The day Starfield finally dropped, I took a vacation day. Seriously. After a decade-plus of waiting, wild speculation, and Todd Howard promises that somehow managed to both excite and trigger my skepticism simultaneously, I wasn’t about to squeeze my first interstellar journey between work emails and Zoom calls. My fridge was stocked with enough energy drinks to give a cardiologist nightmares, my phone was on Do Not Disturb, and my girlfriend had been thoroughly warned that unless the apartment was actively on fire, I was not to be disturbed. In retrospect, maybe I set my expectations a tad high.
Those first few hours were genuinely magical though. Character creation in Bethesda games has always been a weirdly meaningful ritual for me, and Starfield’s system had me tweaking cheekbones and debating backstories for an embarrassingly long time. I settled on a space explorer with a background in xenobiology—a hopeful scientist type who’d put points into scanning and research rather than combat. Seemed fitting for humanity’s big push into the stars. My character looked nothing like me, but somehow felt like me, if that makes any sense. That’s always been Bethesda’s special sauce—creating a blank slate that somehow still feels personal.
The introduction had me hooked. That first artifact, the strange visions, the mysterious Constellation group recruiting me—it all promised a space adventure with the kind of narrative depth I’d been craving. Jumping into my first spaceship gave me actual goosebumps. As the engines fired up and the planet fell away beneath me, I felt that rare gaming emotion of genuine wonder. Maybe it’s because I grew up watching Star Trek with my dad, or maybe it’s because space exploration hits some primal human curiosity button, but that moment of breaking atmosphere for the first time was everything I’d hoped for.
Then I landed on my first procedurally generated planet, and reality began its slow, inevitable intrusion into my fantasy.
Starfield procedural generation planet variety is simultaneously impressive and disappointing. The tech behind generating 1,000+ planets with different atmospheres, gravity, flora and fauna is genuinely remarkable. I’ve landed on frozen wastelands where my visor immediately frosted over, acid-rain hellscapes that corroded my equipment, and lush jungle worlds teeming with bizarre alien creatures. The sheer scope is mind-boggling. But after visiting maybe thirty of these worlds, the limitations became impossible to ignore. The same rock formations started appearing, the same building layouts, the same resource deposits. Procedural generation can create quantity, but it struggles with meaningful variety.
I spent one entire weekend just building my ideal spaceship. The Starfield ship building component system is far deeper than I expected, almost a game within the game. My first attempts were functional but ugly—mismatched parts cobbled together like some kind of space junkyard creation. By my third ship (affectionately named “Mid-Life Crisis III”), I’d learned enough about power distribution, shield configurations, and weapon placements to create something that both looked badass and could handle itself in a fight. Flying a ship I’d built from scratch through an asteroid field while pirates tried to turn me into cosmic dust was a genuine thrill.
Combat itself felt solid if not revolutionary. The anti-gravity gameplay added an interesting wrinkle, but firefights generally boiled down to the familiar Bethesda formula of backpedaling while emptying magazines into advancing enemies. Zero-G sections were a welcome change of pace, though I embarrassingly spent my first spacewalk drifting helplessly away from a research station because I couldn’t figure out the thrusters. My girlfriend, who had wandered in with a cup of coffee during this debacle, simply shook her head and muttered something about regretting her romantic choices.
The Starfield Constellation main quest analysis that I’d expected to write in my head as I played was… complicated. The core mystery of the artifacts and the “power to change everything” started strong, asking big questions about humanity’s place in the universe. Some moments genuinely surprised me—a mid-game twist I won’t spoil here had me texting my friend Tom at 1 AM with “DUDE WHAT JUST HAPPENED???” But the pacing felt off, with too many fetch quests padding out what should have been a tighter narrative. By the time I reached the final revelation, I felt both impressed by the ambition and slightly let down by the execution. It’s like Bethesda had the ingredients for an all-time great sci-fi story but slightly overcooked it.
The faction storylines provided some of my favorite content. The UC Vanguard missions satisfied my militaristic side, while the Freestar Collective’s space western vibes let me live out my Firefly fantasies. Each faction had distinct personalities and ideologies that felt believable in this universe of competing human interests among the stars. The Crimson Fleet storyline in particular offered some genuinely thorny moral choices that had me staring at dialogue options for uncomfortably long periods. One late-night decision about whether to betray an NPC I’d grown attached to actually had me pacing around my living room, weighing options like they had real consequences.
Starfield skill tree progression paths allowed for satisfying character development, though the gating of certain abilities behind specific ranks occasionally frustrated me. My scientist build eventually morphed into more of a diplomatic scavenger who talked his way out of trouble and could crack any lock in the galaxy. When I encountered my first truly difficult combat scenario—an ambush in an abandoned research facility—I realized I’d perhaps neglected my weapon skills a bit too enthusiastically. What followed was a comical sequence of me frantically pausing to consume every healing item in my inventory while my companion (thankfully more combat-focused than me) did the actual fighting. “Some space hero,” I muttered to myself.
