No Man's Skyrim
June 12, 2023 6:24 AM Subscribe
Starfield Gets The Gameplay And Story Reveal You've Been Waiting For [Kotaku] [Starfield Direct] [Starfield Story Trailer] “While we’ll have to wait until September 6th to take to the stars, explore its 1,000 worlds, and listen to its 250,000 lines of dialogue, we now have a much better sense of what you’ll actually do in the game. And during today’s Xbox showcase, Bethesda pulled the curtain back even further, giving us our best glimpse yet of what’s likely going to be one of the biggest games of 2023.”
• A deep dive on "over 1,000 planets'" worth of open-world exploration. [Ars Technica]
• Starfield's Most Expensive Version Has A Fancy Space Watch [Kotaku]
• A deep dive on "over 1,000 planets'" worth of open-world exploration. [Ars Technica]
⦿ Art Director Istvan Pely was on hand to talk about the game's "NASA punk" aesthetic, which he said was intended to evoke "the romance of the golden age of early space flight." That means adding a sort of retro-analog touch to the ships where everything feels used, worn, and "lived in."• Starfield Will Run At 4K / 30FPS On Xbox Series X, 1440p / 30FPS On Series S [Pure Xbox]
⦿ The game's core plot—at least early on—seems to focus on Constellation, a legendary group described as the "last true explorers in the galaxy." This rogue's gallery includes a number of archetypical characters ranging from a space cowboy to a theologian to a businessman who's funding everything. Individual members of Constellation can serve as crew members on your ship, unlocking unique quest lines and granting their abilities to help complete those quests. You can also pick up new crew members from spaceports or simply meet eager crew additions when exploring inhabited worlds. And Bethesda promises that the friendships you make with crew members can even "blossom into romance" (looking at you, Mass Effect fans).
⦿ The story unfolds across a galaxy divided into three main groups. The United Colonies consider themselves "the true children of Earth" and are centered on the city of New Atlantis, which Bethesda calls "the biggest city we've ever made." Outside of the colonies, the Freestar Collective presents more of a frontier, offering a sci-fi take on an Old West aesthetic. There will also be unclaimed systems full of hostile factions like the Crimson Fleet, which bristle under the control of the Colonies.
⦿ For Starfield's character-creation engine, Bethesda says it scanned faces from a variety of age groups and ethnicities to make a system that the developers themselves used to create every character and NPC you see in the game. After choosing from one of 40 preset characters to start, you can modify everything from piercings to teeth settings to skin blemishes using a series of sliders.
⦿ While Bethesda said it was going for "a balance of fun and realism" with its space simulation, a lot of the presentation seemed to lean toward pride in the "realism" side of that equation. That includes planets with variable gravity based on their size and density, plus atmospheres that accurately refract the light coming from the sun as they orbit.
⦿ Not every planet in the game will be inhabited, Bethesda notes, meaning some are useful mainly for resource extraction. But on the ones that are inhabited, the focus on free exploration should provide plenty of opportunities to stumble on hostile engagements or settlers in need of assistance wherever you wander.
⦿ In between the planets, you'll fly a ship and engage in combat that is less about aiming and firing and more about a "complex dance" in space, Bethesda promised. That combat will include the ability to shift your ship's power system between the grav drive—which lets you jump away to warp speed more quickly—or toward your weapons and shields, letting you be ready for unplanned hostilities.
⦿ Ships can be heavily customized at spaceports using a snap-together system that's somewhat reminiscent of Kerbal Space Program. A small ship that starts out as a maneuverable, speedy fighter can be bulked out with additional modules that turn it into a massive cargo freighter, for instance.
• Starfield's Most Expensive Version Has A Fancy Space Watch [Kotaku]
Stray thoughts and observations:
• This along with Forza and Flight Simulator are why I'm buying an Xbox Series X.posted by Fizz at 6:30 AM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
• I cannot wait to get lost inside of this universe.
• Do I detect some legendary Bethesda jank? Absolutely. Do I give a fuck at all about it? Nope. I'm here for immersion, story, exploration, building a cool ass base and modding my ship with crewmates.
• I know that No Man's Sky has a lot to offer that is quite similar but they approach the idea of space exploration in very different ways and I'm here for both. So excited.
• I also don't give a fuck that its capped at 30 fps. Graphical fidelity is not everything.
it's funny i was just thinking that jedi survivor, despite having great combat, suffered because the "worlds" were really just single maps and there were only a few of them, with not much in them. Like if you took a spaceship from mars to earth but only ever saw about 10 square miles of colorado. But *1,000* worlds? There's no way that's going to have much attention to detail. Too many worlds!
posted by dis_integration at 6:31 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 6:31 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
The game isn't going to nail everything, I'm sure it'll have its flaws just like the many similar ways that Skyrim & Fallout have their flaws. But I've also put about 2000+ hours into those other games. There's a lot to be said about being immersed in a world and its story and Bethesda has a good track record of doing this. And that's what I'm here for. :-)
posted by Fizz at 6:36 AM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 6:36 AM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm really not a graphics snob. I play Minecraft. Very happily. That said, the character animations are shit. I get it, they can't mocap everything, but the solution they chose is some ps3 shit. It just sucks. I recently finished playing The Last of Us on PC - which is a port of an old ps4 game - I just expect better. Next-gen. This sucks, it looks retro.
I will play it and not care about this, I like old games. But this is a new game and ... bleh.
30fps? wtf? that's just for consoles right?
posted by adept256 at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I will play it and not care about this, I like old games. But this is a new game and ... bleh.
