The game's overall rating has fallen lower than 70%.
Image Credit: Bethesda, Starfield
In October, Bethesda's space RPG Starfield set an unfortunate record, becoming the studio's lowest-rated game on Steam. Surprisingly, it performed even worse than the widely criticized Fallout 76, receiving positive reviews from only 71% of users.
As more players tried out the game, the trend persisted. Starfield's status on Steam has now shifted to "Mixed," signifying that its rating has fallen below 70%. As of the current moment, only 67% of the over 115,000 user reviews express a positive view.
Much like before, the main criticisms in these negative reviews focus on Starfield's approach to its main storyline and quest design, described by many as unexciting and uninspired.
Players also expressed dissatisfaction with the game's "open-world", criticizing it for lacking interesting locations, boring procedural environments, which Bethesda tried to defend on numerous occasions, and the overabundance of loading screens.
Additionally, the reviews target the game for its lackluster NPCs and companions, underwhelming gunplay and economy systems, repetitive space battles, unnecessary perks, and obsolete gameplay mechanics.
Image Credit: Bethesda, Starfield
The community's sentiments toward Starfield were also evident in The Game Awards 2023's Game of the Year nominees list, where the game Bethesda devoted eight years to developing did not even make the cut. Many hope that The Game Awards' decision to overlook Starfield for Game of the Year will serve as a wake-up call for Bethesda, signaling a need for adjustments in their current game design strategy.
As for Starfield itself, it seems that the RPG is on track to follow the path of titles like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077, in the sense that players can expect the game to shine only a few years after the release. Currently, Bethesda is in the process of testing the Starfield Beta Update 1.8.83 patch, which tackles memory-related issues, enhances gameplay, adds support for NVIDIA DLSS, and, most notably, addresses the uncanny appearance of the game's NPCs by fixing their eyes.
Image Credit: Bethesda, Starfield
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