CONCLUSION (after 80 hours): The game is fun if you invest an ungodly amount of time into it. Given all its problems, I do not recommend buying it for the current price. You can actually play it for "free" if you own a subscription to one of the concurrent game stores, I recommend you do that, if you really are interested.

I will probably come back to this review once/if the game has dropped in price and had a few more patches.

UPDATE @ ~80 hours:
I've found it. The fun that is. It is very well hidden, but it is there. The trick is that you mostly ignore all the open world crap thrown at you by the game and focus on the actual quest lines, some of which - as it turns out - have pretty decent stories. Then you just have to push through the padding to get to the good stuff. It also helps, that mods are already out to address some of the most annoying UI issues of the game, making it a much more pleasant experience.

The first official patch was also released, though it is really kind of a let down given how long they have been working on it and given how many technical issues the game suffers from.

Overall I will not change my recommendation at this point. The game is fun, if you invest enough time into it, but that does not excuse the fact that you have to wade through dozens of hours of boring padding to get there. Neither does it excuse the reliance on 3rd party user mods to fix a full price AAA game or the overall sorry state in which it got released.

With this update, I close this review down for now.

UPDATE @ ~60 hours:
Having installed some mods to improve the inventory UI and having played enough to have access to plenty extra storage space, the game got more manageable from a mechanical perspective. The main story starts to become interesting after about 10 hours of non-stop grinding the storyline equivalent of fetch quests. The NPCs seem to have some story to them, but their voice acting combined with how they present their little story pieces combined is so uninteresting, you really have to WANT it to have the smallest amount of interest in them.

I really REALLY want to like this game, so I will keep pushing on to see where the fun is. Latest events in the game point to the potential presence of some fun somewhere in the next 30-60 hours. I just have to be very careful not to blink, or else I might miss it :)

ORIGINAL REVIEW @ ~30 hours:
Am I having fun? Not really. I can see how I could waste 100s of hours in this game, as when it comes to tedium, this game has no equal, but to what end?

Buy this game:
- If you do not need meaningful goals in a game to have fun with it.
- If you are okay paying premium, to get a second, unpaid job that you can spend your free time on.
- If you are willing to wait a year or two for the developers to fix their mess and the modders to fix what the developers fail to fix.

For the rest of you, here is a bullet point list of my main issues with this game (so far):

- graphics / textures: when I fired up Starfield and started playing, it brought back memories of Skyrim.. as in.. the graphics felt like they've been dragged over from a decade old game. The textures on max settings are unforgivably low res for a game in 2023. If you expect Cyberpunk levels of visual fidelity.. lol.. come on.. its a Bethesda game. I would expect it to meet the visual fidelity of an isometric RPG through, like Baldur's Gate 3.. but even that one has better graphics in EVERY regard.

- graphics / characters: Remember Mass Effect Andromeda's horror show of facial animations? Well, in case you missed that, here is your chance to relive some of it. Characters in the game range from lifeless wax dolls to horrific uncanny valley escapees. Lip-syncing is non existent, facial expressions are so limited, they might as well be absent. The characters themselves tend to be shallow, at least in 30 hours I have not found a single one that I have felt the slightest need to connect with.

- gameplay / exploration: just imagine a dumbed down No Mans Sky here. You can only walk on planet surfaces. You need to go to a colony? You land like 500m from it and have to hike there on foot for the first time. Sure you can fast travel once you've been somewhere, but let's be honest.. why would you want to be somewhere more than once, that is not a major port or city in a game that is about exploration. So be prepared to walk a lot. (a lot more than you expect based on my review here)

- gameplay / inventory: Starfield is a game about collecting stuff. You kill enemies, loot them. You find secret caches, loot them. You find abandoned spaceships and loot them. You find resources on the planet and gather them. One would assume, that you have all sorts of ways to store this, like on your ship for example?