30fps? wtf? that's just for consoles right?
posted by adept256 at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Abandoned mine, abandoned science outpost, abandoned X, oh wait, not so abandoned, lets kill everybody.
posted by roue at 7:00 AM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by roue at 7:00 AM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
No Man's Skyrim? I see what you did there Fizz, and I appreciate it
posted by sarble at 7:13 AM on June 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by sarble at 7:13 AM on June 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
I doubt my 2014-era PC won't run this and while I am planning on an upgrade at some point, I'll wait until they've got most of the bugs fixed and it shows up in a Steam sale.
posted by octothorpe at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
Looks very nice. If there are non-violent ways to play it, I expect I'll give it a go. No Man's Sky is nice in that respect, but it's a bit too much of an aimless sandbox for my taste.
posted by pipeski at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Building a huge, beautiful world just so people can interact with it mainly through resource extraction and guns feels a lot less like escapism than I’d like these days.
posted by mhoye at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2023 [24 favorites]
I'll wait until they've got most of the bugs fixed and it shows up in a Steam sale.
This is the only way to Bethesda.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:32 AM on June 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is the only way to Bethesda.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:32 AM on June 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'll wait until they've got most of the bugs fixed and it shows up in a Steam sale.
Looking forward to playing Starfield on my Samsung fridge in the year 2048.
posted by Fizz at 7:38 AM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
Looking forward to playing Starfield on my Samsung fridge in the year 2048.
posted by Fizz at 7:38 AM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
It still feels like exploring unoccupied architecture and vast empty territories, like most CRPGs do. Where are the people (and other things) that live there? One or two at a time does not a society make.
Balder's Gate is looking amazing. I think that's the best depiction of an actual city I've seen in a game. Even if it's half as good as it appears to be, it's a huge step forward.
posted by bonehead at 7:39 AM on June 12, 2023
Balder's Gate is looking amazing. I think that's the best depiction of an actual city I've seen in a game. Even if it's half as good as it appears to be, it's a huge step forward.
posted by bonehead at 7:39 AM on June 12, 2023
All hail Jamie Mallory, steely-eyed sandwich pirate of the stars!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:58 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:58 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
dis_integration, I also am wary of that many planets. A game with 100 hours of non procedural content is a "big game" by modern standards, but for a thousand worlds that's 6 minutes of content per world. So either they have hired a mind boggling amount of content writers - the kind of money that makes a CFO's eyebrows raise - or they are using a ton of procedural content.
I don't have anything against procedural content - some games I quite like are all procedural content. But is that what people are expecting from Bethesda?
posted by quillbreaker at 7:59 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't have anything against procedural content - some games I quite like are all procedural content. But is that what people are expecting from Bethesda?
posted by quillbreaker at 7:59 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
That said, the character animations are shit.
As in all things, there are tradeoffs. If you're playing TLOU or Forbidden West you know it's going to be gorgeous and it's going to be affecting but you're not going to be able to make more than trivial choices or roleplay more than trivially.
If you're playing a Bethesda game, you know that you're going to be able to have several groups that you can enlist or annoy, that many aspects of the end of the game are up to you, that you can be good or evil or dumb as a post. But that the graphics are in general gonna be kinda eh and that the facial animations especially are going to be at best serviceable.
30fps? wtf? that's just for consoles right?
PC is indeed unlocked but the suggested specs are surprisingly high. Minimum is 1070ti/5700, recommended is 2080/6800xt.
I'm pretty sure 30 on consoles was always the target and that hitting higher performance would only have been a signal to go add more to the game.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:04 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
As in all things, there are tradeoffs. If you're playing TLOU or Forbidden West you know it's going to be gorgeous and it's going to be affecting but you're not going to be able to make more than trivial choices or roleplay more than trivially.
If you're playing a Bethesda game, you know that you're going to be able to have several groups that you can enlist or annoy, that many aspects of the end of the game are up to you, that you can be good or evil or dumb as a post. But that the graphics are in general gonna be kinda eh and that the facial animations especially are going to be at best serviceable.
30fps? wtf? that's just for consoles right?
PC is indeed unlocked but the suggested specs are surprisingly high. Minimum is 1070ti/5700, recommended is 2080/6800xt.
I'm pretty sure 30 on consoles was always the target and that hitting higher performance would only have been a signal to go add more to the game.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:04 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
But *1,000* worlds? There's no way that's going to have much attention to detail.
My understanding is that there are some planets/moons with lots of handcrafted stuff to do, some of it hardcoded and some of it procedurally/randomly placed. But that there are also a lot of basically empty worlds, pretty much entirely procedurally created, for you to go to so you can chill and/or extract resources but that's about it.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:13 AM on June 12, 2023
My understanding is that there are some planets/moons with lots of handcrafted stuff to do, some of it hardcoded and some of it procedurally/randomly placed. But that there are also a lot of basically empty worlds, pretty much entirely procedurally created, for you to go to so you can chill and/or extract resources but that's about it.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:13 AM on June 12, 2023
But *1,000* worlds? There's no way that's going to have much attention to detail.
Definitely not, you'll definitely be able to tell whatever procedural triggers they have for triggering desirable content to pop in as you explore random locations. After while will definitely become something of a routine to just do whatever it is you need to to trigger that planet's loot generations.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:16 AM on June 12, 2023
Definitely not, you'll definitely be able to tell whatever procedural triggers they have for triggering desirable content to pop in as you explore random locations. After while will definitely become something of a routine to just do whatever it is you need to to trigger that planet's loot generations.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:16 AM on June 12, 2023
Between this and the Dune add-on for Flight Simulator my sci-fi needs are gonna be sated for a fair while.
posted by aramaic at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I watched the showcase and honestly thought the game looked pretty but kind of boring. I was surprised there do not appear to be any intelligent aliens, but they might be holding that back to avoid spoilers. I didn't finish Fallout 4 because the main plot was boring and this kind of looks like it's building on top of the parts of Fallout 4 that I didn't particularly like. Hopefully they have room for some interesting things in those 1000 planets, or this could be the space version of Oblivion (which is my least favorite of the main games).
posted by JZig at 8:32 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JZig at 8:32 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm most excited about the base building. I do wish they could have some areas, maybe certain sections of any planet or some group of planets or certain systems, where there could be cross-play with other players, specifically for (PVE) base building. Some of the best gaming memories I have are from Star Wars Galaxies where you could build entire cities (well, realistically, towns) with other players.
