Now for how Starfield\u2019s massive scope works in its favor: Bethesda kept telling us the game was huge, but it\u2019s still sort of mind-blowing to think just how much you can do. You can travel to countless planets, many of which have their own cities and settlements, which are often again made up of distinct, individual districts. You can play how you want: I tried everything I could of what the game had to offer, but after I\u2019m done playing space ranger and gutsy explorer, I think I could spend a good few hours just visiting different planets, surveying their resources, fauna, and flora, and selling the information to fund my next adventure. The quests are already fantastic, and it\u2019s great to see that the \u201cside\u201d content \u2014 such as quests for different factions, activities, character quests, and so on \u2014 is just as brilliant, if not better. The dialogue is engaging, and it\u2019s incredible to see that this quality is kept up for all<\/i> of the characters, not just the main ones. I\u2019m always taking any excuse I can to eavesdrop on the conversations between my companions, but the idle chatter of passersby is just as interesting, and it makes getting anywhere take twice as long since I can\u2019t resist stopping and listening to everyone. <\/p>\n

Choices feel impactful in the game, too. I chose a Freestar Collective background as one of my traits, so I had some dialogue options with people from the same faction; some of which I could even use during persuasion. You\u2019ve always got a range of options with how to deal with anything \u2014 I tended to lean towards persuasion, and those options always felt tense. When trying to persuade someone to do something in particular, you\u2019re given several attempts to win them over. You have to fill the bar to successfully persuade them, with each persuasion option you\u2019re given filling it up to a certain degree, and each mistake meaning you make no progress. It\u2019s been a while since I was so invested in persuasion, and I reloaded that bank robbery bit several times to keep trying until I was successful, just because it felt important for my character to manage things that way. Your companions also comment on much of what you do, and you can win or lose favor with them by doing actions they agree or disagree with. Depending on who you\u2019re with, you\u2019ll hear interesting tidbits about the places you\u2019re visiting or the people you\u2019re meeting, with even more info if you\u2019re traveling with a local. What\u2019s more, you\u2019ll start to hear tales of your exploits played on radio stations (especially if you start helping out a particular news group with news tips). <\/p>\n

The main story sees you quickly joining up with Constellation, a private group of explorers working on uncovering the secrets behind a group of strange artifacts. Their quests branch off, taking you to different planets and meeting new companions. You could have a great time just following that story through. The side quests, however, are so irresistible that you\u2019d be hard pressed to ignore them. One Constellation companion took me to their home planet to look for an artifact. I was barely there for a few minutes before being invited to apply to be a Freestar Ranger, and a new quest line opened up. In a minute, my allegiances completely changed: I had no time for Constellation, I was clearly meant to be a space ranger. Just moving from the Constellation objective to the Freestar Ranger hub brought me into contact with even more quests and intriguing characters, and that was just one part of one city on one planet. I want to be a UC Vanguard; I want to help a scientist figure out why that particular tree is liquifying; I want to help that shopkeeper recover the private data he lost about his clients; but there\u2019s no time for any of that, because I absolutely have<\/i> to head to Neon for my interview with Ryujin Industries. <\/p>\n

Some quests are given by specific people, while overhearing conversations of random citizens can activate new activities. Starfield\u2019s characters sometimes have that small, odd delay when you\u2019re talking to them \u2014 you wait to see if they\u2019re done, and they stay silent, so you move onto someone else, only for them to start speaking again, meaning you miss out on what they\u2019re saying. There are so many people offering you so much to do that it\u2019s sometimes hard to listen to them all; my companion was talking to me at one point when someone else muttered something that started a new activity. Before I knew it, a notification had popped up telling me to speak to the scientist under the tree. What tree? What scientist? Who knows!<\/p>\n

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The menus are, honestly, quite unwieldy. Your options are set up in a radial format about your character, and most menus have branching submenus. After a while, you figure out some shortcuts, but navigating the menus is always an activity in itself, particularly when you\u2019re transferring items between different storage types. It\u2019s a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things, unlike the maps for planet surfaces, which are downright bad. The only icons you have are for districts as a whole within a city or landing areas on a planet\u2019s surface; you can\u2019t see a map of the district itself, such as where vendors are. It\u2019s not even always clear where you need to go to get to your objective \u2014 sometimes a quest marker will tell you to land somewhere, and then as soon as you disembark, it\u2019s telling you to get back on your ship again. Again, when the rest of the game is as good as it is, this isn\u2019t much to set against it, but it does seem oddly undetailed for a game which is so forthcoming with the rest of its information.<\/p>\n

