People talk about Baldur’s Gate for months after it’s released. Nobody talked about this after two weeks. Same with Starfield.
I’m not much of a gamer anymore but cultural osmosis and all, I genuinely was surprised to find out Starfield was a bethesda game
The true hot take most aren’t ready to hear is that launch Starfield is a better RPG than launch Skyrim and launch Fallout 4, even if it’s a mediocre game overall.
Low bar to clear
I agree, but I’ve had gamers absolutely mald for such a lukewarm take
Skyrim came out in 11/11/2011. Starfield is 12 years after and I would say that expectation for the qualities should be better. And compared to Starfield in gaming’s influences, Skyrim decimates Starfield.
Graphical fidelity and controls improve over time as technology improves. What doesn’t improve nearly as much is game design. That’s not to say that improvements haven’t been made, but by your own logic Morrowind destroys the fuck out of Skyrim when it comes to being an RPG despite being older. Starfield actually reversed this downward trend.
I never tried to argue that Starfield was more influential, because I agree, Skyrim has more of an impact on gaming culture despite being largely okayish.
Morrowind is a better RPG than Skyrim though? I don’t understand the argument here
My point is comparing games releasing 12 years apart like this is redundant, isn’t it expected that the sequel/next game from the same studio should have better quality (in this case RPG) than the previous one?
In the years after the 1st release till next game/sequel, devs can have more experience/money/bigger team/ect.
I know what your point is, it’s just not applicable to Game Design, only to graphical fidelity and perhaps controls and smoothness. Throwing more money or a bigger team isn’t going to make the actual Role Playing better, and historically the opposite has happened. Chasing profits leads to making games with more mass appeal, and removes niches.
Again, see Morrowind, Fallout 1/2/New Vegas, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and more all have vastly superior RPG mechanics to Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, and Starfield, despite having smaller budgets, a less experienced team, and less money.
the design being worse is baffling to me, they could’ve copied obsidian’s homework and added the basebuilding/ship building shit and it would’ve been good.
Strong disagree. There are no unique builds in starfield because there are such clearly necessary perks to unlock and the never ending, NG+ focus of the game pushes you towards unlocking everything anyway. Similarly no story decisions lock you out of other options later. There’s really no role you can play in starfield except “protagonist.” Not so much a defense of Skyrim, just talking well deserved shit about starfield
The same thing happens in Skyrim, lol. As compared with Skyrim, Starfield is better.
I just think starfields an even shallower experience. Like think of the ability to specialize towards a weapon type. In starfield melee weapons can’t be customized and don’t get tiers like the other weapon types so they become unusable after a certain amount of play time. There are fewer energy weapons in starfield than in fallout 4, it feels sparse playing with the same 6 guns for the entire game. The EM weapons aren’t integrated into any sort of meaningful gameplay loop for incapacitating enemies instead of killing them. You have to just shoot their comatose bodies or let your companions do it for you. Ultimately everyone gets funneled towards using ballistic weapons just by nature of how underdeveloped the other options are. At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game
At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game
lol weird to spell “stealth archer” two different ways. i tried to watch a video of the starfield speedrun and fell asleep, maybe modders can rescue it but since it’s not even open-world anymore idk how they would. skyrim was barely an rpg and the beth games after it aren’t doing any of the things i want from the genre at all.
Skyrim is singleplayer. There is no meta forcing you to play stealth archer. Warrior, Mage and dagger thief are all perfectly viable builds.
Sure, Starfield is a step down in quite a few ways. Still a better RPG.
If Starfield was released in 2011 then yeah sure
I have no idea how you’re defining RPG here, but Starfield is worse than any launch Bethesda game since at least Morrowind, in my opinion. The hook in Bethesda games for me is discovery. You set off in a direction on a quest and discover things on the path that pull you different directions. You get lost in a world.
There is not a single moment in the 25 hours of Starfield I played where this happened. It’s just literally not possible with the way they designed the game.
The ability to actually roleplay a character you create, ie mechanics within game to reinforce that which you design your character as.
Medical skill checks for doctors, background checks for Freestar natives, piracy subcycles for pirates, etc.
What you’re describing has nothing to do with roleplaying, just the setting, which I never tried to argue was better in Starfield because it isn’t.
Yeah, that’s why I simply said it was a worse game than their previous titles (not worse RPG). I’d argue having better roleplaying mechanics without an interesting world to use them in is a preeeeetty useless endeavor.
Sure. I’d also argue that having better exploration without having decent roleplaying is also completely useless for an RPG.
For specifically an RPG but not for an overall game. There’s a reason I still return to and mod skyrim
As far as graphics but mechanically, Fallout NV is more interesting.
Sure, I never mentioned FNV.
not much of a gamer anymore
How’s it feel being free from the slop and
brainworms?pretty good, I really do appreciate video games as an art form now
I did also always drift towards rather more niche shit like STALKER and Arma, I don’t think that stuff gives you the slop brainworms
my tiktok is still full of asterion and karlach thirst
i mean im responsible for my content but its still there
I literally just hit 500 hours. I bought it on launch day and have played it 4 full times and running three active play throughs. One solo, one with my wife, one with a close friend.