Not so fast. Your personal inventory space is ridiculously limited (as traditional in Elder Scrolls games). Your ship is not a lot better. Right now, I can carry 215 units on my person (which is a lot actually, given you start with around 100) and another 660 on my ship. You would think that 9 times the inventory space of a starting character is enough, right? WRONG. My ship is full with nothing but construction materials. A single 'ship medkit' (item you use in space combat to miraculously put your ship together) weighs 10. A single spacesuit you might have looted from a pirate can weigh as high as 15. I have looted 15 laser rifles from the pirate base, thats like 60 storage or so alone. Not taking into account the helmets, booster packs, medical items, additional construction materials or random knick-knacks I might have collected.

Add to this an inventory management UI that hearkens back to the Oblivion days and you got yourself a management nightmare that you have to deal with oh about every 30 minutes or so.

- gameplay / AI: The AI is horrible. like.. extremely bad. In a game that's full of airlocks, it is kinda sad to see that your companion consistently fails to enter the airlock with you. Like.. come on.. why do you think I am staying inside here, get the Eff in so we can move on, but no... they just stand there, just outside the airlock
door and look at you with their blank, expressionless face.

The enemies bring the same level AI quality to the battlefield. They are only a challenge because of how bullet spongy they were made. Like even regular enemies can easily eat close to a full SMG clip (50 bullets) before dying, but some enemies have multiple healthbars (bosses?) and combat against them quickly turns from a challenge of tactics into a test of attrition.

- gameplay / bugs: nothing to add here.. the game has lots. Characters falling through floors, glitching through walls, etc. I once had to reload a derelict ship as the last enemy managed to glitch itself into a wall somewhere. It kept shooting at me quite happily, though obviously not hitting.

Overall:
I could really keep on going, but if the above list is not enough to convince you of everything that is wrong with the game design wise, then you just go ahead, buy the game and make up your own mind.

Apologists out there are saying, that the game becomes better after the first 10/20/30 hours. I am past 30 hours.. can I haz some fun yet, please? Well.. In all fairness, I can, just not necessarily with this game. Not in its current state.

