- spoiler free review -
1 month after release, Starfield has lost large portion of its playerbase. My friends abandoned the game and I have no will to play it either. Bethesda didn't manage to make a "Skyrim in space" sadly. I'd recommend No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous or The Outer Worlds instead.

In short, Starfield feels as last gen. Empty generated planets, basic combat, predictable quests and general lack of atmosphere or sense of purpose. Add plethora of bugs, loading screens for everything, menus and you get something that can only be fixed by modders or serious effort from devs. Especially strange, since Bethesda said the game was ready in 2022 for release and that they've spent the last year on just testing and bug fixes.

Starfield borrows heavily from better games and doesn't properly flesh out its large portfolio of systems. It's lackluster in many areas, empty planets, mentally challenged AI, need to overcome first 15 hours of boring start, missing skills that should have been unlocked from lvl 1, copy pasted secret temples and overall lack of wonder and epicness. It's missing the charm and atmosphere of Bethesda games. And sadly, NG+ is a glorified Reset button, it's not an alternate universe.

I've spent 112 hours in game, got all the achievements, slogged through dozens of temples, finished dozens of predictable half baked quests and reached New Game 12. Just to be able to tell you: Don't let the masses sway you that you can't make up your mind after playing the game for several hours. Large issue is that the game on videos looks far more fun to play than it actually is in reality. Was it fun ? Most of the time: no and I think we should expect more than just a re-branded Fallout 4 from 2015 being released in 2023. Especially when far better games exist.

Remember, 300k people pre-ordered the game, that's why Starfield had massive amount of positive reviews right on release. I've seen it first hand how fanatically some of these fans defend any flaws of the game and praise it, despite them admitting it has serious issues and having to use mods and cheats to fix them, save scumming and xp farming just to get rid of the need for massive amounts of skills in order to be able to do anything fun.

Lackluster systems include:
-simplistic ship combat that's won with auto turrets or flying backwards and just tanking all damage
-combat against mix of rng high level and low level enemies, instant kills vs bullet sponges, with AI that can't attack you if you just stab the enemy and move from left to right
-powers, most of them are useless as they deal almost no damage or serve no real purpose
-secret temples...same building on an empty planet, you land a mile away and jetpack to it, inside is ALWAYS the same "puzzle" aka collect 5 energy orbs, get rng power, kill one guy and return to quest giver for the next location
+menus...it's not lackluster, I think Bethesda has mastered the way of using the maximum amount of menus, it is astounding how often you must use a menu, how slowly they load and how your immersion is broken from them...
-oxygen depletion when you walk or run...serves only as annoyance, deals dmg to your health, slow down your pace
-weapon and suit upgrades are locked behind grind of skills, crafting materials and then crafting x amount of upgrades to progress to the next upgrade
-"research" as in, you've collected literally 3000kg of materials and are still missing some random ingredient...
-outposts, which serve only as xp glitching to bypass the leveling system, which becomes very slow the higher you level up
-exploration...empty planets where you always just fly to 1 specific point, a single city or near some "area of interest" and jetpack for 1km of distance across empty lands
-the overarching plot, without spoiling it, is never resolved and serves no real purpose other than a reset button
-stealth...one of the worst implementations in gaming history, you MUST first unlock a skill to have a stealth bar when you crouch and then you move two inches forward and are already getting detected...all stealth fans turn in their graves
-companions - it's nowhere near Mass Effect level of quality, they come of as hostile and then just blurt out their problems at you and ask you to fix it, they Dislike ANY bad actions that you make, in combat they're useless, in quests they stay mostly silent and still or add some quip that you could have done without...there's skill that gives you dmg buff for playing SOLO, that's how bad companions are, they exist just as another checkmark, collect all of these diverse pokemons...
-story quests feel hacked out "Oh you've done two things for us, please decide now for thousands of people what we should do" and your choices are very limited...Especially after playing The Outer Worlds, Starfield's story quests are laughably bland and without consequences, you can't even decline certain missions, you're forced to do them
-lastly, gender and fact that you can "romance" both males and females, it's apparently big controversy, but there's basically just one setting in the character creator and then all companions after a while have a chat option of [Flirt]
-silent protagonist...despite Bethesda actually having recorded a voice, which IS in the game - so I hope you like reading all dialogue options that you pick
+insane amount of ammo types, which force you to equip 10 different guns, for which you don't have carrying capacity and almost all objects can be picked up, so you don't know what is actually useful - not to mention, 15 variants of useless items like: a pen, flower, notepad that's empty, folder, mug etc - it's more than lackluster, it's poorly designed :)
-melee weapons, a whole 4 weapons with no possible upgrades - you either hit enemies with a katana for several minutes or you'd have to use cheats to massively boost the melee damage, there's one melee skill and it's not enough - melee is literally only good for harder difficulties when you face a random 30 levels higher bullet sponge that kills you in few hits, as you can just move left and right, stab him continuously and his poor AI won't be able to deal with such "skill"