The Starfield companion character storylines provided some of the game’s most human moments. Sarah Morgan’s personal journey dealing with loss and finding purpose resonated with me in unexpected ways. Building relationships with these digital people over dozens of hours created genuine attachment. When one companion (avoiding spoilers) faced a life-or-death situation because of a choice I made, I actually reloaded a save from two hours earlier to prevent it—something I almost never do in games. Their personal quests often felt more cohesive and emotionally satisfying than the main storyline, perhaps because they operated on a more intimate scale.
One technical aspect that fascinated me was the Starfield loading screen disguise techniques. Those elevator rides and airlock sequences? Cleverly masked loading screens, of course. But unlike many games that force you to watch a static image or a spinning icon, Starfield keeps you in the game world during these transitions. It’s a small detail that significantly enhances immersion. I found myself appreciating these moments of quiet before stepping into a new environment, using them to check my inventory or just take a quick sip of my perpetually present energy drink. The seamlessness (or illusion thereof) between planet surfaces, space, and interiors represents a genuine evolution from the loading doors of Skyrim.
The inevitable Starfield versus No Man’s Sky comparison dominated many of my gaming group discussions. Both promise a vast universe to explore, but they approach that promise differently. Where No Man’s Sky now excels at emergent sandbox adventures after years of updates, Starfield delivers a more directed, story-driven experience within its procedural playground. I found myself appreciating both for different reasons—No Man’s Sky for pure exploratory freedom, Starfield for giving that exploration narrative context. The games actually complement each other nicely, though I’m not sure my sleep schedule could handle being actively invested in both simultaneously.
Starfield New Game Plus transcendence caught me completely off guard. Without spoiling the specifics, the way the game contextualizes starting over within its narrative framework is genuinely clever. It transformed what could have been a standard gameplay mechanic into a thought-provoking extension of the main themes. My second character—a ruthless mercenary type focused entirely on combat and intimidation—experienced the same events from a radically different perspective, making choices that horrified my original character’s sensibilities. The fact that this contrast was acknowledged within the game’s structure felt like Bethesda at its most narratively ambitious.
The mod potential future enhancements for Starfield have me excited despite some of my criticisms. Bethesda games have always been platforms as much as products, with community creators expanding and refining the experience over years. I’m already running a few basic quality-of-life mods, but the really transformative stuff is still on the horizon. If Skyrim’s modding scene is any indication, we’ll eventually see everything from total conversions that transform the game into different sci-fi universes to detailed expansion-sized content that adds entirely new solar systems. My modding wishlist already includes better planetary ecology variation and deeper ship crew management systems.
After 120+ hours (don’t judge me), I’ve settled into a complicated relationship with Starfield. It didn’t quite reach the transcendent heights its marketing promised, but it delivered something I’ve sunk more hours into than any other game this year. Its universe feels authentically lived-in, with environmental storytelling that rewards curiosity. Finding an abandoned outpost with audio logs detailing a doomed expedition or stumbling across a breathtaking vista on an uncharted moon can still give me that sense of discovery that’s becoming increasingly rare in my jaded gaming middle age.
Starfield’s greatest success might be how it handles scale—both cosmic and personal. Standing on a planet’s surface, watching twin moons rise while my ship sits silhouetted against alien constellations, I feel appropriately small. But the game also zooms in on human stories amidst this vastness—family tensions, political rivalries, personal redemptions. This balance between the infinite and the intimate is where Starfield shines brightest.
Ultimately, I think my initial vacation day was both warranted and slightly misplaced. Starfield isn’t the kind of immediate, mind-blowing experience that demands uninterrupted initial attention. It’s more of a slow-burning relationship, a game that gradually reveals its depth over dozens of hours. Some nights I log in just to fly between stars, scanning new planets and listening to the excellent ambient soundtrack, not even pursuing any particular quest. Other sessions involve intense story missions that advance the narrative in meaningful ways. This duality makes it hard to definitively answer whether it lived up to the hype—it both did and didn’t, depending on what aspects of that hype resonated with you.
Maybe that’s the most Bethesda thing about it. Like their other worlds, it’s a flawed masterpiece—a game of incredible ambition that doesn’t quite nail every element but creates something greater than the sum of its parts. As I write this, my ship is parked above an unexplored planet with interesting resource readings, my quest log is overstuffed with potential adventures, and despite my occasional frustrations, I’m already planning tonight’s session. If that’s not a success, I don’t know what is.