But still, this looks pretty amazing and I can't wait. And as for procedural generation, I think their approach is a hybrid of PG and hand-crafted modules/chunks. I would assume it's similar to something like 7 Days To Die with a huge selection of prefab buildings and rules for connecting things. At least, that's my hope.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:43 AM on June 12, 2023
But still, this looks pretty amazing and I can't wait. And as for procedural generation, I think their approach is a hybrid of PG and hand-crafted modules/chunks. I would assume it's similar to something like 7 Days To Die with a huge selection of prefab buildings and rules for connecting things. At least, that's my hope.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:43 AM on June 12, 2023
So either they have hired a mind boggling amount of content writers
FWIW this is historically how Bethesda, Bioware and Rockstar differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
Balder's Gate is looking amazing.
The less work you have to do per unique character, the more unique characters you can have. If you’ve got your mix-and-match paperdoll system really, really dialed in and a relatively solid mix of seamlessly interpolating conversation animations for a shared skeleton, then for classic CRPG “isometric” that cost can be incredibly low. Far moreso if you’re not voicing every character (see also: Disco Elysium initially shipped without that, went back and recorded everything after they were successful).
If everything NPC dialogue-related is more or less bespoke content the limiting factor is world state combinatorics: how many different player accomplishments does your average NPC know about and feel the need to comment on? How many global bPlayerBlewUpDeathStar / bPlayerBlewUpEndor flags does our scripting have to support for a typical conversation?
Baldur’s Gate 2, Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim are all great examples of the gameplay scripting complexity upper bound for team sizes and toolchains common to their era. ME2 does a fantastic job of demonstrating a slightly less massive-tree-like / more modular approach with its “assemble a crew” structure.
bunch of comments on bugs and weird perf limitations
The thing to bear in mind is that Bethesda’s internal engine (Creation Engine / CE 2) has in many ways been the direct continuation of the very, very old NetImmerse engine (renamed to GameBryo before Bethesda forked it post-FO3). You’ll see the old NetImmerse file formats everywhere if you dive deep into Skyrim modding. By modern standards it’s … I don’t think “technical debt atrocity” is hyperbole at this point. It amazes me - and in a dev solidarity way saddens me - that Bethesda ever ships anything.
It’s one of the worst examples of misguidedly dogged internal toolchain momentum I can think of. I can’t stand Unity but even Unity - nevermind an industrial solution like Unreal - would be a massive upgrade in terms of performance, animation tools, overall visuals, and pretty much everything not related to gameplay scripting complexity (which is, admittedly, more than half the bugs and why the fans can fix so many of them).
Dive deep into Skyrim and all the familiar zones shit that plagued Morrowind is still right there. Nothing in FO4 suggested a major change. Shared internal structures and object model basically means you can’t piecemeal your way out of the issue (despite Bethesda overhauling different major pieces every release): if you want to really fix it you need to start over.
Won’t lie, it broke my heart a little knowing somebody had to try and hammer something this good-looking and with this scope out of overgrown NetImmerse in 2023.
posted by Ryvar at 8:44 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
FWIW this is historically how Bethesda, Bioware and Rockstar differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
Balder's Gate is looking amazing.
The less work you have to do per unique character, the more unique characters you can have. If you’ve got your mix-and-match paperdoll system really, really dialed in and a relatively solid mix of seamlessly interpolating conversation animations for a shared skeleton, then for classic CRPG “isometric” that cost can be incredibly low. Far moreso if you’re not voicing every character (see also: Disco Elysium initially shipped without that, went back and recorded everything after they were successful).
If everything NPC dialogue-related is more or less bespoke content the limiting factor is world state combinatorics: how many different player accomplishments does your average NPC know about and feel the need to comment on? How many global bPlayerBlewUpDeathStar / bPlayerBlewUpEndor flags does our scripting have to support for a typical conversation?
Baldur’s Gate 2, Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim are all great examples of the gameplay scripting complexity upper bound for team sizes and toolchains common to their era. ME2 does a fantastic job of demonstrating a slightly less massive-tree-like / more modular approach with its “assemble a crew” structure.
bunch of comments on bugs and weird perf limitations
The thing to bear in mind is that Bethesda’s internal engine (Creation Engine / CE 2) has in many ways been the direct continuation of the very, very old NetImmerse engine (renamed to GameBryo before Bethesda forked it post-FO3). You’ll see the old NetImmerse file formats everywhere if you dive deep into Skyrim modding. By modern standards it’s … I don’t think “technical debt atrocity” is hyperbole at this point. It amazes me - and in a dev solidarity way saddens me - that Bethesda ever ships anything.
It’s one of the worst examples of misguidedly dogged internal toolchain momentum I can think of. I can’t stand Unity but even Unity - nevermind an industrial solution like Unreal - would be a massive upgrade in terms of performance, animation tools, overall visuals, and pretty much everything not related to gameplay scripting complexity (which is, admittedly, more than half the bugs and why the fans can fix so many of them).
Dive deep into Skyrim and all the familiar zones shit that plagued Morrowind is still right there. Nothing in FO4 suggested a major change. Shared internal structures and object model basically means you can’t piecemeal your way out of the issue (despite Bethesda overhauling different major pieces every release): if you want to really fix it you need to start over.
Won’t lie, it broke my heart a little knowing somebody had to try and hammer something this good-looking and with this scope out of overgrown NetImmerse in 2023.
posted by Ryvar at 8:44 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
I watched the whole 45 minute video, and I'm pretty impressed. It does feel a lot like No Man's Sky with content curation and a writing team. Which is why I fell off NMS anyway; everything was just eventually too samey samey without a narrative to drive it on. I won't have to make a purchase decision about it because I don't have an X-Box or a PC, gladly, so I can just enjoy my friends' experiences. (I'll need to get a PS5 for the next Horizon and Dragon's Dogma II though.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:01 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:01 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also don't give a fuck that its capped at 30 fps. Graphical fidelity is not everything.
