TA Playlist Wrap-Up – Starfield
For all, into the Starfield…
Traditionally, the TA Playlist poll for December acts as a sort of “best of the year” in some category of games. 2023 was an amazing year for video games, with huge new releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, Diablo IV, Hogwarts Legacy, and many more, so we decided to limit the fields to games that were available on Game Pass, and also games that were not sequels or new entries in existing franchises – essentially, brand-new IPs that launched on Game Pass in 2023.
Our four nominees included surprise Game Pass sensation Hi-Fi RUSH, indie RPG Sea of Stars, and fairy-tale soulslike Lies of P, but while those three battled it out in a tight contest for second place, one game blasted off like a rocket and left the others far behind. The winner of the December 2023 TA Playlist poll was open-world space RPG Starfield.
Billed as “The first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios,” the concept of a Bethesda-style RPG in a space setting had been kicked around at the studio for years, although active development didn’t begin in earnest until after the release of Fallout 4 in November 2015. Starfield became one of the most highly-anticipated games of all time prior to its release, and, thanks to Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax Media, it launched straight into Xbox Game Pass on September 6, 2023, as an Xbox and PC exclusive.
Starfield is set in the mid-24th century, in a future where humanity was forced to abandon a dying Earth and settle among the stars. The United Colonies, headquartered in the Alpha Centauri system, served as humanity’s first government in the Settled Systems, but other factions, such as the Freestar Collective and House Va’ruun, have split away from the UC and carved out territories of their own.
Be warned, we’re entering some minor spoiler territory ahead. The game opens with your character working in a mining colony, heading down into some caves to search for the source of a strange energy reading. You find a strange piece of metal embedded in the rock, but when you try to retrieve it, a flash of lights and music knocks you unconscious.
When you come to, things start to get interesting. A ship arrives to claim the strange object you found, but before the transaction is completed, space pirates known as the Crimson Fleet attack the colony. After fending off the attack, the captain of the ship, Barrett, instructs you to take his ship and return the artifact to Constellation – a famous group of galactic explorers based in New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies.
Arriving at Constellation’s headquarters, the Lodge, you’re greeted by the current members of the group, led by Sarah Morgan. They explain that the object you found – which they simply call “the Artifact” – is a part of some alien construct, which may be one of the last great mysteries for humanity to explore.
Joining Constellation and tracking down the remaining Artifacts will lead you down the main quest line and eventually into a New Game+ mode, which is perhaps one of Starfield’s biggest innovations over Bethesda’s previous games (although we won’t go into that in too much detail to avoid too many spoilers). But the main quest is only scratching the surface, as you can also enlist with the United Colonies Vanguard, become a deputy in the Freestar Collective, join the Crimson Fleet pirates, or take a job with Riyujin Industries, each with their own stories and quests.
SentientBot said:
Some of the storylines were fantastic. I loved the shock through the first playthrough and then the meta-commentary you get as you pay attention to your own behaviors in a new game plus.
I loved designing my ships – especially capturing something new with parts I couldn’t buy myself. It made each construction feel unique. I am really looking forward to new parts and the ability to control the inner doors better in the future. Definitely one of my top two Bethesda games.
While the main storyline and faction missions offer a lot of content, it’s also quite possible to spend a lot of time in Starfield without doing any quests at all. In typical Bethesda RPG fashion, you’re pretty much free to go anywhere and explore everything that the game has to offer, so if you’d rather focus on other tasks, there’s a lot to do.
BPBPBPBPBPBPBP said:
There are over 1,000 planets to check out in the game – and yes, someone has visited all of them – and most of them have at least one or two interesting things to explore, in addition to scanning for native flora, fauna, and resources which can be used to build outposts or upgrade your ship and equipment.
wildwest08 said:
This game was exactly what I wanted it to be, and I enjoyed my time with it. I love space exploration, and I had fun upgrading my ship. Visiting each planet was a lot of fun, seeing the plants and animals. I get the criticism of the game, and it isn’t perfect, but it was a blast to play. Hopefully, the quality of life improvements will make the game even better
For some, however, the “interesting” parts of the game were a bit too few and far between. One of the major criticisms Starfield has faced is that many of the planets are sparsely populated, requiring you to either spend a lot of time shlepping across the surface on foot or fast-traveling back to your ship (loading screen), taking off (loading screen), and then choosing another spot to land (loading screen) and exiting the ship (loading screen).
