Why Creation Engine Isn't Starfield's Problem

Do you blame Bethesda, Creation Engine, or Obama for Starfield's shortcomings? Let me know.

dont make an endless game, make a good game that people want to play endlessly

“They wanted the game to be endless so they created eternal damnation” killed me

The entire Mass Effect series had countless loading screens and annoyingly long elevator rides, but like you said, the content that lies on the other side of these pauses in gameplay is worth waiting for. I wouldn't consider the combat in any of those three games groundbreaking, they all had flaws, but the core story, character interactions, and dialogue made those games something people continue to play a decade later. While people like to say "Well, that's a different game, go play that instead then!" there's nothing inherent to Mass Effect's design that couldn't have been applied here. Your Cyberpunk example too is an even simpler example, the meta rewards for participating in radiant activities in the form of street cred offer a reason to engage with the content. And again, there's no reason Bethesda couldn't have put in a system like this.

I think Emil is a big factor in why they've been going downhill. He can't write, and thinks design documents aren't necessary. Which is why quests can feel so disjointed from each other as there's no overarching vision.

From what I've seen, many more negative reviews are focussing on the design flaws rather than the engine. I think that most people who are paying attention are well aware of the real problems, but perhaps the reasons for them could use more coverage. The NG+ nonsense was such a misstep that it's quite astonishing that Bethesda couldn't see it. They can blame the fans till the cows come home but they can't ignore the dwindling player count.

I think this is the best critique of starfield I've seen. Todd Howard on the lex Friedman podcast exactly said that the challenge with their franchises is that modders keep the communities going a decade after launch and that its hard to design a game to have the kind of replay ability. The result was the all of starfield feels like a template for a game rather than an actual game. But I think they misses the mark thinking skyrim was being replayed for those jokes of radiant quests that are randomly spawning.

the irony is that while its massive the scope is literally just 5 systems at the most so really they could have shortened down the explorable area and it would have given time to create more unique events and missions and more noticeable planets for us to explore

I can't wait for Starfield 1.0 to come out in 5 years! This alpha build looks pretty promising. I hope we don't need the entire community to give an actual source of custom planets, quests, npcs, ships, and a proper progression system! Oh wait...

I am a bit afraid, that Bethesdas push for paid mods may harm the modding community and make it more difficult to "save" Starfield.

I've been a creation engine defender. I always point to Skyrim and Fallout 4 mods that literally change the way animations and combat work. All done in the creation engine. Like you stated, it's Bethesda that doesn't utilize it correctly.

The problem is that it is small. Neon should have been Night City. New Atlantis should have been larger. Planets should have been more, but without endless ships landing next to you.

Fallout 4 mod developer and hobby UE5 developer here; Creation Engine is just a tool, and if I was to make an entire Open World RPG and had free choice of engine (with source code access), I would seriously consider picking Creation over Unreal. It's a specialized engine that does this one thing really well but it's completely useless for anything besides this type of game. You are absolutely correct that the tool used to make SF is not anywhere close to being the main problem with SF. SFs problems are design-level problems: it doesn't matter how you implement the design, it's not going to turn out well if the design is bad to begin with.

I think the BGS devs having a meltdown on twitter and attacking the fanbase illustrates your point...lol. As long as Todd is calling the shots, you can expect more of the same for years to come.

"It not the creation engine its the design" YES YES YES. I 100% AGREE

“A poor tradesman always blames his tools.” That kind of describes what is going on at Bugthesda. I’m playing Starfield right now & agree 100% with you. I also play FO76 & since they have brought Double11 & some other software developer to basically do the work on FO76 it has improved dramatically & looks like it will be getting a new lease of life in the near future. What I’m saying is that shows in a small way that it is Bugthesda that is Microsoft’s problem now.

"16 times the loading screens!" -Todd

Bethesda managed to make the closest thing I’ve ever seen to purgatory

So sad to see this game flop this hard, but I agree with every argument and point you've made. We'll see in the next year or so if Bethesda is really capable of learning from this, or will just suffocate in their own copium.

I think what Bethesda should have done was focus the game's exploration on the travel aspect, mostly doing away with fast travel (though perhaps leaving in taxis between major locations on a planet). This would allow them to better leverage the procedural event generation they are known for. They do use it in Starfield, but there is no reason to interact with it since you can just teleport halfway across the galaxy with very little effort. Additionally, events and locations should be placed closer together on planet surfaces to avoid having players walk five minutes to discover some meaningless anomaly that is exactly the same as the ones you find on every other planet. This would help make the game feel less empty.