But a 30fps cap is putting graphical fidelity over smoothness of gameplay. It's possible the 30fps cap is to give consoles more room to keep track of all the characters and items and world-states, but it's probably a tradeoff to make the game look better.
posted by straight at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
But a 30fps cap is putting graphical fidelity over smoothness of gameplay. It's possible the 30fps cap is to give consoles more room to keep track of all the characters and items and world-states, but it's probably a tradeoff to make the game look better.
posted by straight at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
"Bethesda also highlighted a targeting control system that lets you pick out the specific systems on enemy ships you want to take out with your firepower."
VATS in space!
posted by doctornemo at 10:37 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
VATS in space!
posted by doctornemo at 10:37 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
doctornemo, i think it needs to be said:
VAAATS IIIN SPAAAAACE!
posted by trif at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
VAAATS IIIN SPAAAAACE!
posted by trif at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
It seems that games like this tend to divide into [crafted plot space , pretty empty space + procedural gen, weakly connected short story space]. I don't mind, but it's very different kinds of game tacked together. Dwarf-fortress / rimworld / crusader kings / NMS procedural generation has limits to how interesting and unique the stories it will tell are, although LLMs might improve that, and skyrim had pretty low-grade story-telling. I look forward to mods filling the empty worlds with tests of cool AI content, but you kind of need signposting to let players know "this isn't connected to the plot, if that's what you're looking for".
posted by a robot made out of meat at 11:28 AM on June 12, 2023
posted by a robot made out of meat at 11:28 AM on June 12, 2023
My understanding is that there are some planets/moons with lots of handcrafted stuff to do, some of it hardcoded and some of it procedurally/randomly placed. But that there are also a lot of basically empty worlds, pretty much entirely procedurally created, for you to go to so you can chill and/or extract resources but that's about it.
Daggerfall sends its regards.
posted by charred husk at 11:36 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
Daggerfall sends its regards.
posted by charred husk at 11:36 AM on June 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
although LLMs might improve that, and skyrim had pretty low-grade story-telling
Kind of. Actual LLMs are going to break on the whole “can’t model/extrapolate from general-case systems” limitation, especially for games where we like to deeply immerse players in unusual situations and there won’t be anything comparable in the training set.
That said, training a smaller neural network on a modest DB of story functional components in abstract to create richer, more informed procedural conversation mad-libs is probably workable. Basically: take several hundred good RPG quests, annotate them with a fixed grammar of (player action type, prior world state)->(NPC response, resulting world state) and train with that. Then try mapping player-object interactions to player action type, and tagged gameplay variables to world state. Something useful might shake out.
TBH I’m far more confident we can get results from dungeon puzzle generation - there’s a very uniform grammar to nearly all dungeon design, and procedural dungeons are well-trod tech. Having a neural network train the principles of the former to seed the results of the latter is comparatively straightforward.
posted by Ryvar at 11:44 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kind of. Actual LLMs are going to break on the whole “can’t model/extrapolate from general-case systems” limitation, especially for games where we like to deeply immerse players in unusual situations and there won’t be anything comparable in the training set.
That said, training a smaller neural network on a modest DB of story functional components in abstract to create richer, more informed procedural conversation mad-libs is probably workable. Basically: take several hundred good RPG quests, annotate them with a fixed grammar of (player action type, prior world state)->(NPC response, resulting world state) and train with that. Then try mapping player-object interactions to player action type, and tagged gameplay variables to world state. Something useful might shake out.
TBH I’m far more confident we can get results from dungeon puzzle generation - there’s a very uniform grammar to nearly all dungeon design, and procedural dungeons are well-trod tech. Having a neural network train the principles of the former to seed the results of the latter is comparatively straightforward.
posted by Ryvar at 11:44 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Daggerfall sends its regards.
man now I want a game where the citizens of Tamriel developed space flight, I wanna cast personal gravity field spells & romance a Khajiit on Vivec Station
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:34 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
man now I want a game where the citizens of Tamriel developed space flight, I wanna cast personal gravity field spells & romance a Khajiit on Vivec Station
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:34 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
man now I want a game where the citizens of Tamriel developed space flight,
Speaking of interesting but cursed genre ideas, I want to direct you towards the upcoming game Witchfire. Not quite space flight but if the universe of this game continued to evolve, I'm pretty certain we'd get there. :-D
posted by Fizz at 12:41 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Speaking of interesting but cursed genre ideas, I want to direct you towards the upcoming game Witchfire. Not quite space flight but if the universe of this game continued to evolve, I'm pretty certain we'd get there. :-D
posted by Fizz at 12:41 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm not too fussed about the underwhelming graphics, but the story seems kind of thin from what I've seen so far. Is that normal for Bethesda? I've never played Skyrim or FO.
I think I'm still sulking from the meh-ness of ME Andromeda and hoping for a new grand, space-themed RPG to fulfill my unrealistic expectations.
posted by Stoof at 12:48 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think I'm still sulking from the meh-ness of ME Andromeda and hoping for a new grand, space-themed RPG to fulfill my unrealistic expectations.
posted by Stoof at 12:48 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
the story seems kind of thin from what I've seen so far. Is that normal for Bethesda?
The short answer is "yes."
The longer answer is, Bethesda games are generally exploration sandboxes with a narrative that is just present enough to move the player from one environment to another. The structure invites the player to build their own narrative about who their character is, what their goals are, and how they feel about the spaces they're exploring and events they're witnessing. When it works it's a really unique and personal experience, but it does ask for a lot of grace from the player filling in the gaps and willfully overlooking some of the rough edges that inevitably come up.
I love them, an I expect I'll love this one, but it's not everybody's bag.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:02 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
The short answer is "yes."
The longer answer is, Bethesda games are generally exploration sandboxes with a narrative that is just present enough to move the player from one environment to another. The structure invites the player to build their own narrative about who their character is, what their goals are, and how they feel about the spaces they're exploring and events they're witnessing. When it works it's a really unique and personal experience, but it does ask for a lot of grace from the player filling in the gaps and willfully overlooking some of the rough edges that inevitably come up.