What you need to "mod", use cheats for, in order to not suffer:
-easy lockpick, replacing tedious poorly designed puzzle with simple version
-increase max carrying capacity from 135 kg (1 mission and you're at 200kg)
-FOV slider, better UI, undelayed menus
-neutral LUTs - game has ugly green filter On all the time
-icon sorting tags - almost all items are lootable but lack proper icons
A lot of people also use combat overhaul mods (aka cheat), which just goes to show how bad this bullet sponge or instant kill enemies game really is. Most of the time you either deal too much or too little damage. And yes, combat matters A LOT, you'll do ton of it throughout the entire game, unless you save scum and try over and over with "Persuasion" rng.

Not to mention plethora of bugs, glitches and issues you'll go through, like the great ones of: major NPCs floating into the sky or spawning under ground, companions running into walls or through your conversation, not being able to board enemy ships and falling through its textures, bullets randomly not hitting enemies, enemies instantly detecting you even through walls and while you're invisible, your ship disappearing forever after you modify it, starting new game + without ability to save and starting NG+ 10 times without ANY unique start.

[h1]A game from 2015, shooting for the broadest audience possible while sacrificing quality[/h1] - spoiler free review - 1 month after release, Starfield has lost large portion of its playerbase. My friends abandoned the game and I have no will to play it either. Bethesda didn't manage to make a "Skyrim in space" sadly. I'd recommend No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous or The Outer Worlds instead. In short, Starfield feels as last gen. Empty generated planets, basic combat, predictable quests and general lack of atmosphere or sense of purpose. Add plethora of bugs, loading screens for everything, menus and you get something that can only be fixed by modders or serious effort from devs. Especially strange, since Bethesda said the game was ready in 2022 for release and that they've spent the last year on just testing and bug fixes. Starfield borrows heavily from better games and doesn't properly flesh out its large portfolio of systems. It's lackluster in many areas, empty planets, mentally challenged AI, need to overcome first 15 hours of boring start, missing skills that should have been unlocked from lvl 1, copy pasted secret temples and overall lack of wonder and epicness. It's missing the charm and atmosphere of Bethesda games. And sadly, NG+ is a glorified Reset button, it's not an alternate universe. I've spent 112 hours in game, got all the achievements, slogged through dozens of temples, finished dozens of predictable half baked quests and reached New Game 12. Just to be able to tell you: Don't let the masses sway you that you can't make up your mind after playing the game for several hours. Large issue is that the game on videos looks far more fun to play than it actually is in reality. Was it fun ? Most of the time: no and [b]I think we should expect more than just a re-branded Fallout 4 from 2015 being released in 2023[/b]. Especially when far better games exist. [b]Remember, 300k people pre-ordered the game, that's why Starfield had massive amount of positive reviews right on release[/b]. I've seen it first hand how fanatically some of these fans defend any flaws of the game and praise it, despite them admitting it has serious issues and having to use mods and cheats to fix them, save scumming and xp farming just to get rid of the need for massive amounts of skills in order to be able to do anything fun. [u]Lackluster systems include:[/u] -simplistic ship combat that's won with auto turrets or flying backwards and just tanking all damage -combat against mix of rng high level and low level enemies, instant kills vs bullet sponges, with AI that can't attack you if you just stab the enemy and move from left to right -powers, most of them are useless as they deal almost no damage or serve no real purpose -secret temples...same building on an empty planet, you land a mile away and jetpack to it, inside is ALWAYS the same "puzzle" aka collect 5 energy orbs, get rng power, kill one guy and return to quest giver for the next location +menus...it's not lackluster, I think Bethesda has mastered the way of using the maximum amount of menus, it is astounding how often you must use a