Eldritch Arcana Starfield Review

I'll admit I was worried going into Starfield, but I wanted to give this game a fair shot. I loved Skyrim back in 2011, but each game Bethesda Game Studios has made since has been a gradual decline in quality in my eyes. Skyrim thrived off having a truly compelling world to explore that wasn't offered by competitors even if it's writing was lackluster throughout. Fallout 4 kept the lackluster writing, but added basebuilding that, despite being a feature Bethesda was eager for the player to interact with, was cumbersome and unrewarding. Fallout 76 continued this trend launching with more issues than would be reasonable to discuss hear. Starfield has stripped out nearly all endearing qualities from Bethesda's formula and given the player a litany of design ideas that don't meaningfully interact in a universe devoid of interesting story or characters. In fact, most of the universe is different colored rocks with the exact same 6 or 7 locations dotted sporadically across them. This is made even worse by how often you need to fight the UI to allow exploration. Even the leveling system is lifted from Skyrim, but with tedious, arbitrary barriers to stop advancement by placing specific requirements the player must accomplish before they can invest skill points. I wish I could say this was a return to form (or at least a course correction), but Bethesda's games feel increasingly less like focused game design and more like a grab bag of ideas without any meaningful connection. This game would be a better experience in you cut out at least 50% of it and I truly feel this is a rare case where the name of the studio granted them a lot more grace than deserved in the review space. 3/10 - Bad