As you may know, Bethesda’s Starfield is a game about exploring space. In its universe, an environmental disaster has made Earth unihabitable, forcing humanity to settle among the stars. But the bulk of the universe remains unexplored and uncolonized, which is where you, the player, come in.
Naturally, Starfield’s main quest and side content is built around this theme of exploration. You’ll trek across the galaxy surveying planets, scanning minerals, and building outposts. Most of this exploration is optional — but the main quest necessitates answering the age-old question: What’s out there?
And yet, Starfield’s gameplay designers seem to have forgotten what makes exploration fun. Because they’ve literally copy-and-pasted environments and levels to assemble the main quest.
At about the mid-point of Starfield’s main story, you’re tasked with finding mysterious temples scattered across the stars. But unlike the other story missions that take place across varied locales, these temples are identical. And while each grants you a new power, attaining that power always involves solving a simple, predictable puzzle. They’re all the same — and across all twenty-plus I’ve discovered, they never change.
This is especially strange because Bethesda have done better before. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, upon receiving a new power (shout), the game asks you to prove you understand its use with a quick challenge. For example, you can’t progress the Greybeards quest until you’ve used your “Fus Ro” power. And later on, a dungeon requires you to use the “Whirlwind Sprint” power to advance.
Meanwhile, Starfield’s temple puzzles test your ability to float in zero-g — a task that a kindergartener could complete. Again. And again. And again.
It’s painfully predicable. And in being predictable, there’s no sense of discovery. And that is the antithesis of what Starfield is all about.
I can only assume Starfield‘s designers were rushed to finish this aspect of the game. There’s no other explanation. And there’s no excuse.
Byte-Sized Worlds 