I’ve been playing Starfield. At this point I have nearly 150 hours in the game. Without spoilers, or at least not many, I want to tell you what I found in this game.
The game starts out (so this isn’t much of a spoiler) with you riding a mineshaft elevator down to the current active portion of the mine. This is the equivalent of the Skyrim, “Hey, You! You’re finally awake” moment. You’re introduced to some of the game mechanics and then taken to the character creation screen, where you chose the starting attributes. This is where the infamous pronouns part is. When you are done creating the character and giving them a name, you’re given an opportunity to change the default pronouns that might be used (though I’ve never noticed a point where they are used, or maybe I missed them because it just worked). I think Bethesda did a decent job with the Character Creation. They aren’t photoreal humans, but they’re better than previous Bethesda games.
The game quickly takes you into the start of the main questline, which I won’t describe to avoid spoilers. It’s a relatively short main “quest.” Taking maybe 20 hours if you concentrate on it (this is relatively short – compared to all the quests and task the game can offer). The real meat of the game are the side quests though. I recommend doing the side quests first. Perhaps you will join the Vanguard, or the UC System Defense. There are many other choices. There are starship battles, beast hunting, and many other challenges to chose or avoid. Be prepared for adventure, romance, possible heartbreak, and some pretty deep moments if you play it right.
There are also opportunities to improve your weapons, your vehicles, your clothing, and your skills. This is a Bethesda RPG game after all. It’s worth playing. It probably isn’t really “Game of the Year” material, but it is a good game.
Some call the game boring. I have to say they aren’t trying very hard to find excitement. You get out of the game what you put in. It does have flaws, though. It has crashed three or four times in the 150 hours I’ve played. Some game design choices are still rough around the edges. Something particularly standing out – many of the sets, the equivalent of the Skyrim dungeons are reused several times, though the enemy might change. If you aren’t paying attention, you can end up in “Grind” mode and not really getting the most from the game. Some key ideas are not obvious until you’ve been playing it a while, and that can leave you confused about what to do. Ironically, there are times it seems to hold your hand too much (or like the game is on rails, though it isn’t really). You will have plenty of choices.
The end of that main quest is quite epic, and depending on the choices you make during your play through, deep and meaningful. If you have an Xbox and have Game Pass, give it a try. But beware – you’re loose hours, days and maybe even weeks because you’ll be so focused on the game and won’t even notice you missed dinner, maybe several dinners.