Starfield writer and designer Emil Pagliarulo has claimed that the game is, "in a lot of ways, the best game we've ever made", suggesting that it now "sits right next to Fallout and Elder Scrolls" in Bethesda's pantheon.
Speaking to GamesRadar, Pagliarulo said that Starfield is the result of Bethesda pushing itself to "make something totally different"; the studio set out to "jam into an Xbox the biggest, richest space simulation RPG anyone could imagine".
In Pagliarulo's eyes, the studio "pulled it off", and Starfield is, as a result, a "technical marvel". Pagliarulo acknowledges the game "might not be everyone's cup of tea", but he says it's been successful enough to take its place alongside the two aforementioned franchises.
Although Pagliarulo is effusive about Bethesda's achievements with Starfield, it's an assessment with which a lot of players may find themselves disagreeing.
The game is still sitting at a Mixed rating on Steam across over 100,000 reviews, with players pointing to technical issues, a perceived shallowness in terms of content, and an overreliance on procedural generation as reasons to avoid Starfield.
Pagliarulo's got an explanation for that, though; he says that Starfield does actually have lots of hand-crafted content, but that it's spread...
