This will be the first Bethesda game I don't purchase on day one, and it's entirely due to my direct experience with Fallout 76's state at launch. Look, I love their games, weird Bethesda Jank (tm) and all. 
But I would like to hold out until the game's had a couple weeks or so to percolate any major release problems to the surface and be addressed.
What's not in question is whether I will pick this up and enjoy it -- I watched merely enough of that gameplay reveal presentation to know that yeah, this is all up in my wheelhouse and pretty much just an evolution of Elder Scrolls / Fallout in a realistic-ish sci-fi space setting, which is really all I wanted from the game.
Thumbs up to the ship designer and space combat.
Bethesda games are completely dead to me at this point. Fallout 4 killed them, and Fallout 76 just confirmed the corpse was indeed rotting.
I watched the Starfield reveal to see if a completely new IP and setting might spur things in a different direction and give me a reason to be interested again, but instead I was shocked that they actually showed off some of the world's most stunted first-person shooter combat.
The only thing that looked sorta cool was the ship building, but not cool enough to play instead of a dedicated space game that inevitably does the space combat part better.
Possibly the game will surprise when it comes out. But I expect it will be one of those AAA games that gets high review scores because it's so "big", but ultimately loses most of its excitement after the initial shock and awe wears off. Kinda like how nobody talks about Fallout 4 unless making an "another stupid settlement needs your help" reference.
Starfield Pre-Order Might Be Starting Up, Steam Page Updated
So if I'm a GamePass subscriber, do I need to buy this or will I be able to rely that this will be on GamePass for a while?
Starfield Pre-Order Might Be Starting Up, Steam Page Updated
So if I'm a GamePass subscriber, do I need to buy this or will I be able to rely that this will be on GamePass for a while?
This will be Day 1 on Game Pass, both PC and console. They own Bethesda so it will be there for the long haul.
This is a better fit
Get Ready for the Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct Double Feature Airing June 11
We’re delighted to announce that the Xbox Games Showcase will be livestreamed on June 11 at 10am PT (local time zones below). Immediately after the Showcase, we’ll be airing Starfield Direct, a deep-dive into Bethesda Game Studios’ highly anticipated sci-fi RPG.Join us for some new surprises and first-looks from our incredibly talented internal studios, and our many creative partners around the world. This is the day gamers have been waiting for to see what is coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass.
Starfield Direct will invite you inside Bethesda Game Studios to learn much, much more about Starfield, with tons of new gameplay, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes insider information.
Like last year, we’ll also have our follow-up stream, Xbox Games Showcase Extended airing June 13 at 10am PT, with in-depth interviews focused on the news from our Xbox Games Showcase as well as game updates from our partners.
Today's the day!
So I've just sat and watched the Starfield presentation from today. I am deeply, seriously impressed with how much they have straight up copied from No Man's Sky, while at the same time also being deeply and surprisingly impressed with what they showed. It does look like everything I would like a space game to be, although whether or not it can live up to that is anyone's guess.
I won't be pre-ordering and I suspect I'll be too busy into Baldur's Gate 3 to play it on release, but it's certainly jumped on to my "going to buy this year" list.
Yeah, I didn't see anything that specifically put me off, and I'm a huge fan of the main two (three, now?) Bethesda RPGs, so this will be hard for me to turn down. Baldur's Gate 3 will have to wait, for me 
Edit: Apart from the Superfan...
I’m so happy the Adoring Fan is back 
I’m very hyped for this. It reminded me a lot of Mass Effect 1 in terms of tone. It’s nice to be excited for a Bethesda game again.
So we decided to make every game in one game.
I hope we can make a trade empire if we can make outposts that generate resources.
I will try on gamepass but as this point I wouldn't buy it yet.
K, I watched the Starfield video and I’m sorry, I kept thinking, “I can already do much, if not all of that in SpaceBourne II, it’s just not as pretty.”
It’s for the people like me who thought SpaceBourne was a made up name til we googled it
Goddamnit, please somehow be the first Bethesda game that's actually as good as the promise of its marketing suggests it could be.
Like, seriously, I love the hell out of (most) of their games, but they are still all ultimately Bethesda-ass Bethesda games, with ALL the same good and bad things that implies.
Please let this one just be full on f*cking mindblowingly good.
Hell, I'll even forgive weak or non existent HOTAS support and space combat feel if the rest can just be good. (Granted, I'll be much happier if I DO also get something that feels as good with my flight controls as, say, Everspace 2 or whatever.)
FYI 20% off pre-purchase from Green Man Gaming.