menu, how slowly they load and how your immersion is broken from them... -oxygen depletion when you walk or run...serves only as annoyance, deals dmg to your health, slow down your pace -weapon and suit upgrades are locked behind grind of skills, crafting materials and then crafting x amount of upgrades to progress to the next upgrade -"research" as in, you've collected literally 3000kg of materials and are still missing some random ingredient... -outposts, which serve only as xp glitching to bypass the leveling system, which becomes very slow the higher you level up -exploration...empty planets where you always just fly to 1 specific point, a single city or near some "area of interest" and jetpack for 1km of distance across empty lands -the overarching plot, without spoiling it, is never resolved and serves no real purpose other than a reset button -stealth...one of the worst implementations in gaming history, you MUST first unlock a skill to have a stealth bar when you crouch and then you move two inches forward and are already getting detected...all stealth fans turn in their graves -companions - it's nowhere near Mass Effect level of quality, they come of as hostile and then just blurt out their problems at you and ask you to fix it, they Dislike ANY bad actions that you make, in combat they're useless, in quests they stay mostly silent and still or add some quip that you could have done without...there's skill that gives you dmg buff for playing SOLO, that's how bad companions are, they exist just as another checkmark, collect all of these diverse pokemons... -story quests feel hacked out "Oh you've done two things for us, please decide now for thousands of people what we should do" and your choices are very limited...Especially after playing The Outer Worlds, Starfield's story quests are laughably bland and without consequences, you can't even decline certain missions, you're forced to do them -lastly, gender and fact that you can "romance" both males and females, it's apparently big controversy, but there's basically just one setting in the character creator and then all companions after a while have a chat option of [Flirt] -silent protagonist...despite Bethesda actually having recorded a voice, which IS in the game - so I hope you like reading all dialogue options that you pick +insane amount of ammo types, which force you to equip 10 different guns, for which you don't have carrying capacity and almost all objects can be picked up, so you don't know what is actually useful - not to mention, 15 variants of useless items like: a pen, flower, notepad that's empty, folder, mug etc - it's more than lackluster, it's poorly designed :) -melee weapons, a whole 4 weapons with no possible upgrades - you either hit enemies with a katana for several minutes or you'd have to use cheats to massively boost the melee damage, there's one melee skill and it's not enough - melee is literally only good for harder difficulties when you face a random 30 levels higher bullet sponge that kills you in few hits, as you can just move left and right, stab him continuously and his poor AI won't be able to deal with such "skill" What you need to "mod", use cheats for, in order to not suffer: -easy lockpick, replacing tedious poorly designed puzzle with simple version -increase max carrying capacity from 135 kg (1 mission and you're at 200kg) -FOV slider, better UI, undelayed menus -neutral LUTs - game has ugly green filter On all the time -icon sorting tags - almost all items are lootable but lack proper icons A lot of people also use combat overhaul mods (aka cheat), which just goes to show how bad this bullet sponge or instant kill enemies game really is. Most of the time you either deal too much or too little damage. And yes, combat matters A LOT, you'll do ton of it throughout the entire game, unless you save scum and try over and over with "Persuasion" rng. Not to mention plethora of bugs, glitches and issues you'll go through, like the great ones of: major NPCs floating into the sky or spawning under ground, companions running into walls or through your conversation, not being able to board enemy ships and falling through its textures, bullets randomly not hitting enemies, enemies instantly detecting you even through walls and while you're invisible, your ship disappearing forever after you modify it, starting new game + without ability to save and starting NG+ 10 times without ANY unique start.