Shadowclast said:
The exploration wasn’t rewarding. I spent plenty of time wandering from cavern to cavern on Skyrim, and let’s face it, all those caves were the same-ish, but it felt more connected. I like the story and the companions and thought the idea of multiple universes and cycles was really interesting, although it might have been better in a shorter game.
BigBanjo K said:
This game is just No Man’s Sky with an attempt at a Story. Fly to empty planet, scan for Resources, maybe some alien animals and plants, leave. Even the ending is mostly the same idea. Fly through a Hole and end up in a new universe. Despite what Bethesda is trying to convince people the game is absolutely boring outside the story.
In addition to exploration, Starfield also offers the opportunity to try your hand at building your own outposts and ships. While people generally liked the starship designer (especially on PC, where mods quickly allowed people to recreate iconic ships from other sci-fi franchises), outposts don’t seem to hold the same appeal.
Trombonafide said:
Like all Bethesda games, the majority of my time in Starfield was spent just wandering around doing random tasks. I tried to get really into building a network of outposts to mine resources, but in the end, it seemed kind of pointless because there’s rarely a time you’ll need them in the quantities an outpost will produce.
jimbobvaquero said:
I put over 100 hours into it. Beat the main story. Never touched the base building and did just a tiny sliver of any sort of crafting at all. I enjoyed my time, but I really haven’t gone back. I will eventually to finish up the achievements. I get the complaints, and I get the love for it.
To say that the reception to the game was “mixed” would be an understatement. Many people immediately praised it as Game of the Year material, while others started review-bombing it with 0.0 scores on Metacritic as soon as it launched. We had a little of each in the forums this month:
VOODOO85 said:
I had great fun with this and put ~ 180hrs into it for the full 1000G. My personal GOTY for 2023 (but I haven’t played too many 2023 releases)
VirtuMint said:
Superficially impressive, but ultimately boring horseshit. As picture-perfect a metaphor for anything that Bethesda has knocked out for years as you could ever come across.
As usual, reality probably lies somewhere in between. While Starfield has been a huge hit, reaching over 13 million players by the end of the year and being voted as the TrueAchievements 2023 Game of the Year, it’s probably fair to say that it didn’t live up to a lot of people’s expectations, given the long build-up to the game’s release.
Rinckenstock said:
Very good game but not quite enough to live up to the massive hype it had
Disturbed Shawn said:
I overhyped myself for Starfield, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as games like Oblivion/Skyrim. I really liked those Ryujin stealth missions, though, except when my companion would ruin the stealth and start blasting enemies.
Hachibi33 said:
It’s quite a good game, but we were waiting too much, and they underdelivered IMO. The engine needs to be reworked, if TESVI uses it it’s going to be a shame. I still had a lot of fun (except to go to lvl 100) and didn’t encounter that many bugs.
This idea that Starfield didn’t do enough to advance the Bethesda RPG formula is one of the more common criticisms we saw:
Jeffchob said:
I really enjoyed this game at first, but as it’s basically like all other Bethesda games before it (but this time in space rather than a nuclear wasteland / Nordic dragon land), my interest started to wane, and I haven’t picked it up in weeks…
dygital angel said:
I got really excited for Fallout 4 and was disappointed in how little it had changed from 3 (plus, I really hated how the base building worked). So, I went in with steady expectations for Starfield and found it very enjoyable.
Shadowclast said:
I didn’t follow any of the game’s marketing, so I didn’t really have any expectations. It feels like Fallout in Space with more menus, which takes a bit of getting used to. With the large gaps between games, you would think that Bethesda would make larger strides in modernising the formula, there is a lot of game here so I think you can not like every part of it and still have a really good 20+ hour playtime.