I love them, an I expect I'll love this one, but it's not everybody's bag.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:02 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Not quite space flight but if the universe of this game continued to evolve, I'm pretty certain we'd get there.
Making Spelljammers sexy and cool instead of utterly cringe is the Final Boss of themed content.
posted by Ryvar at 1:02 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Making Spelljammers sexy and cool instead of utterly cringe is the Final Boss of themed content.
posted by Ryvar at 1:02 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm probably not going to buy an XBox so I'm going to have to look at this longingly from afar. Both Skyrim and No Man's Sky did end up being ported to the Switch so maybe in 7 years time I'll be able to play a port of this on the Switch 2. Hopefully by then the major bugs would have been worked out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:07 PM on June 12, 2023
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:07 PM on June 12, 2023
Seconding Phobos that you shouldn't expect the kind of story-driven experience you'd get in Mass Effect or Horizon.
For me, if there are magic moments in Bethesda games they're probably utterly unscripted. Moments when multiple partially-randomized systems start interacting complex ways that are sort of qualitatively different.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:13 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
For me, if there are magic moments in Bethesda games they're probably utterly unscripted. Moments when multiple partially-randomized systems start interacting complex ways that are sort of qualitatively different.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:13 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
man now I want a game where the citizens of Tamriel developed space flight, I wanna cast personal gravity field spells & romance a Khajiit on Vivec Station
Assuming modding this is substantially similar to modding previous Bethesda titles, I expect most of this (personal gravity spells, romanceable Khajiit for sure) will be possible within a couple months after launch (on PC at least); visiting an actual planet-sized intricately-detailed version of Tamriel inside of this game will probably take several years but you can bet the modding community will start working on it basically immediately.
That's the real secret to success, here, if Bethesda is smart about the internal architecture of this game - it could mean no more having to shoehorn your new, modded adventures into world map locations that already have other stuff going on, or worrying about incompatibilities between mods trying to all use the same locations overwriting each other, and/or needing janky workarounds to extend the limits of the worldmap - if they set this up wisely, they'll make it so a modder that wants to add content can just plop in their own planet or system or space station or whatever - with as much or as little detail as they want - with ease. And then if it starts to feel empty or same-y, a player can just hop on StarfieldNexus and download a dozen more lovingly-hand-crafted planets to add to their universe. Modding (and Bethesda's support for it, to give credit where credit's due) has been what's turned every Bethesda open-world game since Morrowind at least from buggy messes upon release into masterpieces a year+ later, and if Bethesda's smart they'll take this opportunity - a game universe so vast in scope that no one team of devs on a deadline can ever possibly really compellingly fill it all - to really lean into that.
And that abandoned mine location in the beginning of the gameplay video really made me think that if nobody takes this opportunity to make a mod that adds a playable version of the planet in Pitch Black it'll be a real missed opportunity.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:46 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Assuming modding this is substantially similar to modding previous Bethesda titles, I expect most of this (personal gravity spells, romanceable Khajiit for sure) will be possible within a couple months after launch (on PC at least); visiting an actual planet-sized intricately-detailed version of Tamriel inside of this game will probably take several years but you can bet the modding community will start working on it basically immediately.
That's the real secret to success, here, if Bethesda is smart about the internal architecture of this game - it could mean no more having to shoehorn your new, modded adventures into world map locations that already have other stuff going on, or worrying about incompatibilities between mods trying to all use the same locations overwriting each other, and/or needing janky workarounds to extend the limits of the worldmap - if they set this up wisely, they'll make it so a modder that wants to add content can just plop in their own planet or system or space station or whatever - with as much or as little detail as they want - with ease. And then if it starts to feel empty or same-y, a player can just hop on StarfieldNexus and download a dozen more lovingly-hand-crafted planets to add to their universe. Modding (and Bethesda's support for it, to give credit where credit's due) has been what's turned every Bethesda open-world game since Morrowind at least from buggy messes upon release into masterpieces a year+ later, and if Bethesda's smart they'll take this opportunity - a game universe so vast in scope that no one team of devs on a deadline can ever possibly really compellingly fill it all - to really lean into that.
And that abandoned mine location in the beginning of the gameplay video really made me think that if nobody takes this opportunity to make a mod that adds a playable version of the planet in Pitch Black it'll be a real missed opportunity.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:46 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'll probably get around to playing No Man's Firefly a year after launch when it's half price. AAA games like these are nothing if not fully derivative with plotting, characters, and themes barely and often times worse than blockbuster films
based on the 'billionaire funded ancient alien tech plundering but also wild west' central story, I'd be super surprised if this wasn't yet another rehash of the monomythic 'go out and dominate the environment/landscape, exert your capitalist will and exploit nature and people while exploring ancient Egyptia-sorry-"alien" ruins' kind of power fantasy that's been like every gd AAA open-world game that's not in the GTA mold in the past forever
I just can't wait to see how they map racial stereotypes to an entire alien species this time, oh what fun
posted by paimapi at 1:47 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
based on the 'billionaire funded ancient alien tech plundering but also wild west' central story, I'd be super surprised if this wasn't yet another rehash of the monomythic 'go out and dominate the environment/landscape, exert your capitalist will and exploit nature and people while exploring ancient Egyptia-sorry-"alien" ruins' kind of power fantasy that's been like every gd AAA open-world game that's not in the GTA mold in the past forever
I just can't wait to see how they map racial stereotypes to an entire alien species this time, oh what fun
posted by paimapi at 1:47 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I do have one concern after watching that entire 45 minute video though: If this game is gonna have a vast number of planets, at least some percentage of which have entire cities, then it really needs to have a vast number of voice actors, also. It's just not gonna feel like a big galaxy if there's only 25 voice actors, at least half of which I already recognize from Oblivion/Fallout/Skyrim.
posted by mstokes650 at 2:10 PM on June 12, 2023
posted by mstokes650 at 2:10 PM on June 12, 2023
Daggerfall sends its regards.
