As I speculated previously when Steam Deck OS 3.4.9 went into Preview, Valve has now released it as a Stable update for all Steam Deck owners for Starfield.
What’s the game actually like? I was sort of expecting a mind-blowing science fiction exploration rpg space opera, but after the initial mining bit, it sort of just looked like another boring (I understand that might be a bit of a minority opinion) first/third person shooter game.
I haven’t been able to play it yet, but I did see some reviews, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.
If you’re familiar with Bethesda games then starfield will feel familiar in some ways. The gunplay is close to fallout 4’s, where some enemies health scales with difficulty. There are a lot of guns you can hoard. However there have been major improvements which seem to address shortcomings of other Bethesda games.
In the cities, they’ve managed to cram more NPCs in to give life to hub areas. The lockpicking minigames and hacking have been replaced with digipicking, which is an actual puzzle and requires some thinking to solve. You can fast travel from anywhere, you no longer have to be outside. Render distance is impressive in some areas. There’s a new persuasion system. NPCs have (somewhat stiff) facial animations. You can highlight loot with a scanner, and the same scanner can act as a guide to the objective.
The real strength of the game is just how much effort has been put into it. You really can find how parts of this game look like a real labor of love. Some voice actors are big names. There’s a lot of content to constantly side track you. There are 4 factions that I know of, and each has their perks once you work with them enough. Finally, there is a ton of customization. Weapons, suits, your ship, and late game outposts you can make. The game is very pretty.
Are there bugs? Yes. They aren’t as bad as previous titles however. I haven’t heard of the game crashing. Performance seems to be pretty alright as well.
That’s a very comprehensive answer, thanks! It sounds very positive. I’ll definitely try and find a few longer gameplay videos. On the other hand, I’ll probably wait for the discount and bugfixes a year down the line.
It looks like Fallout 4, but hopefully with more depth to the side content. I haven’t played, but I watched someone playing last night and the player got distracted with side content, so it seems like a classic Bethesda game.
Yeah, I’m going to look for more footage, and I think it’s on my “wait for a year” sort of list, I guess. I mean, I never actually finished Fallout 3, NV or 4 - maybe I should finish those first before getting another similar thing.
@fakeman_pretendname If you’re going to play 3/NV, check out the Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands project. It merges Fallout 3 into NV so it’s a single playthrough and other cool stuff.
What’s the game actually like? I was sort of expecting a mind-blowing science fiction exploration rpg space opera, but after the initial mining bit, it sort of just looked like another boring (I understand that might be a bit of a minority opinion) first/third person shooter game.
I haven’t been able to play it yet, but I did see some reviews, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.
If you’re familiar with Bethesda games then starfield will feel familiar in some ways. The gunplay is close to fallout 4’s, where some enemies health scales with difficulty. There are a lot of guns you can hoard. However there have been major improvements which seem to address shortcomings of other Bethesda games.
In the cities, they’ve managed to cram more NPCs in to give life to hub areas. The lockpicking minigames and hacking have been replaced with digipicking, which is an actual puzzle and requires some thinking to solve. You can fast travel from anywhere, you no longer have to be outside. Render distance is impressive in some areas. There’s a new persuasion system. NPCs have (somewhat stiff) facial animations. You can highlight loot with a scanner, and the same scanner can act as a guide to the objective.
The real strength of the game is just how much effort has been put into it. You really can find how parts of this game look like a real labor of love. Some voice actors are big names. There’s a lot of content to constantly side track you. There are 4 factions that I know of, and each has their perks once you work with them enough. Finally, there is a ton of customization. Weapons, suits, your ship, and late game outposts you can make. The game is very pretty.
Are there bugs? Yes. They aren’t as bad as previous titles however. I haven’t heard of the game crashing. Performance seems to be pretty alright as well.
That’s a very comprehensive answer, thanks! It sounds very positive. I’ll definitely try and find a few longer gameplay videos. On the other hand, I’ll probably wait for the discount and bugfixes a year down the line.
It looks like Fallout 4, but hopefully with more depth to the side content. I haven’t played, but I watched someone playing last night and the player got distracted with side content, so it seems like a classic Bethesda game.
Yeah, I’m going to look for more footage, and I think it’s on my “wait for a year” sort of list, I guess. I mean, I never actually finished Fallout 3, NV or 4 - maybe I should finish those first before getting another similar thing.
@fakeman_pretendname If you’re going to play 3/NV, check out the Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands project. It merges Fallout 3 into NV so it’s a single playthrough and other cool stuff.
Brilliant, thanks for the heads up! I wasn’t too far in either one, so a restart would be no issue. I’ll have a good look into that :)