Looks great but also like every other Bethesda game in many ways. Not that the formula is bad so I am not unhappy.
I will say I am tired of the "technology has finally reached the point where we can do this game" speech. I heard it with Elder Scrolls Daggerfall, and again with Oblivion, and another dozen times over the decades. It is just meaningless market speech.
One thing they didn't show was a commerce system. They talked a bit about it having one but will it some something like Privateer 2 where I can work routes and deliveries to get better stuff? Will it have that kind of economy?
FYI 20% off pre-purchase from Green Man Gaming.
Which is good news, since apparently it's $120 AUD on Steam over here. Ouch.
FYI 20% off pre-purchase from Green Man Gaming.
Thanks! I frequently forget to check if they have a decent discount going on.
Crawley wrote:FYI 20% off pre-purchase from Green Man Gaming.
Which is good news, since apparently it's $120 AUD on Steam over here. Ouch.
Is that standard or collector's edition?
Is that standard or collector's edition?
Standard. The Digital Premium is $170 AUD.
or just free on gamepass...
Included. Sorry to be that guy. Gamepass and other subscription services (Prime I’m looking at you) try to lull the consumer to think things are free when they are actually paid for in part. Dad of a teenager and a teacher so forgive my impulses to comment.
Included. Sorry to be that guy. Gamepass and other subscription services (Prime I’m looking at you) try to lull the consumer to think things are free when they are actually paid for in part. Dad of a teenager and a teacher so forgive my impulses to comment.
No lulling, I think everyone knows or should know how services work. You pay for the service and get what they offer...
I also think it's very important to note that Bethesda has done f*ck all to deserve money to be directed right to them. If they had their way this game would've been released in the sh*tty 30fps state we saw last year. It was only from MS being the parent in the room that forced them to improve on what they had. If this wasn't on gamepass this would end up being one of the first games, I'm interested in that I would pass on preordering or buying at launch.
I also think it's very important to note that Bethesda has done f*ck all to deserve money to be directed right to them. If they had their way this game would've been released in the sh*tty 30fps state we saw last year. It was only from MS being the parent in the room that forced them to improve on what they had. If this wasn't on gamepass this would end up being one of the first games, I'm interested in that I would pass on preordering or buying at launch.
Citation needed. Microsoft ain't the adult in anyone's room, it's corporations all the way down.
If Bethesda keep making Bethesda games, I'll keep buying them, although I might grumble about the price. Ultimately it feels less harsh knowing I'll almost certainly hit triple digits of hours in this unless it fumbles the ball in a major way. I have Game Pass now, but I definitely want to own this (as far as you can own anything digitally these days). I'm still playing Skyrim to this day, and I don't want Game Pass to be mandatory for me to be doing that with Starfield 10 years from now.
Oof.
Citation is the drastic improvement we saw in the showcase today compared to what we saw last year. Yes, console is locked at 30, but last year's showcase showed they couldn't even handle that. The textures were completely trash and the pop in was horrible. Bethesda's history up to now was that they would not improve things like this before launch. This is a track record proven out by decades of titles. They get bought by MS and they changed the way they do things is an obvious sign that MS's purchase was worth that change alone.
What we saw today looked like a current game. Not just in systems, but in performance.
I think I bought my Series X with the All Access thing in August 2021, so I'm going to need to decide if I keep it up or not. I haven't been playing my Xbox very much, since I've been more into colony sims and puzzle games on PC recently. I loved Skyrim and Fallout 3 / New Vegas, but couldn't really get into Fallout 4, so I dunno.
I think having a crew on the ship might make it somewhat different from the similar games, and make feel more Mass Effect-y, but I think the sense of lore and place will make the difference here. It's funny, but when I consider a version of Starfield in the Mass Effect universe, it immediately becomes 200% more interesting to me, just because I want to see a space game where there's a bunch of other spacefaring alien cultures and political entities and lots of cultural mixing, rather than just humans in space. The procedural aspect worries me too - I think it creates flavourless spaces. I might have to wait and see for reviews.
The procedural aspect worries me too - I think it creates flavourless spaces. I might have to wait and see for reviews.
Yeah, I prefer smaller, denser, bespoke places to explore. And the problem for me with space games is most of space is, well, empty. To keep me interested you have to abstract it away, but if you go too far with it, there's no meaningful geography and relations between locations cease to matter. It'll be interesting to see how they manage it.
Starfield is going to be locked to 30fps on consoles.
Many of my all time favorite games on console were locked at 30 fps. A game like this won’t die because of frame rate. Gameplay will be key
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