Still having an absolute blast just trying all the things. Currently playing a dark urge drow and it’s so different from even my dark urge tiefling. And very very different from my goodie two shoes paladin. Ugh I’m just having so much fun with it lol
i heard about it from somebody doing a review of black hair in animation. apparently it’s pretty good in that regard and that regard only
It DESERVES a spotlight.
It’s mid. Deal with it.
It is incredibly mid. My wife played it and outside of some areas she said it was boring and repetitive
Wot if ur AAA Ubisoft-style bloated action adventure was based on a problematic YA series?
It still could have been fine I guess the way you described it but they were like, “Hmmm what if we expounded upon and doubled down on this universe’s racism. Eureka! In this family friendly game about a beloved international franchise, players can join the war on racism . . . on the side of racism!!”
I forgot that it’s the goblin pogrom game
Meanwhile the game where you can be in queer polyam relationships with your entire party and it’s fine is going to win most of the awards. Go woke get paid, apparently.
Go woke get paid, apparently.
Or fuck, just write some dialogue that isn’t more thin and wooden than an IKEA bedroom suite.
Much like Disco Elysium, the game does afford you plenty of opportunities to be a pig, a freak, and a sadistic asshole by turns (hell, they even give you a background that’s carte blanche murder-hobo). There’s no reason Hogwarts-heads can’t live out their most fascist fantasies by playing a full team of slavish dogmatic Githyanki or rolling Trad Clerics who go from scene to scene and murdering every White Knight and Goth Girl they come across. Its all available to you, if you don’t mind short-circuiting a bunch of fun cut scenes.
Half the joke of BG3 is how accommodating it is to virtually every play style you can imagine by padding out the plot. You’d never know it was Woke unless you insisted on staring over someone’s shoulder through their entire play.
It’s not enough to be able to choose to be a fascist piece of shit, other options must be locked from the player entirely to satisfy
See their reaction to Kingdom Come: Deliverance for instance
What was their reaction to KCD?
All the reactionaries called it “our game” because it was a “historically accurate” game about European past. As in, no black people, women only exist in the kitchen, etc.
Is that Baldurs Gate?
I don’t think so?
queer polyam relationships with your entire party
I think it’s just the bear drood +1, but it’s been quite a few patches and hotfixes since I last played.
Well now I need to know which game it is, because they win an Engels award for that “Origin of the Family” level take.
Yup. You can’t be in a relationship with everyone at once due to personal conflicts, but there are pairs that will go for it depending on how you play it
Starfield technically let’s you do this
It’s a really good game
That’s made billions of $$$
In a franchise loved by millions
Billions of flies love shit, but I ain’t gonna eat it
Billions of flies love shit, but I ain’t gonna eat it
My new favorite words of wisdom
Any defense of a piece of media that cites sales numbers should result in forced reeducation. My son you have become the brand, repent and return to humanity
By this logic FIFA and Call of Duty should automatically win the award every year
RAID: Shadow Legends would be museum-tier gallery art.
Man United should win the treble every year with this logic as well lol.
It came out the same year as Baldur’s Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, and Armored Core VI. There was no way it was going to be recognized.
These piss babies are pathetic and their game sucked
Now Armored Core 6 on the other hand is getting snubbed
AC6 is nominated for Best Action.
And, in some mild bit of defense, Hogwarts Legacy was at least as good an RPG as Starfield or FF16, which only seem to be included because of their publishers.
I’m more upset that a quality JRPG like Trails to Azure got nixed, given how mid the western releases have been.
comparing those three games is WILD
AC6
that could be at least three very different games. death to tom nook
No fan of the potter game ever talks about the emotional resonance of the plot lines or how good the combat is.
Which is Wild in a way. They love this game but can’t seem to like any part of the game other than “I walked around Hogwarts”
Buying and playing it was virtue signaling for the kind of assholes that constantly whine about “wokes” virtue signaling. It was a performative gesture; the game sucking didn’t matter.
That was the impression I got. The other people who bought it and played it were just like “more slop to help me ignore life”
I played it for free after it was cracked. The novelty of the setting was the only compelling element.
It just looked so fucking boring to play in every video that wasn’t hyper edited.
Yeah I will confess, getting to faff about Hogwarts was the only element of it I found even vaguely compelling. I like big interactive spaces.
“I walked around Hogwarts” 
It’s not nominated because people and critics are tired of the same open world pseudo RPG game. Same reason Starfield did not get nominated. Look at the nominations:
- Alan Wake 2 (survival horror)
- Baldur’s Gate 3 (a proper RPG)
- Spider Man 2 (it’s Spiderman, simply flying around the city is fun)
- Resident Evil 4 (remake of legendary survival horror game)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder (it’s super Mario)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it’s Zelda).
