The needlessly underdeveloped mechanics are what got me. A few examples:
You can board and take over other ships, but selling them is useless and - even worse - you can’t fucking swap parts into your own ship!
Having a crew is cool, but they do fuck all.
Flying around in space is cool, but the game goes out of its way to make sure that you know that “space” is not a vast openness but little boxes in front of the planet sprite.
You can have multiple ships but not have AI fly them and have a cool squadron you jump around with
You can build a base, but no snap to grid
Nothing in your base moves stuff around, it just gets teleported along imaginary wires. Conveyors are a thing, you know?
I could go on and on, but I’m too busy playing no man’s sky which I restarted after 29 hours in Starfield.
Flying around in space is cool, but the game goes out of its way to make sure that you know that “space” is not a vast openness but little boxes in front of the planet sprite.
I’m one of the few people for which this is a “strength” of the game. I have severe thalassophobia and games like No Mans Sky where I’m allowed to free-roam in space actually make me feel super anxious and nauseous. I get the same feeling when swimming in large bodies of water, or in big underwater levels in video games.
So like, a real space sim like NMS is so hard for me to face without feeling ill, but somehow, these fake little boxes in Starfield make it so I don’t feel that way enough that I can actually play it. I still get twinges of anxiety, but it’s nowhere near as bad.
The needlessly underdeveloped mechanics are what got me. A few examples:
You can board and take over other ships, but selling them is useless and - even worse - you can’t fucking swap parts into your own ship!
Having a crew is cool, but they do fuck all.
Flying around in space is cool, but the game goes out of its way to make sure that you know that “space” is not a vast openness but little boxes in front of the planet sprite.
You can have multiple ships but not have AI fly them and have a cool squadron you jump around with
You can build a base, but no snap to grid
Nothing in your base moves stuff around, it just gets teleported along imaginary wires. Conveyors are a thing, you know?
I could go on and on, but I’m too busy playing no man’s sky which I restarted after 29 hours in Starfield.
I’m one of the few people for which this is a “strength” of the game. I have severe thalassophobia and games like No Mans Sky where I’m allowed to free-roam in space actually make me feel super anxious and nauseous. I get the same feeling when swimming in large bodies of water, or in big underwater levels in video games.
So like, a real space sim like NMS is so hard for me to face without feeling ill, but somehow, these fake little boxes in Starfield make it so I don’t feel that way enough that I can actually play it. I still get twinges of anxiety, but it’s nowhere near as bad.
TIL thalassophobia also triggers in space, that’s interesting