice removed from previous games for Skyrim was then seen as something Bethesda didn't need to bother with anymore, and as times went on that's made them into a shallow company who's entire design ethos is creating a theme park ride where you can never go off the rails. Nothing cannot be done by anyone on the same character, nothing can be difficult outside of the extremely artificial combat system, nothing can exclude the player from content, even if that content could be gotten by smart character design or re-rolling a new character. It all has to be attainable fairly easily.

[@Someone7641]

The problem with Bethesda factions started with Fallout 4. God, they *SUCKED!* The goals of the factions were either stupid or poorly written, and worst of all BORING. The Minutemen are the default cardboard 'good guys' that you're practically forced to join, and all they want is peace and goodness in the world and rainbows flying out your ass! The Institute are the 'bad guys' who tell you that you are too stupid to understand their goals, and that their _definitely not evil_ method of abducting random people and terrorizing the world is actually a good thing! The Brotherhood was okay, albeit a little stupid and up their own asses (which makes sense for the faction) and still want to aggressively horde all technology and kill mutants (which again, makes sense since they are the Brotherhood and human supremacists). The Railroad are a bunch of _totally grown up adults_ who definitely are a _super serious underground group_ with _super cool code names_ and _super edgy entrances_ and _characters_ that made me want to immediately shower them with hot plasma.

[@elmecaniconaranja1126]

​​@@Someone7641"The brotherhood was ok" Dude, they are wacking sentient droids, stealing from farmers, and if you would have given them time, they would have raider Goodneightbour to steal Kleo and diamond city for nick. I cant understand how anyone would be agaisnt the railroad, they literally are just a bunch of guys working with scraps in a cave *Freeing slaves* from a massive Scifi evil faction and actually doing a great job giving the circumstances, besides Deacon is an awesome dude.

[@Howitchewstofeel5gum]

Starfield giving you 1000 planets to "explore" is like somebody giving you 1000 bowls of dog food to "enjoy". Nah man, I'm good

[@ThePilot4ever]

Starfield is probably the first BGS main title game where players never said "Wow, I can do that?!"

[@cameronsimmons8743]

​@@zee-fr5kwwhat did you say that about while playing starfield?😂

[@zee-fr5kw]

@@cameronsimmons8743 during several out of the way quests

[@Ordoscc]

​@@zee-fr5kwDid you shoot Benjamin Bayu?

[@chriswhinery925]

@@cameronsimmons8743 Maybe it was his first game he ever played and he was simply amazed that he could talk to people and shoot guns and jump and stuff.

[@Aetoyt]

Starfields “moment” for me was when I had put 70 hours into it without ever stepping foot into the Constellation Lodge. I was telling my lifelong buddy how much fun I was having just exploring. He talked me into doing the main storyline. Playing the game Bethesda wanted you to play is what ruined it for me.

[@RiskOfBaer]

It could be summarized in a single sentence: corporatization and competency crisis in mainstream gaming industry. The goal of a corporation is not to make a good game, but to make a game that is as profitable as possible, which leads to decisions being made that compromise the quality of the end product either directly or indirectly. The competency crisis part is caused by several factors: companies prioritizing hiring cheat workers rather than skilled workers, companies hiring people based on arbitrary factors that have nothing to do with competence, and skilled veterans leaving those companies because they no longer like how they do things. That is it in a nutshell.

[@battlecruiserna]

the goal of a corporation is to make shareholders money, they can do that with a shit game.

[@spyrofreak911]

So I'm not the only one. Yeah I think they had a very wild change in management in-between the development cycles of Skyrim and Fallout 4. This all began after Skyrim. This new minimalist, Ubisoft-like approach Bethesda is trying out. I don't think this is the same Bethesda we knew.

[@battlecruiserna]

@@spyrofreak911 they suddenly got the idea that their games are popular because of them, not because of moddability, so we got a service game fallout that was a trash fire for a long time, and a space game that was poorly made and had no mod tools released for a long time.

[@psyview4188]

Ubisoft went in the last year or so from 80$ Share Value down to 13$ so finaly the players dont play along much longer with the BS from big companys. Now they are forced to give us games that we can enjoy again, also you can see a crazy big rise in the Indiemarket so this is a second factor that good games are better for earning much money. In the moment they blame the gamers but what they expect after saying stuff like in your comment. (the profit over enjoyment was a statment from an Ubisoft CEO when i remember correctly?). I pray they start to learn soon and start to respect the customer.

[@davidfoster2629]

I've never been more disappointed in a game than fallout 4. I'm not saying its the worst game ever, but the delta between my hopes and expectations of what it could/should have been and what it actually was is the biggest in my 30+ years of gaming. I've never played another Bethesda game since than and likely never will. The reason I disagree with your point to some extent is that it just needed even a half decent story instead of a completely uninteresting one with the lamest twist in media history, and it would have been extremely popular. The Minutemen are whatever, but the other 3 factions all suck and in no way make me want to join them. None of them are good enough to make me join them to be the good guy, none are evil enough to make me join them to be the bad guy, they are just there. This greyness may reflect reality but its not fun and there is a reason why books, tv, movies, video games have good and bad guys.

[@Daniel-tx2dg]

Joshua Graham's character as a whole is twice as complex as Strarfield's storytelling

[@DidierWierdsma6335]

Indeed he was and still is but than again Joshua Graham is not a Bethesda character Fallout New Vegas is an absolute masterpiece period. Screw Bethesda. Great comment btw👍

[@elmecaniconaranja1126]

What i love abou honest hearts is that it takes the nihlistic outlook of "War never changes" and it disproves by believing in human will. While Fallout 1 and 2 have a nihilistic and confortmist take on human nature, Honest hearts present you with factions like the sorrows and daniel, that would die before enganging in violence. Joshua having such a background it will convince anyone he is the devil himself does a 180° turn because he wants to, because his will (in his case faith) is a thousand times stronger than what he was willing to do to survive. The whole DLC is a way more realistic aproach to humans than fallout 1 and 2 edgy aproach of "Everyone is bound to an evil nature, whats the point in change". (I still consider fallout 1 and 2 absolute bangers despite its main tones)

[@silver1340]

"Starfield bad" is my favourite genre of KZbin videos. I can't get enough for some reason. I've watched Jessie Gender's that was poetic, Sseth's that was comedic, Captain Mack's that was layered, Doctor Skipper's which was filled with subtle hatred, and now this one that is somewhat leaning toward horror with its "you're in a box" section. It's amazing!

[@AdarinMonk]

Don't forget General Sam's, where he advocates for modders to implement Razor scooters for more movement opportunities!

[@connermccracken5397]

I gotta put you on the star-field bad video ever made. Go look up starfield a quick retrospective by patritiontv

[@synthdriver8817]

You know it's bad when even a game as old as Morrowind seems more polished and content rich than a multi-billion dollar Brand affiliated title. Released fresh in 2023 no less.