I think Shadowclast’s last point in the above paragraph is an important one. In a big, open-world RPG like this, there’s an awful lot to do, so it’s certainly possible to find parts of the game that you enjoy, even if there are other aspects you don’t like. However, none of that matters if you don’t get to those parts of the game at all, and one of the criticisms of this game is that it starts off too slowly, allowing players to get bored and quit before they see all that the game has to offer.
TymanTheLong said:
In short, Starfield had a terrible opening few hours where very little of note happened. Seriously, the much-maligned Redfall had a far, far better opening and still didn’t qualify as outstanding or anything. 3 hours to kill some pirates and get told “you’re special” is dumb. I can’t speak to empty planets or anything else because why would I keep playing after 3 hours of boredom?! […]
The menus/UI is terrible. It’s okay to go with a retro font, but user design needs to be less “whatever works” than this. The whole thing smacks of being rushed, like the first pass of anything like the tutorial/game opening and UI was good enough and never revisited.
Anyway, for those who found joy in Starfield I’m not saying you’re wrong, what I am saying is Starfield clearly had none of the polish it needed so gamers like me bounced right off. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that disappointing after all that hype.
However, there were some gamers who, after initially dropping the game, went back for another try and found themselves hooked:
TrevtheGeek said:
I uninstalled Starfield after four hours of playing it. During a week of annual leave, I thought I’d give it another whirl. I’m now on my fourth playthrough and find the more I play, the more I enjoy it. Level 82 right now, and I hope to get to level 100 later in the month for the remaining achievement.
PeriodicRx said:
I changed my mind and decided to pop an achievement in the list on Dec 30th. Ended up playing for most of the weekend. I have to say that the world is very well done. Visuals are really beautiful in most cases. The environments on the planets I have been to have been pretty gray and bleak. But I suppose that is by design, as most known worlds outside of Earth are pretty gray and bleak.
I think this is pretty standard RPG fare with sprawling worlds and quests/missions that seem to run you all over the map and into different zones for no good reason. […] I’m enjoying the experience despite its flaws and find the stories in the main/faction mission lines to be interesting and engaging. I enjoy all the attention to detail in outfits, spacesuits, and weapons as they change due to upgrades.
This article may seem to be focusing a bit more on the negatives than usual, but even though there were legitimate criticisms about the game, the TA Playlist forums were surprisingly civil and generally pretty positive throughout the month of December. We didn’t have any console warriors popping in just to bash the game mercilessly, and many of those who said they enjoyed the game still offered more nuanced takes, praising some aspects of the game while criticizing others.
Spa1h said:
[… M]any of the side missions are pretty interesting, and also the influence from player background towards quests is great (parents FTW!)
Unfortunately, there are many immersion-breaking moments and inappropriate reactions to certain events. It could have been so much better, I see potentials everywhere. At times I felt a lot of frustration while playing.
For example acquiring your (mostly useless) “powers”, which is 20 times the same 15 minutes of finding the temple (entrance door), flying through some energy orbs and kill of a Starborn in the end. Bethesda, why couldn’t you do a small trial to introduce the power properly like other games do?
Why do you need to grind dozens of hours of materials and skill points to finally be able to build a proper outpost and ship, because most crafting options are far down in the skill tree? Bethesda, which intern let you decide this???
But still the game is not bad, it’s entertaining and if you overlook the flaws and cover the logic holes with imagination it has many moments to remember.
Achakai said:
I enjoyed it. It is a flawed game, but I had fun.
It feels like we don’t have as many options to solve a quest as previous Bethesda games had. […] I didn’t like that all the main companions are lawful good. I don’t generally play straight-up evil, but sometimes the evil option is fun […]. I just wanted a companion that didn’t nag me every time I wasn’t a roleplaying a Paladin.
I had a game-breaking bug that every time I entered a door, the game would crash. Had to revert to a previous safe to fix it.
Even with all of my issues above, I enjoyed Starfield enough to 100% it. I wish I could reset achievements and through it with all you again. The story is fun, hijacking ships that land while exploring planets is great. I really hope when mod support launches, the modders can turn this into an excellent game instead of an above-average game.
