Starfield

 PC
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 75 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 75
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 75
  3. Negative: 0 out of 75
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  1. GameGrin
    Oct 3, 2023
    70
    Starfield shines through some glaring issues that definitely dampen the experience but don’t ruin it altogether. With plenty to see and do, sheer immersion will be enough to carry you through to the end of Bethesda’s latest offering.
  2. Vgames
    Oct 1, 2023
    70
    Houston, we have a problem - i can't stop playing Starfield, despite its flaws. If you're looking for a Sci-Fi space RPG, this is the game for you to sink hundreds of hours on, even though its main plot is not interesting, its side content is more than enough, with engaging combat, addicting ship building system and more.
  3. Game Revolution
    Sep 28, 2023
    70
    When scoring Starfield, I considered that many of my issues with the game were totally subjective. However, the game does have technical and design issues that can’t be ignored. Ironically, it has many of the same problems people relentlessly criticized Cyberpunk 2077 for, like lifeless crowds, a hollow wanted system, and glitchy animations, but it’s largely getting a pass. Bethesda deserves kudos for pioneering the modern Western RPG format, and I don’t think every game needs to be some innovative revolution. Despite this, Starfield is backed by Microsoft and produced by one of the biggest game companies in the world. There’s no reason it should feel and play like Fallout 4 in space.
  5. IGN Adria
    Sep 15, 2023
    70
    Starfield is a beautiful and rich space RPG but it is made in an engine that holds it back. No matter how much you love (or dislike) Bethesda's games, it's hard to justify all these limitations in this day and age.
  6. Eurogamer Poland
    Sep 6, 2023
    70
    Starfield seems to be formed by many great ideas, many of which have not been thought through and refined. Time flies, video games have changed, gamers have changed. Meanwhile, Bethesda stays true to its conservative concept of game development and dusty mechanics, which is disappointing for such an anticipated title. But all of that is only a part of the story, because - nevertheless - Starfield has great moments.
  7. PCGamesN
    Aug 31, 2023
    70
    Starfield is a true behemoth of an RPG, and in many ways it’s the logical endpoint of Bethesda Game Studios’ well-worn formula. However, its massive scope pushes this formula to the absolute limit and the cracks begin to show, from feature creep to the stop-start nature of its exploration. Dedicated Bethesda fans are sure to get their fill, but this interstellar adventure never leaves the atmosphere.
  8. IGN
    Aug 31, 2023
    70
    Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.
  9. Games.cz
    Aug 31, 2023
    70
    Starfield is an unrivaled large and comprehensive space opera. Although it plays too much like Bethesda's previous games and the exploration of the planets is boring, it entertains with interesting stories and looks truly otherworldly.
  10. Gamer.no
    Aug 31, 2023
    70
    Perhaps Bethesda will manage to make the Starfield experience better in the future through various updates and expansions. But all in all, it seems like Starfield would have done much better as a universe with a sea of depth and seamlessness spread over 10 planets, rather than what we got spread over 1000.
  11. RPGamer
    Oct 23, 2023
    60
    In a year dominated by sequels to franchise favorites, there was a hope that Starfield would carve its own path to success. While the team at Bethesda should be commended for taking such a big swing, there’s no denying that the game doesn’t feel like a cohesive work. Maybe continued support and future sequels will make something more meaningful out of a work that is clearly deeply enamored with both science fiction and space exploration. Unforunately, this first launch has had far more mixed results than desired.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Ars Technica
    Aug 31, 2023
    Despite the gripes I’ve mentioned above, I’ve still found it startlingly easy to fall deep into Starfield’s (just-short-of-literal) galaxy of pure content. That fractal quest design pattern makes it very compelling to stretch out a play session for “just one more jump” until you look up and suddenly it’s three hours past when you planned to sleep...I’m not sure if that loop will be strong enough to push me up to and past the 150-hour mark. One thing is clear, though; if we have to wait another eight years for a Fallout 4-scale single-player adventure from Bethesda Game Studios, Starfield has enough raw content to keep a certain type of space-fiction-obsessed player plugging away for a good chunk of that wait.: ["a few dozen hours" impressions]
  2. Eurogamer
    Sep 10, 2023
    In summary, I'd say there's good news and bad news with Starfield on PC. The quality of the game is clear and unlike, say, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, we're not seeing disruptive problems that ruin the experience. However, there's clearly work to do. The options menu isn't descriptive enough or helps the user in any way in tailoring the game to their hardware. Basic features like field of view control, HDR, gamma and contrast controls need to be added, as well as official DLSS and XeSS support...Tackling the disproportionately poor Nvidia and Intel performance also needs to addressed, while there's the sense that the game isn't properly tuned for the major CPU architectures used in today's PCs. Optimised settings clearly yields large performance dividends though, suggesting some degree of scalability, while the DLSS mod is a must for RTX users and can help both performance and image quality for Nvidia owners - but let's hope to see some genuine improvements from Bethesda in Starfield's first major update. [Digital Foundry]
  3. Giant Bomb
    Sep 6, 2023
    While a lot of Starfield's familiar Bethesda cruft is outdated and often boring in the early game, the story, quest, characters, and interactions all get better the more you play. That doesn't mean you can ignore the awkward traversal and janky bugs, but it is questionable how damaging those elements are to the experience after 250 hours in Todd Howard's space epic. [Quick Look]
  5. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Sep 6, 2023
    It's a genuinely impressive space game that hides its best bits, not in way that asks you to track things down but in a way that asks you to grid search in case you miss anything memorable. The more memorable bits themselves feel like they get cut off too soon, and the fun bits are kneecapped by the limitations inherent in making a game this size. Ambition does not have to mean making something literally larger than anyone else, and you don't have to build an entire universe to make a game last 130 hours. In fact, I'd rather you didn't.
  6. TouchArcade
    Aug 31, 2023
    If you enjoy Bethesda Game Studios' games, and more importantly love exploration and space, I think you should prepare to experience your new obsession with Starfield. I'm looking forward to spending more time with it, and seeing how it improves over time on both Steam Deck and Xbox Series X. [Review in Progress]