Daggerfall was kind of brilliant for its time. It was like a primordial modern Bethesda game bolted on to a roguelike hack-n-slash adventure. The dungeons were procedurally generated and took hours to explore. The map was terrible, finding the object of your quest was just a matter of opening random doors, and if you didn't have a teleport spell equipped it could take hours more to find your way back out.
I played it as a kid on a computer that could barely support it. It was also extremely buggy and I would periodically call the Bethesda 800 number to see if there were new patches, which they would dutifully send to me on floppy disk.
posted by smelendez at 2:11 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Daggerfall was kind of brilliant for its time. It was like a primordial modern Bethesda game bolted on to a roguelike hack-n-slash adventure. The dungeons were procedurally generated and took hours to explore. The map was terrible, finding the object of your quest was just a matter of opening random doors, and if you didn't have a teleport spell equipped it could take hours more to find your way back out.
I played it as a kid on a computer that could barely support it. It was also extremely buggy and I would periodically call the Bethesda 800 number to see if there were new patches, which they would dutifully send to me on floppy disk.
posted by smelendez at 2:11 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's just not gonna feel like a big galaxy if there's only 25 voice actors, at least half of which I already recognize from Oblivion/Fallout/Skyrim
Pretty sure I heard a raider bark line that's been around since FO3 — I never got into the TES games so it might be even older.
posted by nathan_teske at 3:22 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Pretty sure I heard a raider bark line that's been around since FO3 — I never got into the TES games so it might be even older.
posted by nathan_teske at 3:22 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ahziss * naba able ali ketra a stealthy khajiit. And move some skooma through interplanetary customs.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:05 PM on June 12, 2023
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:05 PM on June 12, 2023
It's just not gonna feel like a big galaxy if there's only 25 voice actors, at least half of which I already recognize from Oblivion/Fallout/Skyrim
This is kind of a solved problem with current gen text to speech.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 5:27 PM on June 12, 2023
This is kind of a solved problem with current gen text to speech.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 5:27 PM on June 12, 2023
"We obsess over food!"
hrmm... orange juice, patty melt (served with chipped potatoes), (synthmeat) steak, (Ta'Ameya) pita (two falafel stuffed flatbreads), toast (a slice of toasted white bread), trilo bites (alien arthropods sauteed and served with whipped butter).
Wait, why am I going to visit a thousand planets if this is all I can eat? I can get this from around the corner.
(I consider all arthropods to be alien.)
posted by shoesfullofdust at 6:00 PM on June 12, 2023
hrmm... orange juice, patty melt (served with chipped potatoes), (synthmeat) steak, (Ta'Ameya) pita (two falafel stuffed flatbreads), toast (a slice of toasted white bread), trilo bites (alien arthropods sauteed and served with whipped butter).
Wait, why am I going to visit a thousand planets if this is all I can eat? I can get this from around the corner.
(I consider all arthropods to be alien.)
posted by shoesfullofdust at 6:00 PM on June 12, 2023
It's just not gonna feel like a big galaxy if there's only 25 voice actors
"I saw a space mudcrab today."
While we're here, I hope they used the writers from Oblivion's Thieves Guild storyline and not, say, the ones from Skyrim's Thieves Guild storyline. Or the ones from Elder Scrolls Online instead of the ones from Fallout 4...and so on.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:36 PM on June 12, 2023
"I saw a space mudcrab today."
While we're here, I hope they used the writers from Oblivion's Thieves Guild storyline and not, say, the ones from Skyrim's Thieves Guild storyline. Or the ones from Elder Scrolls Online instead of the ones from Fallout 4...and so on.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:36 PM on June 12, 2023
This is kind of a solved problem with current gen text to speech.
By the the TES6 or FO5 hit I wouldn’t be surprised if player voice customization was part of character creation. We’re already at the point modders are using AI voice models to expand FO4’s voiced protagonist. The only thing holding back a completely re-voiced character is time/compute power but that barrier is eroding quickly.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:42 PM on June 12, 2023
By the the TES6 or FO5 hit I wouldn’t be surprised if player voice customization was part of character creation. We’re already at the point modders are using AI voice models to expand FO4’s voiced protagonist. The only thing holding back a completely re-voiced character is time/compute power but that barrier is eroding quickly.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:42 PM on June 12, 2023
I'm not a big gamer but I do play No Man's Sky and this looks pretty good! I like the idea of being able to meander through unoccupied worlds like NMS but occasionally run into people and cities and quests and such.
The human characters do look like dead-eyed floppy flesh dolls, though. I thought video games would overcome that in the last 20 years. At least they're just on the unrealistic side of the Uncanny Valley so I could put up with that.
I do love the variety of bodies and faces in their character generation system.
posted by mmoncur at 7:55 PM on June 12, 2023
The human characters do look like dead-eyed floppy flesh dolls, though. I thought video games would overcome that in the last 20 years. At least they're just on the unrealistic side of the Uncanny Valley so I could put up with that.
I do love the variety of bodies and faces in their character generation system.
posted by mmoncur at 7:55 PM on June 12, 2023
Haha wow. Bethesda finally did it.
Somewhere on Usenet Derek Smart is seething.
posted by notyou at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Somewhere on Usenet Derek Smart is seething.
posted by notyou at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
For those that know Bethesda, should I expect a ton of pay-for-play gatekeeping in this game? I'm fine with expansion packs and such but I don't like games with tons of "click here to pay extra for X" stuff.
I'm fine with the brief commercial for physical merchandise halfway through this video, and will probably buy that Xbox controller...
posted by mmoncur at 9:37 PM on June 12, 2023
I'm fine with the brief commercial for physical merchandise halfway through this video, and will probably buy that Xbox controller...
posted by mmoncur at 9:37 PM on June 12, 2023
On the one hand Bethesda’s the origin of the $5 Horse Armor DLC memes (…he wrote, while playing a game with literal $20 horse armor cosmetics for sale), on the other hand the fan reaction to that was such a pitchforks and torches affair they’ve played it straight since (at least singleplayer, I’ve never touched ESO).
