On one hand, I kinda understand why people in general, not just game devs, try and implement the “bigger is better” idea. It’s easy, and all you really need to do is, theoretically, be “bigger” than the competition.
Problem here is that the closest competition to Starfeild is No Man’s Sky, despite not being in the same genre (I’ve seen the same thing being asked in so many reviews: “What does Starfield do that NMS doesn’t?” Like, even plotwise. I didn’t even know NMS had a plot TBH). And Bethesda decided to (intentionally or otherwise) ape NMS, not realizing that procedural generation worked in NMS because for one, it’s a survivalcraft at heart while Starfeild isn’t, and because the five main compents of that game are…well, solidly made, and tie INTO the galaxy being procedurally generated (especially the survival and building aspect) instead of it being tacked on for the “wow factor”. Nowadays, i mean. On release tho…gonna assume you could have easily made that argument.
Meanwhile, Starfield’s galaxy is procedurally generated because…the player apparently needs a buffet of locations to explore to kill/rack up time rather than a handful of them with actually handcrafted touches and purpose divided into star systems (so they can get the space Odyssey vibe the game is trying to go with) or something, kinda like the way Mass Effect 2’s map was.
On one hand, I kinda understand why people in general, not just game devs, try and implement the “bigger is better” idea. It’s easy, and all you really need to do is, theoretically, be “bigger” than the competition.
Problem here is that the closest competition to Starfeild is No Man’s Sky, despite not being in the same genre (I’ve seen the same thing being asked in so many reviews: “What does Starfield do that NMS doesn’t?” Like, even plotwise. I didn’t even know NMS had a plot TBH). And Bethesda decided to (intentionally or otherwise) ape NMS, not realizing that procedural generation worked in NMS because for one, it’s a survivalcraft at heart while Starfeild isn’t, and because the five main compents of that game are…well, solidly made, and tie INTO the galaxy being procedurally generated (especially the survival and building aspect) instead of it being tacked on for the “wow factor”. Nowadays, i mean. On release tho…gonna assume you could have easily made that argument.
Meanwhile, Starfield’s galaxy is procedurally generated because…the player apparently needs a buffet of locations to explore to kill/rack up time rather than a handful of them with actually handcrafted touches and purpose divided into star systems (so they can get the space Odyssey vibe the game is trying to go with) or something, kinda like the way Mass Effect 2’s map was.