this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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It’s a little boring, it seemed unfinished at launch, the performance wasn’t great, and the developers have since claimed that it’s the players who have it all wrong. There’s an interesting story in there somewhere but the game is flawed. When the developers are slow to acknowledge the issues and make updates, I think it causes a lot of players to be apathetic about the game.
In contrast, CD Projekt and Hello Games knew their games were bad at launch and kicked things into gear almost immediately. No bullshit excuses and they kept pushing updates until the games were good. Both are pretty much a case study on how to recover from a bad launch.
It took them literally years to make Cyberpunk anywhere near to properly finished and it still doesn’t have a lot of features they promised pre launch. Similarly with No Mans Sky.
Starfield came out 3.5 months ago. It wasn’t great at launch but it was fucken light years better than Cyberpunk. Bethesda have released a coupe of small-ish bugfix updates and have announced plans to release new content from February. So far they’re no worse than the two examples you listed.
I mean, Bethesda's PR response has been much, much worse.
Telling players "actually, the game isn't boring", is not just condescending, but also a dumb way to make sure the conversation about the game is about how boring it is.
And Emilio going on a rant about how people "don't know why the game is the way it is", is not just condescending and unprofessional, but also makes it sound like he is soft admitting the general complaints about it being boring are true.
Also, it doesn't help that the game is kinda boring...
They didn’t meant it “isn’t boring” in the sense that apparently the entire anti-Starfield bandwagoners have taken it. The quote they’re referring to is this:
“when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren't bored”
The point being, whether you agree with them or not, whether you think they succeeded or not, is that the emptiness and scale is supposed to make you feel small in the vast ocean of space.
And an individual feeling butt hurt about negative reviews of the game they have worked on for many many years is hardly surprising. Unprofessional sure but again he wasn’t saying that people’s opinions were wrong, just that the armchair generals were out in force pretending they had any inkling as to what went on during the games development, how much effort went into certain aspects (eg the ever-popular “it isn’t optimized” claim by brainless dorks who just parrot what other brainless dorks have said).
The game is fine. It’s not their best but it is not their worst either. It launched in way way way better shape than FO4, ESO and FO76 at launch. It is playable by most people on PC and consoles, unlike Cyberpunk at launch, and actually has a relatively complete story and endgame, unlike No Mans Sky at launch.
I put in about 70 hours so far but moved on because there were so many other games I wanted to play. I will likely revisit it if they improve things in 2024.
Sure, I get the point about it wanting to make you feel small and what not. But it was still a dumb way to say it, PR speaking. Now all the headlines get to be "Bethesda says game isn't boring". That's not a good way to steer the conversation about your recently released to mixed opinion game.
And Emilio's reaction, regardless of it was surprising, justified, or whatever, is clearly him talking about the games reaction. So saying that people dont know why "it is why it is", it reads like he's trying to distance the conversation from "how it is", which again makes for terrible headlines and also sounds suspiciously like he is conceding that the negativity has merit.
It's cool you like it, you do you. But Bethesda's PR game has been hot garbage.
I wouldn’t say I liked it but I certainly didn’t hate it. It was OK. I’m hopeful they’ll fix it.
The PR has been fine. The reaction from people online, and the click bait headlines some gaming news sites have used, speaks more to their desire to shit on Bethesda because …. Well I don’t know, but I’d say it’s partly because Bethesda deserves a bit of shit, and partly because Microsoft own them and a good percentage of vocal gamers have a massive hate boner for MS.
The fact that Cyberpunk is being compared to Starfield is utterly laughable. That game was in a league of its own at launch. It’s not even close.
knowing bethesda their fixes will not really fix it.
Cyberpunk was really good by the time the 1.5 patch came out. I think it was about a year. No Man’s Sky took at least that long as well. It takes time.
My point is neither one of them tried to defend their poor launches and they sure as hell didn’t say it was the players who just didn’t understand the game. They set to work trying to make it right.
Cyberpunk is one of my favorite games. No Man’s Sky didn’t click for me, but I recognize that it’s a pretty polished game these days.
I think the biggest issue with Starfield is the things they are saying in response to poor reviews and legitimate criticism. It’s not even just bugs. The thing that drove me crazy was the inventory management and menus. You spend so much time on those screens and they are clunky. Here’s a thing that a lot of players have a problem with and the developers defend it as something that works as designed. It’s the same thing with the boring, empty planets, although that one doesn’t bother me so much. The first Mass Effect game was the same way and it was still great.
Cyberpunk 1.5 came out two years and two months after the game launched (yeah I didn’t realise it was that long either until I just looked it up).
I disagree that Bethesda did the things you say they did but I understand your point.
Agreed the inventory is ass. The mod to improve it made a world of difference. I assume Beth were trying to keep it simple but man it is just a turd.
I don’t mind the empty planets but really wish they let you take off and land seamlessly like NMS. That really felt clunky.
What’s the Starfield mod for inventory? I haven’t been playing or really keeping up with the game since launch. I put several hours in and it was interesting, but I figured I would wait until they put some polish into it. I had some stuff in my backlog anyway. If the inventory can be fixed then I’m mostly good to go.
StarUI Inventory on Nexus. Makes a big difference.
I played Cyberpunk with all side-missions at launch, I don’t think it was unfinished.
Sure you did.
Why not?
The game was absolutely not finished, not even close.
While your arguments are convincing, I’m still pretty sure I did, though. As have others, I would suspect.
Good for you for finishing the game but that wasn’t the point I was making and I think you know that. Finishing an unfinished game does not mean the game was finished.
Never said that.
Yes I know what you said, peanut. So either you’re an idiot who decided to drop their meaningless comment in or you’re not an idiot and you know very well that we are talking about the relative states at launch of Starfield, Cyberpunk and No Mans Sky. Just because you finished the game doesn’t mean the game was anywhere near finished, to the extent that it took a further two years of development for them to get it into reasonable shape.
That I finished the game was not evidence either way, it was to give perspective on my opinion. Cyberpunk definitely had its problems (NPC behavior, police, many people reported game-breaking bugs (which I didn’t encounter at all, btw.), unplayability on older consoles…). And finished/polished and so on are obviously matters of semantics. However - while you can disregard my opinion, look at the steam reviews of these three games. Cyberpunk was „mostly positive“ a month after release and „very positive“ within the same year. It took NMS 5 years to get to „mostly“, and it is still sitting there. I would be mildly surprised if Starfield ever gets there again. Pigeonholing these games is unfair.
We’re not talking about whether the game is “fun”, though, which is largely what people are complaining about. Cyberpunk was a fucken mess at launch and was missing plenty of promised features. In comparison Starfield is in significantly better shape performance and stability-wise, even if a lot of people are disappointed in it as a game.
Assuming this hate boner for Starfield dies down (once the next game comes along that the internet decides deserves its wrath) and assuming Bethesda stick to their promise of new content etc in 2024, I think we will indeed see it turn those reviews around.
Edit to add: I think Cyberpunk today is a much better game than Starfield today. If you only played it at launch you missed out on a LOT of improvements.
CDPR and Hello Games didn't come out and say "Fuck you it's SUPPOSED TO be boring, shut up."
So ima have to disagree.