Awards & Rankings

30
#30 Best PC Game of 2023
3
#3 Most Discussed PC Game of 2023

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
5.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 5711 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,635 out of 5711
  2. Mixed: 612 out of 5711
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 5711
  1. p0k3m0n
    Sep 7, 2023
    1
    Outdated game, outdated engine, outdated dev team, outdated CEO.

    Let me start: I am owner of premium edition so I have been familiar with    Outdated game, outdated engine, outdated dev team, outdated CEO.

    Let me start: I am owner of premium edition so I have been familiar with this production for a few days. First at all I will honestly state that I feel cheated out of $100. And just to be clear, I based my decision to buy not on hype or rumors, but on carefully following official information from the developer, publisher, including their CEOs. So I don't feel like a dumb sucker, but like a person who was deliberately lied to. I want nothing to do with future products with the Microsoft and Bethesda logos. But about that in the summary at the end.

    I begin with technical aspects, because it is easer. In a nutshell: primitive port from consoles. Therefore, VRAM does not exceed 6 GB, and RAM oscillates around 6-8 GB (although on PC 24-32 GB today is not surprising). Hence the constant loading screens, even though the whole thing should sit in memory even though everything works in small instances. And I'm not even mentioning such technical nightmares as the lack of support for proper anti-aliasing in 2023, no DLSS, no Intel ARC GPU support or problems with textures not fully loading, exactly the same as in Forspoken. And that embarrassing performance even on extremely strong configurations with graphics dating back 7 years! How about AI of NPCs and enemies? What AI? What faces animations? What is it? A joke? The whole thing done as off-putting as possible. 3D engine is terrible, I mean terrible outdated and you feel it literally everywhere. Fatal engine, fatal port. And yet, these are only core technical issues, on top of that there is the content, and this content is as if from 2010-2013. It is unacceptable. This way of giving gameplay even comes from the 90's and has nothing to do with current standards. And this applies to the content as well as the form of its delivery, i.e. UI/UX. And it's hard to believe that this is a product released in the year 2023, there are such is the coarseness of everything, feel so cheap, so... lame. Use of Creation Engine while owning the rights to use the id Tech engine. This is lunacy!