CONCLUSION (after 80 hours): The game is fun if you invest an ungodly amount of time into it. Given all its problems, I do not recommend buying it for the current price. You can actually play it for "free" if you own a subscription to one of the concurrent game stores, I recommend you do that, if you really are interested. I will probably come back to this review once/if the game has dropped in price and had a few more patches. UPDATE @ ~80 hours: I've found it. The fun that is. It is very well hidden, but it is there. The trick is that you mostly ignore all the open world crap thrown at you by the game and focus on the actual quest lines, some of which - as it turns out - have pretty decent stories. Then you just have to push through the padding to get to the good stuff. It also helps, that mods are already out to address some of the most annoying UI issues of the game, making it a much more pleasant experience. The first official patch was also released, though it is really kind of a let down given how long they have been working on it and given how many technical issues the game suffers from. Overall I will not change my recommendation at this point. The game is fun, if you invest enough time into it, but that does not excuse the fact that you have to wade through dozens of hours of boring padding to get there. Neither does it excuse the reliance on 3rd party user mods to fix a full price AAA game or the overall sorry state in which it got released. With this update, I close this review down for now. UPDATE @ ~60 hours: Having installed some mods to improve the inventory UI and having played enough to have access to plenty extra storage space, the game got more manageable from a mechanical perspective. The main story starts to become interesting after about 10 hours of non-stop grinding the storyline equivalent of fetch quests. The NPCs seem to have some story to them, but their voice acting combined with how they present their little story pieces combined is so uninteresting, you really have to WANT it to have the smallest amount of interest in them. I really REALLY want to like this game, so I will keep pushing on to see where the fun is. Latest events in the game point to the potential presence of some fun somewhere in the next 30-60 hours. I just have to be very careful not to blink, or else I might miss it :) ORIGINAL REVIEW @ ~30 hours: Am I having fun? Not really. I can see how I could waste 100s of hours in this game, as when it comes to tedium, this game has no equal, but to what end? Buy this game: - If you do not need meaningful goals in a game to have fun with it. - If you are okay paying premium, to get a second, unpaid job that you can spend your free time on. - If you are willing to wait a year or two for the developers to fix their mess and the modders to fix what the developers fail to fix. For the rest of you, here is a bullet point list of my main issues with this game (so far): - graphics / textures: when I fired up Starfield and started playing, it brought back memories of Skyrim.. as in.. the graphics felt like they've been dragged over from a decade old game. The textures on max settings are unforgivably low res for a game in 2023. If you expect Cyberpunk levels of visual fidelity.. lol.. come on.. its a Bethesda game. I would expect it to meet the visual fidelity of an isometric RPG through, like Baldur's Gate 3.. but even that one has better graphics in EVERY regard. - graphics / characters: Remember Mass Effect Andromeda's horror show of facial animations? Well, in case you missed that, here is your chance to relive some of it. Characters in the game range from lifeless wax dolls to horrific uncanny valley escapees. Lip-syncing is non existent, facial expressions are so limited, they might as well be absent. The characters themselves tend to be shallow, at least in 30 hours I have not found a single one that I have felt the slightest need to connect with. - gameplay / exploration: just imagine a dumbed down No Mans Sky here. You can only walk on planet surfaces. You need to go to a colony? You land like 500m from it and have to hike there on foot for the first time. Sure you can fast travel once you've been somewhere, but let's be honest.. why would you want to be somewhere more than once, that is not a major port or city in a game that is about exploration. So be prepared to walk a lot. (a lot more than you expect based on my review here) - gameplay / inventory: Starfield is a game about collecting stuff. You kill enemies, loot them. You find secret caches, loot them. You find abandoned spaceships and loot them. You find resources on the planet and gather them. One would assume, that you have all sorts of ways to store this, like on your ship for example? Not so fast. Your personal inventory space is ridiculously limited (as traditional in Elder Scrolls games). Your ship is not a lot better. Right now, I can carry 215 units on my person (which is a lot actually, given you start with around 100) and another 660 on my ship. You would think that 9 times the inventory space of a starting character is enough, right? WRONG. My ship is full with nothing but construction materials. A single 'ship medkit' (item you use in space combat to miraculously put your ship together) weighs 10. A single spacesuit you might have looted from a pirate can weigh as high as 15. I have looted 15 laser rifles from the pirate base, thats like 60 storage or so alone. Not taking into account the helmets, booster packs, medical items, additional construction materials or random knick-knacks I might have collected. Add to this an inventory management UI that hearkens back to the Oblivion days and you got yourself a management nightmare that you have to deal with oh about every 30 minutes or so. - gameplay / AI: The AI is horrible. like.. extremely bad. In a game that's full of airlocks, it is kinda sad to see that your companion consistently fails to enter the airlock with you. Like.. come on.. why do you think I am staying inside here, get the Eff in so we can move on, but no... they just stand there, just outside the airlock door and look at you with their blank, expressionless face. The enemies bring the same level AI quality to the battlefield. They are only a challenge because of how bullet spongy they were made. Like even regular enemies can easily eat close to a full SMG clip (50 bullets) before dying, but some enemies have multiple healthbars (bosses?) and combat against them quickly turns from a challenge of tactics into a test of attrition. - gameplay / bugs: nothing to add here.. the game has lots. Characters falling through floors, glitching through walls, etc. I once had to reload a derelict ship as the last enemy managed to glitch itself into a wall somewhere. It kept shooting at me quite happily, though obviously not hitting. Overall: I could really keep on going, but if the above list is not enough to convince you of everything that is wrong with the game design wise, then you just go ahead, buy the game and make up your own mind. Apologists out there are saying, that the game becomes better after the first 10/20/30 hours. I am past 30 hours.. can I haz some fun yet, please? Well.. In all fairness, I can, just not necessarily with this game. Not in its current state.