By Claire Lewis on September 27, 2023 at 3:28PM PDT
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/starfield-is-bethesdas-lowest-rated-game-on-steam/1100-6518009/
Starfield–Bethesda’s first new IP in a quarter of a century–has, for the most part, enjoyed a very successful launch. The game hasn’t even been out for a month, but in that timeframe, it has managed to beat Skyrim’s concurrent player count on Steam (with over 1 million concurrent players taking the game for a spin on launch day) and amass over 10 million players. That’s no small feat, and at first glance, it may seem like everyone playing the game is having the time of their life. But Steam reviews tell a slightly different story, with Starfield scoring lower with Steam players than any previous Bethesda game–including Fallout 76, which faced an incredibly rocky launch.
Bethesda hasn’t revealed how many copies of the game have been purchased rather than accessed via Game Pass, making it difficult to compare Starfield’s launch to that of previous Bethesda titles. Still, Steam’s metrics offer a pretty clear picture of the game’s reception, especially since, unlike players making use of Game Pass, anyone playing Starfield on Steam had to shell out the cold, hard cash to buy it, and probably purchased Starfield with the hopes of truly enjoying it. Unfortunately, after taking a peek at the Steam reviews, it seems Starfield has fallen well below the mark for a significant number of players.
Here’s how Starfield’s Steam reviews compare to previous Bethesda titles:
- 2009’s Fallout 3 reviews are 79.07% positive.
- 2011’s wildly popular Skyrim is right behind New Vegas, with 93.88% of user reviews rating it positively.
- 2015’s Fallout 4 earned a respectable 81.90% positive rating among players.
- 2020’s Fallout 76 previously held the record for Bethesda’s lowest-rated game, with 71.76% of Steam user reviews giving it a thumbs-up.
- 2023’s highly anticipated Starfield is currently rated a fraction of a percentage lower than Fallout 76, with only 71.40% of player reviews speaking positively of the game.
Bethesda has garnered a bit of a reputation for releasing games with loads of bugs in them, and while Starfield certainly has a few, it’s arguably the least-buggy title launched by Bethesda in recent memory, and the studio seems to be committed to patching these issues out as quickly as possible. So what gives?
There are a number of potential reasons behind the game’s low score. Some players and internet personalities have been extremely vocal about their distaste for Bethesda’s choice to let players select their own pronouns, which may have affected the game’s rating to some extent. But rather than complaining that they’re being bogged down with bugs, many players are complaining about awkwardly-stiff NPC facial animations, an extremely limited number of romanceable companions, and far too much procedurally generated content that sees immersion broken when players stumble across the same named NPC’s corpse in the same exact spot inside the same exact cave on three different planets. Other complaints include the lack of any sort of codex or compendium to keep track of lore and learn more about the history of the game’s factions, the absence of any ground-side mode of transport (like a rover or alien mount) to make planet exploration less onerous, and, perhaps worst of all, downright painful interstellar dogfights.
While Bethesda’s latest release has certainly fallen short in the eyes of some players, there’s no guarantee that this will remain the case. The studio has a habit of releasing large-scale games that later receive large-scale updates, often including new DLC, new in-game activities, and access to mods for console players. Bethesda clearly has big plans for Starfield, and its Steam user score may improve in the future as more content is added. For now, however, the game is trailing behind Cyberpunk 2077’s concurrent player count on Steam, and 25% of players exploring the galaxy on Xbox have failed to even achieve liftoff. Ultimately, Starfield’s fate will be decided by the actions of its developer, but for the moment, a good amount of Steam players seem to agree that the studio’s choice to lean on procedural generation has resulted in a game that feels like it’s a mile wide, but an inch deep.
Except Steam scores a binary - like it or don’t - and the overall score is just what percentage is positive vs negative. You can’t rate one or other, just whether you liked each game.
But Gamespot have gone too soon with their reporting, picking a time when the scores are still in flux. Fallout 76 is 72% positive, while Starfield is 75%. And Fallout 76 certainly wasn;t 72% positive at launch. It’s not a fair comparison and is a nonsense story.
I think it’d be even lower if it wasn’t a binary choice. You’d have to feel more than 50% negatively to rate it badly but without that, people who like it only say… 60% positively would drop the score lower than it is.
Starfield, unfortunately, has turned out to be the most bland game they’ve released. It feels like they tried to do Obsidian’s Outer Worlds without campy symbolism Fallout is known for. The systems are there but nothing feels fleshed out. They have perks but they’re static number increases locked behind a level up and a challenge. They have piracy but it’s a percentage chance and a roll of the dice.
Everything exists for the sole purpose to be overhauled by modders and while that’s what they do best, it’s kind of sickening to see them embrace it. They used to at least put paint on the canvas but now we’re getting rough sketches and are being told to wait for better artists to color it in.
I also felt like The Outer Worlds was pretty bland, tbh.
The camp seemed cheap and forced.
Starfield is similarly half fleshed out, I agree.
The Outer Worlds was indeed also bland but it had a little more style to it. The “Spacer’s Choice” and associated mascots was an obvious nod to vault-boy and the same kind of vibe. Starfield just… has none of it. Like a different publisher took the engine for a spin without knowing what made previous titles so engaging.