Starfield is incredibly expansive. Even when you take just one base on one part of one planet, there\u2019s so much to explore \u2014 sometimes you\u2019ll come across a locked door or a safe that you don\u2019t have the skill to open yet, and have to add it to the mental list of places you\u2019ve \u201cgot<\/i> to come back to\u2026 as soon as you\u2019ve finished exploring the rest of the galaxy.\u201d On that note: the lockpicking mini-game is great. Using digipicks, you\u2019re shown several rings with gaps in them, and have to fill the gaps with the different keys you\u2019re given. Some keys appear to fit the gaps for several rings, and the challenge is making sure you save the right keys for the right ring. It\u2019s quite irresistible, and I\u2019m sometimes guilty of leaving my companions to clear out the rest of an outpost by themselves while I crouch in the corner, muttering over lockpicks.<\/p>\n

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You often hear about games which promise to let you play how you like, so it\u2019s genuinely satisfying to see this come true in Starfield. There are so many ways to play. If you\u2019re looking to make money, you can pick up bounties, steal and sell ships, raid and loot outposts, join up with a faction and pick up paying missions, and a whole lot more. You might not always be able to avoid combat (although you often can with the right dialogue choices) but if you\u2019re looking for a more peaceful playthrough, you could just float through the galaxy, cataloging unknown planets and selling the data. With your scanner, you scan the creatures, plants, resources, and traits of the planets you land on until you\u2019ve 100% completed your survey. Sure, some creatures object to being scanned (or approached, or looked at) but for the most part it can be a peaceful experience. Starfield\u2019s systems hold up so well that you could lose hours just to mining. Upgrades and research paths cost different resources and items, and when you\u2019re starting out it\u2019s a whole mission in itself to locate which planets have particular minerals. And that\u2019s even if you manage to stay focused: you might be bouncing along the surface of a planet looking for nickel, before you spot a strange structure in the distance, and head over to scan it for your planet survey. On the way, you might bump into a group of spacers, or run across some alien monster, or even spot a landed and apparently empty ship and decide to borrow<\/i> it for a while. Before you know it, you\u2019re halfway across the system, you\u2019ve got no aluminum, and you\u2019ve turned to a life of crime. <\/p>\n

Outpost building is also incredibly extensive and can hoover up hours of your time. If you\u2019ve got the right resources, you can build anything from a simple outpost tower and mining machines, to a full on base with all the crafting stations you need \u2014 plus the option to decorate it and make it your own. And speaking of decorations: another note I\u2019d like to make before we finish up is about succulents. You don\u2019t need to play much of Starfield before you realize that the people of the future are, apparently, obsessed with them. There are succulents everywhere. It doesn\u2019t matter if you work in a fancy office on a luxurious planet or on a rickety farm in the middle of nowhere; there are succulents everywhere<\/i>. I saw space pirates living on the edge of the law and barely surviving on scraps; they were low on resources and desperate, yet had still apparently made time to care for a variety of lovingly-tended succulents. Succulents litter offices, abandoned outposts, homes, shops, and ships. If there\u2019s one more point that Starfield makes clear: space is not the future. The future, clearly, is succulents.<\/p>\n

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Bethesda games are famed for their bugs, and I don\u2019t want to jinx it, but it\u2019s been a remarkably smooth playthrough so far, with just the occasional minor glitch. I haven\u2019t had any crashes or lost any progress. The customisation options at the beginning are extensive and while I lost my mind trying to see the difference between the various neck and jaw choices, I was happy with the end result. Despite the infinite possibilities of space, some depictions of space settings in games or on TV can seem pretty generic, but Starfield\u2019s various settings become more detailed as you examine them. Offices, shops, or homes seems thoughtfully planned out (and littered with succulents) and Constellation\u2019s Lodge in particular looks great. The drawbacks like the maps and storage systems don\u2019t drag down a beast of a good game like Starfield, so one of the only things I\u2019d like to see improved is better communication about its basic systems, so that you can enjoy it as much as possible without frustrations right from the start.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/h2>\n

Achievement-wise, this game is clearly going to take some time, and that can only be a good thing considering that Starfield seems to have delivered what it promised: an almost endless adventure we\u2019ll still be discovering new details about years down the line.<\/p>\n

* Heidi spent over 30 hours traveling the Starfield, earning eight achievements as she went. We preordered a copy of Starfield to unlock early access for this review, and played on an Xbox Series X.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Well, this is it \u2014 the big one, Todd Howard\u2019s brain baby, Bethesda\u2019s latest behemoth; and after a lengthy wait full of anticipation, I was honestly a bit nervous starting it up. When my character opened their eyes to find themselves with a stranger sitting across from them, I was half expecting them to tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.trueachievements.com\/imgs\/140104\/starfield-xbox-exclusive.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-xbox"],"yoast_head":"\n