Xbox

Not OP, but I'm loving it. 11 hours in and already done a bunch of side quests and exploration. Spent 5 hours or so surveying a planet, building an outpost, and helping some people I came across.

It all feels very engaging and interesting.

Not op either but 52 hours in: my verdict is basically Typical Bethesda Game. For better or worse with all the quirks and jank you'd expect from Bethesda. Bugs are hit and miss for all platforms, I've played only on PC and had 0 crashes anecdotally. Have had some flashing textures, minor physics bugs like with corpses infinitely jittering around if I walk on them. Had my worst bug this AM when I was talking to my companion she wouldn't stop walking forward and eventually was just walking into a wall the entire time while we were talking. Difficulty is basically non-existent below hard unless you do something really stupid like sit in lines of fire or take a shotgun blast to the face.

I've wasted a lot of time pimping my space ship out because despite having some annoying limitations, it's a lot of fun to basically build a spaceship Lego style. Spent a lot of time building outposts to mine resources for upgrades and doing side quests for Freestar Rangers(like a sort of Wild West Themed Police Force) and the UC Vanguard(like your stereotypical starship troopers government outfit where service=citizenship) because MQL can take a while to pick up. Overall the stories are entertaining if a little stream lined.

Graphics are hit and miss for a variety of reasons, I have been both honestly awe'd by some of the wildlife, mechs/robots, and landscapes while also thinking, especially with close ups on faces, how last gen so many of the NPCs look and the jarring perspective of seeing both in the same scenes.

Combat is just...barebones. Like Skyrim with guns. You have jetpacks sure, variety of melee and ranged weaponry, but if you've played any infantry space shooter before you've played the combat in Starfield. It can be fun to come up with strats depending on the scenario like assaulting an outlaw cave versus a space out post or using the landscape to your advantage but ultimately it's just a sort of modern same old same old. You can at least customize your weaponry/armor except for melee weapons(at least so far). Space combat is also decently fun but every ship feels and fights like a space fighter. It makes no sense especially since it kind of defies the sci fi convention, that capital ships don't fight like tiny space craft.

Just the base game would be a 7.5-8/10 for me, random Lemmy user. It is on a base level a pretty good game but there is some real rough edges game design wise that some people may have difficulty looking past, like space combat not being anywhere as open as they claimed and lots of loading screens.

I had my first personal annoyance with this when I had to grav jump(like warp from star trek or light speed from star wars) from system to system manually to "explore" the path ways to the system I had a quest at. I went through 6 silly loading screens just to unlock the path and nothing of any super interest happened RNG event wise.

Seems interesting enough to keep playing. I’m only about 2 hours in since I’ve had the wonderful chance to catch Covid for the first time and have it spread to both my kids.