    Now we move deeper, and you know what? No alien races, whole Galaxy is open, but there are NOT any other vivid civilizations. The narrative in this game is reminiscent of the work of a 15-year-old for a contest entitled "The story of the world. How I imagine life in 100 years". But, on the other hand, the entire Galaxy we've come to know is purely American: from the architecture, to the disgusting mass culture, to the customs. Where are the cultural differences between the different worlds? Hey, you creators of this carcass without imagination, do you really think that in the future everyone will live in the same cesspool as you today? This is not the 1980s! What is it I ask? WHAT IS IT?! It insults intelligence. Where is the plot? Where do choices matter? It is unbelievable how infantile everything is conveyed and would require an looong and deeep elaboration, but I just don't want to rummage through this rubbish, simply: this is total mess.

    This should be groundbreaking Crysis for the year 2023, not a horribly optimized, archaic product in form and content. This game is in much worse state them Cyberpunk on release because Cyberpunk at least had a good, modern 3D engine and a contemporary gameplay concept.

    This game should never have been released in this state - this is not an indie developer, but the largest software publisher in the world. You can see right through, Microsoft and Bethesda have real problem with internal management, because it is not first blunder this year. Maybe next year something will come of it, if MS does not abandon the project and rebuild this game from the ground up - and I write this completely seriously. For now it is unplayable. This product is a complete mess at this point, it's a beta version, and situations like this gives Microsoft a terrible reputation - again. Something really bad is going on there. Their recent actions resemble management at a market stall, not a multinational corporation. If Microsoft wants to stay in this market as a major player, needs to change something, because the Activision-Blizzard purchase won't help anything if you don't release good products. Of course, in the short term you can count on profits from an uninformed or undemanding customer, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. I am sure, that Starfield discredit will only confirms this.

    And looking at the above I would give a summary rating of 4/10, but in this case I in good conscience give 1/10. Why? Because, let me repeat myself, for months the developer and publisher in their official information simply gave outright lied about whether this product will be. So as owner of premium edition of this game let me summarize: I feel SCAMmed in very bad way which I write utterly honest. Almost everything from the official announcements and official statements turned out to be a lie. Enough is enough.    … Full Review »
  2. CptnKR4KEN
    Sep 7, 2023
    4
    Not sure how Bethesda managed to make discovering the universe so lifeless and monotonous, but most of the exploring plays out like this:Not sure how Bethesda managed to make discovering the universe so lifeless and monotonous, but most of the exploring plays out like this:

    enter your ship - > loading screen -> sit at console and "take off" -> loading screen -> choose new planet -> loading screen -> select landing site on planet -> loading screen -> exit ship -> loading screen -> "explore" procedurally generated planet (kill a few bugs and scan some plants/rocks) -> fast travel back to ship -> loading screen -> go back to step one

    . . . sure, you can skip a few of these steps by traveling directly to another planet thousands of light-years away without even entering your ship - but at that point, why do the planets and galaxy systems even exist if they are simply options in a menu?

    I've played over 300 hours of Fallout 76 because I love the Fallout universe so much, but Starfield just feels so sterile and devoid of the same heart and character that is so present in their other universes. I can even usually ignore the Bethesda "jank" that often accompanies the launch of their games - but something about Starfield's core mechanics seem inherently flawed as well, and I'm not sure I could even explain why. Whether it was the underdeveloped enemy A.I., the poorly designed base building (a giant material storage container can only hold 150 lbs of items, while the safebox in my bedroom can hold infinite), the emotionless (and ugly) character models, the lackluster main story quests, or just the general lack of adventure - Starfield ultimately proves to be an underwhelming RPG that fails to deliver on most of the promises Todd Howard and the marketing team pushed.

    That is not to say that there's nothing good here, the weapon design and shooting mechanics are a vast improvement over their past games, the ship-building is very intuitive, and the scenic landscapes of distant planets and galaxies can be absolutely gorgeous! I just wish I had more of a reason to explore them . . .    … Full Review »
  3. dannydans
    Sep 8, 2023
    0
    Boring, bland, soulless and devoid of any fun. Truly a game to not waste ones money on. I reached breaking point after 5 hours andBoring, bland, soulless and devoid of any fun. Truly a game to not waste ones money on. I reached breaking point after 5 hours and uninstalled. What a joke, all these years and you get a fake space backdrop exploration aka loading screen fast travel nonsense.… Full Review »
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