Admit You Were Wrong About Starfield – The Lords Word
2023 was an incredible year for video games in general. From smash hits like Baldur’s Gate 3, and Octopath Traveler 2 to Alan Wake 2? There was a lot to cheer from in every genre that kept everyone happy. But to say that last year did not have its share of controversies, would be lying to you dear reader. From the absolute petulant storm that arose from Hogwarts Legacy that despite being the most popular game of last year, was unapologetically raked over the coals for no crimes of its own. To Bethesda’s latest RPG, Starfield having one of the biggest shifts in conversation I have ever seen in my time covering games.
Bethesda over the years suffered from the core of mediocrity in Fallout 4, and to follow it with Fallout 76 was a terrible decision. But time heals all wounds, the mod community worked their magic on Fallout 4. While Bethesda tirelessly worked on Fallout 76 to make it into a pretty popular MMO akin to The Elder Scrolls: Online. Bethesda has proven they can listen to feedback and put their best foot forward. Which is what they did with Starfield.
When the game came out, it hit the internet very hard in a variety of ways. From having a million concurrent players on day one of its launch. To quickly reaching ten million players and sitting at a fair score on OpenCritic and MetaCritic. You would think that it would be just another great game to add to the mural of last year. Well, the internet is seemingly very fickle and there a lot of fools, as recently there has been a weird shift in conversation towards Starfield. But let’s talk about what is happening first, before we go into the “why”.
The Steam Review Battleground
We have talked about the critical reception for the most part. The overall scores there are fair, outside of some hyperbolic scores, but what about the general public? How do they feel? Well, that is where things start to shift in terms of conversation. Starfield is sitting at a “Mixed” review aggregate on Steam. While also maintaining a seven out of ten score on the Xbox storefront. With this in mind it is fair to say that polarization in a new IP is completely fine. But the Steam Reviews are a little confusing considering most people are aware of Steams refund policy. There are some that say they hated the general experience from the get-go. But still somehow managed to reach past the point of being able to refund it.
This is where one of the more documentable examples of what the conversation has devolved into: buyer’s remorse. Being stuck with something you do not enjoy does suck, and not being able to get rid of it is not ideal. But it is a self-inflicted wound. Usually when people pick up a game and play it, you can generally tell within the first thirty minutes if you will like it. Playing hundreds of hours of something you hate will not make you love it. There are some good reviews in the section if you can find them. Such as those that say they wanted to see if more of the later game content would change their mind. It was obviously hit and miss with a lot of people and that is ok.
The one takeaway from the Steam reviews is how willing people were to give the game a shot. Whether or not they feel disingenuous is not my place to say. I am, however, more impressed reading the Xbox storefront reviews because a lot of the community is pointing out the games many technical issues. Those are indisputable but one thing that is disputable is the way a certain subsect of influencers may have caused this shift in the conversation.
Of Essays and Ill-Willed Grudges Against Starfield
Over the past couple of months, the YouTube side of the reception for Starfield began rolling in. There were of course people who lacked proper education jumping to attack the game. Such as the infamous “Can not land on Gas Giants” debacle brought on by a very desperate content creator. But low-hanging fruit is not what I am aiming to tackle. I am more interested in talking about a YouTuber I am personally fond of, and that is NakeyJakey. He had made a very well-produced video critiquing Starfield and some of the critique I agree with. From the quest structure feeling annoying to the lackluster traversal on planets. One part of the video, however, showed a hollowness to his creative side.
Near the end of the video there was a critique to the bounty system that has fragmented audio to it. A lot of it had to be cut out due to copyrighted background music. However, this issue was remedied initially by him saying in a comment to use closed captions on that segment. As of now, there is official subtitles for it, but to not remove the video the moment the issue arose and fixed it to ensure he did not have to essentially patch his own video is disappointing. Especially when critiquing technical issues brought on by perceived laziness.
Another YouTuber that added fuel to the fire was Stephanie Sterling. In their official review of the game, they slighted it by talking about an internal political issue in Zenimax Online, a studio that had nothing to do with Starfield. The details for that are out of my league to go into. But part of both the written and video review they made on the game talked about this and held it against Bethesda Game Studios as a whole and it does not sit right with me. As it misinforms the general public, while also generalizing studios due to association. This was unethical and one thing that both NakeyJakey and Stephanie need to understand is one thing: Your words hold weight.
Correlation is Not Causation?
What they say and do sets a precedent that the general public will pick up on and use one way or another. Around the time NakeyJakeys video came out, this is when the conversation began to shift from Starfield being underwhelming, to somehow being a bad video game. People will parrot what others say if they feel like they are doing the right thing and it feels disingenuous now, considering how the game turned out and the awards it’s been nominated for and received.
Starfield recently won best innovative gameplay in the Steam Awards. An award that people called into question due to the current shift in conversation. But to call in to question one, you must question others. Starfield also ranged into the platinum tier of revenue earned on Steam for last year. Another interesting point for a game that is somehow now bad, but apparently sold well and did review well.
The one thing I cannot understand is people’s willingness to not admit they were wrong. Starfield sold well, reviewed well, had a lot of players and is beginning a roll out of consistent updates soon. Yet the conversation would have people believe it was a financial flop, did review well and is abandoned. Which a recent story about a modder who worked on the Skyrim co-op mod refusing to make mods for the game created a story that is also leading to believe that the game is being dropped by the entire mod community. While the opposite is true, where the game continues to get more mod support every day.
I find the whole situation just weird. It is very unhealthy to hold so much bitterness against any game, especially Starfield. All signs point to the game being the textbook definition of a success, so why not just agree and move on? It is ok to admit you were wrong about the game. We all have to sooner or later.