Typically 3-4 DLCs in the $10-20 range, typically all but one of them worth it (and one of the others makes up for it), then a year or two after the last one comes out they release an “Ultimate Edition” bundle of the original game plus all DLCs at the original price, which usually drops pretty quickly.
Both as a gamer and a dev I think they achieve a pretty admirable split between the exigencies of operating a profitable studio within capitalism, and not being predatory human garbage. YMMV.
posted by Ryvar at 10:51 PM on June 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
Typically 3-4 DLCs in the $10-20 range, typically all but one of them worth it (and one of the others makes up for it), then a year or two after the last one comes out they release an “Ultimate Edition” bundle of the original game plus all DLCs at the original price, which usually drops pretty quickly.
Both as a gamer and a dev I think they achieve a pretty admirable split between the exigencies of operating a profitable studio within capitalism, and not being predatory human garbage. YMMV.
posted by Ryvar at 10:51 PM on June 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
While the transition to hand made spaces after daggerfall was really the right move, I do kinda wish there were some giant game company leaning hard into the problem of improving procedural generative content as a multi decade effort.
There's some sense I'm which that's what Minecraft and dwarf fortress are, but really I want to see what Daggerfall 12 is like. Minecraft succeeds because it focuses almost exclusively on the environment, not worrying about individuals and how they form a society. Dwarf Fortress succeeds by keeping it local (and even then the frame rate eventually goes to zero because modeling fluid dynamics is hard, even in an ascii game).
Daggerfall, by contrast, sets out to do something absurdly unattainable, and is just such a glorious fucking failure. But it leaves you dreaming of what Could Be...
posted by kaibutsu at 1:13 AM on June 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's some sense I'm which that's what Minecraft and dwarf fortress are, but really I want to see what Daggerfall 12 is like. Minecraft succeeds because it focuses almost exclusively on the environment, not worrying about individuals and how they form a society. Dwarf Fortress succeeds by keeping it local (and even then the frame rate eventually goes to zero because modeling fluid dynamics is hard, even in an ascii game).
Daggerfall, by contrast, sets out to do something absurdly unattainable, and is just such a glorious fucking failure. But it leaves you dreaming of what Could Be...
posted by kaibutsu at 1:13 AM on June 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's really interesting how very suddenly space videogames are everywhere. People must have really liked No Man's Sky after all. I love love loved No Man's Sky when it came out - less so these days as I don't really like base-building, more exploring the universe - and I'm curious to see what Starfield is.
I'm glad it's going to be on Game Pass, because I have the sneaking suspicion I will play it like I did Fallout 4: all consumingly for about two weeks, then never again because I am left with the bitter taste of it being far too shallow for the time I spent with it.
posted by daysocks at 3:15 AM on June 13, 2023
I'm glad it's going to be on Game Pass, because I have the sneaking suspicion I will play it like I did Fallout 4: all consumingly for about two weeks, then never again because I am left with the bitter taste of it being far too shallow for the time I spent with it.
posted by daysocks at 3:15 AM on June 13, 2023
For those that know Bethesda, should I expect a ton of pay-for-play gatekeeping in this game?
If it's similar to Fallout 4, you should expect:
* A few big story-expansion DLCs
* A few DLCs that are either just parts for building stuff or parts wrapped in a fairly thin questline
* A marketplace for more stuff that doesn't rise to the level of DLC, like cosmetics, new armor/clothing/weapons, etc.
* Free fan-made mods that are also mostly parts for building stuff, cosmetics, new armor/clothing/weapons, etc, with a few story-oriented packages.
You should expect that nothing will feel pay-to-win and that some free mods will make you ludicrously overpowered.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:56 AM on June 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
If it's similar to Fallout 4, you should expect:
* A few big story-expansion DLCs
* A few DLCs that are either just parts for building stuff or parts wrapped in a fairly thin questline
* A marketplace for more stuff that doesn't rise to the level of DLC, like cosmetics, new armor/clothing/weapons, etc.
* Free fan-made mods that are also mostly parts for building stuff, cosmetics, new armor/clothing/weapons, etc, with a few story-oriented packages.
You should expect that nothing will feel pay-to-win and that some free mods will make you ludicrously overpowered.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:56 AM on June 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
It won't be a bethesda game unless my spaceship can't land because it's stuck on the eave of a horse barn.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
First game not coming to Playstation that I have wanted to buy in around 10 years. I'm a PS5 person. I can wait.
It's a Bethesda game... it will be immensely better a year after release.
Also— for PC, I bet nude mods already exist.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:23 AM on June 13, 2023
It's a Bethesda game... it will be immensely better a year after release.
Also— for PC, I bet nude mods already exist.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:23 AM on June 13, 2023
It won't be a bethesda game unless my spaceship can't land because it's stuck on the eave of a horse barn
The ship is actually a hat worn by an invisible npc.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The ship is actually a hat worn by an invisible npc.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The combat looks “punchy”. Stealth, jet pack, zero-g & micro-g traversal, gun-slinging, melee; that’s a lot of ways to approach combat. It looks engaging, I’m in.
I’m a fan of both Skyrim and Fallout 3. So I’m down for whatever Bethesda releases as a Single Player game.
They seem to be trying to do a super ambitious game here, it’ll be remarkable if it all comes together cohesively.
I think that they held off releasing not just because of jank, but I’ll bet they found that many areas of the game were unfun. So I’m optimistic that realism (boring traversal) has been toned down, and the “fun” dial has been cranked up. Red Dead Redemption solved this with interesting mini quests to do during travel.
I’ve spent hundred of hours stealth arching in Skyrim, and never finished the story. The exploration is what I’m down for. I’m hoping procedurally enhanced world building doesn’t mean bland repetitive boring worlds. NMS suffered for me because it kind of got a little “samey” after about four planets.