The only game there that could fit in the “open world pseudo RPG” genre is Zelda, but it’s usually so well made and executed as a Zelda game that most people don’t really care. People will play a Zelda game no matter the genre.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it’s Zelda).
To be fair they took the physics fuckery up to a new level and in the open world it genuinely makes one of the most weird and enjoyable sandboxes you can possibly mess around with. Nintendo’s attitude of “fuck it, just let players break the game” was a very good decision.
In terms of gameplay it’s really not like other open worlds, it successfully manages to feel and provide something different.
It does wear outbnewr the end but I’ve realized something that is gonna make me use more unique and weird building mechanics just causenull have to, I’m just not gonna get the paraglider next play through! it’s an optional item this time
I played the first fifteen hours without a paraglider. It’s hard to swim up Zora domain and then not be able to reach the sky islands.
I’ll build a stupid thing or skip it
There are places like the floating boats that I dunno if they are possible to reach without it.
I don’t have to do that.
You might as well not play the game…
No Armored Core VI, illegitimate
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it’s Zelda).
Okay lets be real this game was mid AF and relied on silly mechanics and piggybacking off of BOTW
Even midfield is nominated for best RPG lol.
Hogwash Legacy L
Outer Wilds never got a game award. I mean, I had to go look it up just now just in case, because the game awards are about as on my radar as the ocars.
also, in 2020, they had a VR/AR category for Alyx, and then never had the category again.
VR’s killer app killed it.
They’d have to make it a lifetime award, good VR games take at least a year to get polished/shine though all the garbage VR apps.
According to steam charts, only like 2 of the top 100 VR games by current player count came out in 2023; a VR Tarkov clone and Gorilla Tag.
Didn’t it win a BAFTA? Or was it just nominated? That counts more than a game award, imo
oh, it did! good for them
The “audience they create the show for” forgot this game exists like a month after release.
If it’s such a good game, why havent i heard anyone try and spoil it?
Destiny had a dogshit pile of a story, yet i know about what’s going on in it.
Some if us were doing that when it came out, I think one of the professors dies or was evil or something like that
I remember trying to spoil it, but snake already killed dumbolddoor, I mean how many more random moody professors going postal is going to be a surprise?
I still fondly remember when a new harry potter book was released in the aughts, trolls on SomethingAwful were spamming “snape kills dumbledore” everywhere and so the mods threatened bans for anyone who didn’t use spoiler tags. Some clever troll posted [SPOILER]SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE[/SPOILER] as a thread title, spoiler tags don’t work in titles, mods left it up because why not.
when that book (half blood prince?) came out here in the uk, on day one people put big banners over a couple motorways with SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE on them lol
they got early copies through a delivery truck crashing a week before iircthe bannermakers are Kings and Queens among men
Removed by mod
Imagine being upset by spoilers.
muh treats 😡
Go ahead, tell me the ending or twist of the next movie i watch or game i play. I’m gonna forget that shit in 20 minutes anyways.
i’m sure you’d find a way to complain about whatever method they chose, regardless of efficacy
There were a significant amount of people trying to spoil the game as some way to spite JK Rowling. It was spoiled for me online while my SO was playing it. Here’s a Google search for you to browse with many articles and SM posts warning spoilers.
You might consider that you don’t know everything that happens online, and just because you’re unaware of something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
You might consider that you don’t know everything that happens online, and just because you’re unaware of something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Get the fuck out of here reddit brain
What’s there to spoil? It’s a ponderous prequel story about enforcing the status quo against antisemitically coded creatures that have an apparently legitimate grievance and therefore want to improve society somewhat but are going too far and that is presented by the story as corrupt/evil in a way that invalidates their grievance.
That’s nothing new from the fiction that the game is based upon.
Literally forgot this game existed until I saw this ngl
Imagine this being your entire personality.
Even worse, it’s her career. 70k subs on youtube, so about half of the entire population of /r/KotakuInAction. Daily or twice daily uploads. No editing as far as I can tell. About 10 minutes of ranting to a camera while slowly scrolling through an entertainment weekly article. Every video title has a word capitalized like RUINED or ERASED or FREAKOUT or FAILURE.
Is she also trying to sorta emulate the Gamergate mascot.
I’m glad I didn’t halucinate that, cause I noticed. Will gamergate never die?
blue hair dye: bad, sjw, feminist
red hair dye like carrie mythbusters: just wants to talk about ethics in game journalism
Even worse, it’s her career. 70k subs on youtube, so about half of the entire population of /r/KotakuInAction. Daily or twice daily uploads. No editing as far as I can tell. About 10 minutes of ranting to a camera while slowly scrolling through an entertainment weekly article. Every video title has a word capitalized like RUINED or ERASED or FREAKOUT or FAILURE.
“Just ignore your bully” and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race. It leads to malignant narcissists growing up without getting a well-deserved beating to teach them some respect.
Personality predates Ideology. If you believe we should punch Nazis and Fascists then you should belive in punching bullies too.