Starfield is expected to have ongoing support for the foreseeable future, including frequent patches and updates like the recent update that included over 100 bug fixes. Bethesda has also outlined their other plans for Starfield, including official mod support like they offered for Fallout 4 and Skyrim, as well as the game’s first major story expansion, the Shattered Space DLC, which will launch sometime this year.
With all that on the horizon, we had several commenters in the forums who are waiting to start their journey into the stars…
Allgorhythm said:
I think it hit TA Playlist too early. The developers are still enhancing the game. […] I think it will be much more mature in a year from now.
ShinUkyo said:
I think so as well. Though the modern principle in AAA gaming is to “release games and finish them later” so to speak, something like this could benefit greatly from it. Strong enough start, using feedback and experience to flesh it out to what it should be. And add more substantial content as time goes on. Since it’s not a live-service game with battle passes, repeatable currency purchases, and other such nonsense: updates to the game would be composed of actual content and quality-of-life fixes (as opposed to say, piecemeal cosmetics to drain player bank accounts.)
In a way, Starfield’s ongoing development echoes the themes of the game itself. While the human civilization portrayed in the game is technologically advanced, there are still mistakes and flaws that are plain to see. And yet, despite their weaknesses, there is still a sense of wonder at how far their civilization has come, and an optimistic, pioneering spirit always looking for new challenges to overcome.
Like humanity, Starfield is far from perfect. But sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and even though there are plenty of legitimate criticisms, there is also hope that our best days are still ahead, and we look forward to what the future will bring.
Xynvincible said:
I don’t care what anyone says, I enjoyed this game.
For all, into the Starfield.
Since we’re usually playing a newer game, December tends to be a strong month for Playlist participation, and this year was no different, with 31,396 tracked gamers playing along. Of those, 6,201 started the game for the first time, while 870 completed their journey into the Starfield by unlocking all 50 of the game’s achievements. In total, the TA community unlocked 153,348 Starfield achievements in December, for a whopping 2,938,830 Gamerscore and 6,526,421 TrueAchievement score.
Each of those stats registered as the highest of the year, so it’s probably no surprise that Starfield also won the vote for Favorite TA Playlist Game of the Year, in addition to taking the overall GOTY title. Of the 12 nominees, Starfield took first place with 27.4% of the vote, followed by July’s featured game, High On Life, at 12.8%, and GoldenEye 007, from April’s Playlist, at 9.3% out of 2,143 total votes.
For All, Into the Starfield is the first story-related achievement available in the game, and as such, was by far the most unlocked during December, earned by 6,202 tracked gamers. That’s over 1,300 more than the second-most unlocked achievement, One Giant Leap, the final achievement in the main story, unlocked by 4,879 tracked gamers in December. The rarest achievement unlocked during the month was Reach for the Stars, earned for grinding it out to Level 100, with a current TA Ratio of 5.32.
Congratulations to the 14 gamers who earned a Shout-Out for playing Starfield from start to finish during December. Special kudos to MindBenderMD 0, who managed to go from Dusty to Starborn in just 154 hours (just over six full days) from December 3rd through the 9th. Impressive!
We also want to give a special shout-out to RiBoP, who picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Allgorhythm in the forums and completed the Day 9 Spelling Challenge in this year’s 12 Days of Christmas by using only achievements from Starfield to spell the word “STARFIELD.”. We know of two other gamers who accomplished this feat as well – Moe GZ and BetasigX20 – but if you know of anyone else who went the extra mile for this challenge, feel free to shout them out in the comments below!
TA Playlist’s journey into the Starfield is over, but there’s still time to join in with the discussion for our first featured game of 2024, THIEF. Either unlock an achievement in the game, or drop by the Spoiler-Free and Spoiler Discussion Threads to tell us about your adventures as Garrett in the dark City, and advance your TA Playlist badge count at the same time. And get ready for February’s featured second-chance sequel, as we check back in with Lara Croft in Rise of the Tomb Raider!
Originally posted by www.trueachievements.com