So I’m betting that there’s plenty of diversity and interesting locations on the settled planets to keep it interesting, and if a portion of the planets/moons are blank resource rich bodies I won’t complain. Especially if you can build a base “anywhere”. Hopefully they’ll have some kind of rovers for traversal.
Seems like they’re swinging for the fences. Be a pirate! Be a space miner! Explore! Scan! Trade! Tame alien life forms! Build! Farm! Fly! and there’s also a story... if part of this works well, it’ll prolly still be a huge fanboy’s dream.
I’m a new XBox owner solely in anticipation of this game. Sucks that they’re not on my PlayStation anymore, but after Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I’d follow them anywhere.
posted by GrandPunkRailroad at 7:24 AM on June 13, 2023
I’m a fan of both Skyrim and Fallout 3. So I’m down for whatever Bethesda releases as a Single Player game.
They seem to be trying to do a super ambitious game here, it’ll be remarkable if it all comes together cohesively.
I think that they held off releasing not just because of jank, but I’ll bet they found that many areas of the game were unfun. So I’m optimistic that realism (boring traversal) has been toned down, and the “fun” dial has been cranked up. Red Dead Redemption solved this with interesting mini quests to do during travel.
I’ve spent hundred of hours stealth arching in Skyrim, and never finished the story. The exploration is what I’m down for. I’m hoping procedurally enhanced world building doesn’t mean bland repetitive boring worlds. NMS suffered for me because it kind of got a little “samey” after about four planets.
So I’m betting that there’s plenty of diversity and interesting locations on the settled planets to keep it interesting, and if a portion of the planets/moons are blank resource rich bodies I won’t complain. Especially if you can build a base “anywhere”. Hopefully they’ll have some kind of rovers for traversal.
Seems like they’re swinging for the fences. Be a pirate! Be a space miner! Explore! Scan! Trade! Tame alien life forms! Build! Farm! Fly! and there’s also a story... if part of this works well, it’ll prolly still be a huge fanboy’s dream.
I’m a new XBox owner solely in anticipation of this game. Sucks that they’re not on my PlayStation anymore, but after Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I’d follow them anywhere.
posted by GrandPunkRailroad at 7:24 AM on June 13, 2023
The human characters do look like dead-eyed floppy flesh dolls, though. I thought video games would overcome that in the last 20 years.
Some video games have, but Bethesda does its own thing.
I'm probably going to buy an XBox just to play this (and other stuff later, presumably).
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:39 AM on June 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Some video games have, but Bethesda does its own thing.
I'm probably going to buy an XBox just to play this (and other stuff later, presumably).
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:39 AM on June 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think that they held off releasing not just because of jank, but I’ll bet they found that many areas of the game were unfun.
I think Phil Spencer sat down with them and explained that Microsoft needed this to be an absolute home run, an instant "This would absolutely have been the instant game of the year if it weren't a Zelda year" game, and that they've been polishing everything. Even just graphically, you can see a lot of improvement from their first gameplay presentation in 2022.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:51 AM on June 13, 2023
I think Phil Spencer sat down with them and explained that Microsoft needed this to be an absolute home run, an instant "This would absolutely have been the instant game of the year if it weren't a Zelda year" game, and that they've been polishing everything. Even just graphically, you can see a lot of improvement from their first gameplay presentation in 2022.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:51 AM on June 13, 2023
Xbox Promises Starfield Will Be Bethesda's Least Buggy Launch Ever [Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 7:53 AM on June 13, 2023
““We have an awful lot of people internally playing Starfield, working with Todd [Howard] and the team,” Booty said during a June 11 interview with Giant Bomb. “I see bug counts and just by the numbers if it shipped today, Starfield would already have the fewest bugs of any Bethesda game ever shipped.” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer added that every quality assurance tester “in our entire company” is currently playing the game and reviewing issues with a couple months still to go before release.”Hmm, we'll see....
posted by Fizz at 7:53 AM on June 13, 2023
>> The human characters do look like dead-eyed floppy flesh dolls, though. I thought video games would overcome that in the last 20 years.
> Some video games have, but Bethesda does its own thing.
That thing includes facial hair that looks straight out of a handmade child's doll from the 1930s. But if the ship flies true, the paint job will fade into the background, I reckon.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:22 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
> Some video games have, but Bethesda does its own thing.
That thing includes facial hair that looks straight out of a handmade child's doll from the 1930s. But if the ship flies true, the paint job will fade into the background, I reckon.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:22 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I play vanilla Skyrim on Switch and I still think it looks beautiful, but everyone approaches these games differently and we all have a different level of what we're willing to accept and what we're looking to get out of a particular game.
posted by Fizz at 8:58 AM on June 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 8:58 AM on June 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
A mix of The Outer Worlds, No Man's Sky and Elite? ;)
I like the scope, especially the bigger cities plus mucking about in random places. I have concerns about NPC writing and whether all the abandoned mines/stations/outhouses will be interesting enough rather than Draugr tomb #51. Some of the skills were interesting, but not too numerous - I can leave with fewer skills that have greater impact. Pew pew looks good thanks to ID and some scenes were beautiful.
I mean I'll get it and play it through, but I really wish this is good and that the new setting frees them to do the things they want. Fallout 4 was marginal for me, but this seems less by the numbers. I just hope not all dialogue consists of one-line responses.
posted by ersatz at 12:50 AM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I like the scope, especially the bigger cities plus mucking about in random places. I have concerns about NPC writing and whether all the abandoned mines/stations/outhouses will be interesting enough rather than Draugr tomb #51. Some of the skills were interesting, but not too numerous - I can leave with fewer skills that have greater impact. Pew pew looks good thanks to ID and some scenes were beautiful.
I mean I'll get it and play it through, but I really wish this is good and that the new setting frees them to do the things they want. Fallout 4 was marginal for me, but this seems less by the numbers. I just hope not all dialogue consists of one-line responses.
posted by ersatz at 12:50 AM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
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