Starfield is a game that has had mixed opinions, and after a few days of “intense” play (in quotes because my responsibilities ended up not allowing me to enjoy it as much as I would have liked) I can tell you that I understand some of them. those opinions. However, it is clear to me that in the end it does not change the fact that it is so one of the best games Bethesda has made so farand it deserves to be considered as one of the essentials of 2023.

A few days ago I already shared with you an article dedicated to the performance and technical plan of Starfield, and today I want to tell you what I thought about the game from a different perspective than the classic reviews that I usually publish. In this article I’m going to focus on the five things I liked most about Starfield and which, in my opinion, are what make it one of the best games I’ve had the chance to enjoy in nearly four decades of playing video games.

So as not to spoil the experience for those of you who started playing today or plan to in the next few days, I’m about to Avoid any “spoilers”. As always, if you have any questions, I invite you to leave them in the comments and I’ll be happy to help. Without further ado, get comfortable, let’s get started.

1.-Starfield has a great environment

That’s definitely one of the things I’ve liked the most since I started playing. Each of the different places we visit in the Starfield, from the simplest cave to the largest and most complex city, it exudes personality and really gives us very different feelings. The same happens with the planets we can visit and any other place such as space stations.

To achieve such a good setup, Bethesda resorted to one of the things it knows best, tell stories through scenarios and the objects and elements you place within them. Yes, it’s something completely inherited from games like Fallout 4.

We can thus find the prosperity of the New Atlantis and appreciate the huge contrast with its “underworld”, we can also come across scenarios of authentic terror where the corpses and blood of the abandoned area they record that something very serious has happened in them, and the decay of places and facilities that have long been empty will not leave us indifferent.

It’s true that not all planets have the same level of detail or offer the same options, but that’s part of the game’s charm. If all the places we can explore were the same, it wouldn’t really make any sense With a realistic approach, it is normal for there to be many empty worlds.

Even in these cases, however, careful setting of the same encourages us to go out and explore and look for resources, or to discover with nostalgia the possible cataclysms that explain this situation of desolation and emptiness on the planet. On this topic, don’t forget to explore earth (if i can read).

2.-Freedom of exploration and action: be who you want to be

The truth is that Starfield is in the beginning stunning for all the content it offers and the exploration options it increases However, when we start playing, we realize that everything is well organized and that thanks to the huge freedom it gives us, we can enjoy it in peace and without stress.

It doesn’t matter that we only have one or two hours a day to play, we can use that time without any problems and we will have a real sense of progression that will prevent us from being overwhelmed. Mission tracking is very intuitive and fast travel plays a key role in this as it prevents us from wasting time traveling long distances.

Freedom of inquiry also has a very important value in the face of the development of our character and reaching objects of interest. For example, in a mission focused on a factory that had suffered an attack and there was only one survivor, I decided to calmly walk through each room, which resulted in a weapon of great value.

If we explore calmly, we will find more valuables, while if we go to “throw away” more we will end up missing a lot of things. On the other hand, this freedom also allows us to do the things we want to do at a particular time and leave the things we don’t want to do for later, which of course has a very positive impact on the player.

To all this is added freedom of action, which generally allows us to become a hero or a villain without having to follow the plot of the game. Goodbye to linearity, imposition and that false freedom that we suffered so much in triple-A games. Starfield allows you to really explore, take a huge amount of items from the scenarios and experience the game in your own way.

3.-Rolero touch marked but affordable and well implemented

When you start playing Starfield, you feel like you’re facing a game more focused on action and exploration than role-playing, but as you progress, you realize you’ve made a big mistake. The depth this game has in that sense it is quite bigand it is evident in many aspects but at the same time that rolero touch is very well integratedand that makes it affordable and enjoyable.

The character customization options at the skill level are simpler than those in Fallout 4, but it makes up for a lot of other things, such as high degree of interaction with NPCsthe ability to research and upgrade our equipment and our ship, a fairly complete crafting and production system, a simple but interesting mechanism for exploring and analyzing planets, and basic building system which also reminds me a lot of what we saw in Fallout 4 at the time.

On its surface, Starfield seems simple to us, but deep down it offers us a world of possibilities. We can recruit NPCs to become part of our ship’s crew and accompany us on our adventures, and we will also have the opportunity to develop a romantic relationship with some. Yes, this is also carried over from Fallout 4, but it was greatly improved in Starfield.

Flirting with our companion begins at a specific moment in our adventure, and in order for it to develop properly, it is essential that you successfully complete the various conversations that appear. Once we are in a relationship with that NPC we can go a step further and propose marriage. impression? Well wait, there is more, you can live as a couple, with all that entails, and their comments will not leave you indifferent.

4.-Graphic editing is a real miracle (almost always)

It is a fact that Starfield needs improvements at the level of optimization and the truth is that even in this sense I had “déjà vu” that reminded me of Fallout 4, but that does not change the fact that we are facing one of the most technically advanced games moment. It’s not perfect, but it’s bordering on high on a technical level.

Bethesda’s Creation Engine 2 enabled the creation of a vast world, which perfectly combines very large and detailed stages with smaller and closed locations. The cave where we started our adventure would be an example of a closed environment and New Atlantis would be an example of the opposite.

In New Atlantis we find a huge city full of life with very large areas that are fully explorable. It also has various facilities and services and we can communicate more or less deeply with its inhabitants. Despite this breadth, the quality of geometry, NPC modeling, and level of detail presented in high-level scenarios borders on and dirty, low-quality textures forming extremely low geometry are conspicuous by their absence.

It also emphasizes enormous level of detail and texturing quality in the interior, which reaches such a good level that on certain occasions it seems that we are facing a real picture and not a game. The expressiveness and detail of NPC faces is another strong point of this game, and the truth is that the lighting and shadow effects also offer very good results, although are completely “pre-cooked”, As well as reflections that were generated using “cube maps”, which imposes important restrictions, such as our character not being reflected.

There are things that have room for improvement, and those are obvious, such as vegetation in certain areas o Level of detail and NPC modeling in specific areas where a large number of them coincidebut it seems obvious that this is due to a simple limitation of the graphics engine when it comes to working with a very high number of triangles.

5.-The immersion and depth of the Starfield are amazing

This is a direct consequence of everything I just told you in four points before this. Starfield might not grab your attention in the first few minutes of the game, but once you arrive in New Atlantis and start interacting with NPCs, discovering everything you can do, and diving into the story, the game will completely immerse you.

Bethesda has managed to create a game in which we can really feel like authentic space explorers, thanks to the huge amount of content that it contains, the customization options that it offers, the role-playing touch that I mentioned, and the freedom that will be enjoyed in each period we will be able to fully immerse ourselves in the game, in our own way.

The number of secondary missions and smaller objectives that we can complete is huge and allows us to expand the story certain characters and discover things we would otherwise miss. On the other hand, being able to personalize our crew and choose our sentimental travel companion (or companions) also greatly improves immersion and depth.

It is very easy to understand, think for example what it means to have an empty ship with which you can go from one planet to another, and now imagine a ship with a crew under your command that you yourself have to find and convince to follow. you for a small price”. We can’t forget either different answers we can use in our interactions with NPCs, even during missions, and how it will enable us to better express our true personality in the game.