The director says Starfield’s criticism is “totally understandable” and he has an answer for it

Gaming News The director says Starfield’s criticism is “totally understandable” and he has an answer for it

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Starfield, a game we love to hate?

If there was one game that was particularly anticipated in recent years, this was it Starfield. Developed by Bethesda (Fallout, The Elder Scrolls) and published by Microsoft, the new game Todd Howard was sold before release as a real system seller for the Xbox Series and, more importantly, a strong argument for subscribing to Xbox Game Pass. First new license for Bethesda in many years, The challenge was to satisfy both new players and regulars of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, all thanks to a science fiction epic of gigantic proportions

Unfortunately, Starfield had a minor impact at the time of its release cold shower for some players. The press was still quite forgiving, acknowledging many of the title’s undeniable qualities and giving it good praise 83/100 on Metacritic. The players, on the other hand, preferred to express their disappointment much more clearly. With an average of 6.9/10 on Metacritic and 61% on SteamBethesda’s game obviously didn’t have the desired effect in the long term, even though it still sold extremely well when it was released.

His director hears the criticism without really listening to them

It was during an interview on the English-language YouTube channel Kind of fun games that Todd Howard (the director of Starfield) has decided to take stock of his studio’s new game. According to him, the criticisms of Starfield are “completely understandable“. However, while one might think that he really understood her, the rest of the interview struggles to convince. As a matter of fact, Todd Howard believes players were mostly disappointed because the game was “too different from what we had (Bethesda etc.) had done before”. It develops:

We see a lot of players say, “What I want in a Bethesda game is to explore a world in a certain way, and Starfield didn’t give me that.” I prefer the way it’s done in Fallout or Elder Scrolls is made.”

Todd Howard doesn’t really get confused with this argument. As a matter of fact, The long loading times and the lack of freedom in exploration were problems for many players. However, the rest of the interview seems to show that he sees the criticism more as an inability of players to appreciate a change, rather than valid comments about the loss of quality compared to previous titles:

I think for us, and especially for me, playing a science fiction game means being able to land on any planet. I want the game to be able to say “yes” to me, knowing that the content will be different than what we have done before.

Howard therefore admits that he preferred to make all the planets visitable rather than making them interesting to visit.. A little later he outdid himself by saying:

It’s part of the compromises we make to create what makes a science fiction game like this… to make it what it should be.

One of the main criticisms players had about exploration was that there was no real incentive to do so, as no point of interest was actually useful or even interesting to discover. The planets were very similar and were often huge empty spaces that we ended up exploring using fast travel (and therefore loading time) rather than getting lost and not knowing where to turn. In the interview, Howard doesn’t go far behind the other Bethesda titles on questions of direction and script. Finally, note this Todd Howard still notes that he is pleased with the general reception of Starfield, considering it one of the studio’s best releases, particularly in terms of technology.. For those who weren’t completely put off by the game, the first thing worth mentioning is DLC Shattered Space is starting to make waves and should arrive this fall.