Bethesda’s RPGs have always been shallow in the choice you have with dialogue and altering the story, but deep with the detail, world-building, and mechanics of gameplay. Arena is almost no different in the gameplay loop as Starfield. They went through various phases of how to use rules and complexity of certain systems, but have since settled in a formula established first by Morrowind and refined with Oblivion and further with Skyrim.

They are not about the story. The story is just kinda there to drive some motivation and give context to your own thing. They excel at immersing you in the world and allowing you to just play however you want without restrictions (such as being a god in everything without having to start over and build specific characters to do specific things). They have a pretty good track record of doing good environmental story telling and adding in all those little stories in notes and terminals that aren’t even tied to quests.

But when it comes to stories and dialogue? They had ONE game that was a masterpiece, Morrowind, and the rest have ranged from absolute shit to pretty good. And not one of them, not even Morrowind, actually have the same kind of choice and sweeping changes affected through dialogue get in a story-focused RPG like Baldur’s Gate. Bethesda will likely never have a game as well written as Morrowind again, because that isn’t what they are about.

They are very much about the action over the words. Despite the jank as fuck AI, the combat is still fun somehow (and imagine how much more fun it could be if the AI didn’t suck!), it’s incredibly easy to lose yourself in the world because of how detailed it is, and there are plenty of shenanigans to pull once you begin to dive in and see how everything works. Like, I can’t wait to completely fill one of the huge craters near my base with watermelons and then dive in.

BG3 is critically acclaimed and on path to win every GOTY award this year. Taking this into consideration any game compared against BG3 may look lackluster, not just Starfield.

I didn’t play these games yet but I did play The Outer Worlds and it was acceptable to me. If Starfield is a game along the same lines then I am OK with that.

It’s really weird reading an article that so precisely nails so many of my experiences with both games.

Bg3 I think really has shown us what is achievable in today’s games. The branching and intricate story around the Prisim you retrieve at the start of BG3 (without going into spoilers) and the repeated revelations about it and how to can change the direction of the story. Even the companion stories that feed seamlessly into the main plot.

My playtime in starfield is limited at the moment but I’ve been picking along a quest line for a company doing some corporate espionage stuff. But every mission has felt so lackluster. The first mission to “infiltrate” a rival company office and plant a virus. I expected to be putting my stealth skill to the test and breaking into thier server room, dodging the cameras and guards. But what I actually did is walk unimpeded into thier 2 room office space past the reciption desk and though the security checkpoint, squat next to a computer in a cubicle, do the hacking mini game (which is the same as the lockpick one! A downgrade from fallout) click a button and then walk out. I didn’t even have to convince anyone I should be there or even hide my presence.

The following missions were equally uneventful. Run to a “secure” place unopposed, squat, click the gizmo, run back. In one I had to wear a suit, which the vendor in the same building would sell me, and the game even told me that.

Such a stark change from even the simple quest path to out kargha in the druid grove as a wrong 'un in BG3

In comparison to BG3, the dialogue and stories are incredibly bland in Starfield.

If you don’t compare it to BG3 though, then the dialogue and stories are still incredibly bland.

I swear every Bethesda game does this. For example, when you get three dialogue options, they all say basically the same thing, and they all set up the player to be dunked on by the NPCs response…

Or the only options are:

“wow! Incredible! I love kittens, good on ya kid!”

Or

“You don’t wanna mess with me, I’ll kill you.”

“You found a piece of metal. Take my spaceship and I’ll take your miserable mining job” wait what?

Well, one is a linear, turn-based, 3rd person party cRPG.

The other is open world, real-time, 1st person with optional followers, sandbox action-RPG with space shooter elements.

Utterly different animals and any comparison is as invalid as comparing BG3 to Elite, DCS or RaceRoom. I’ve no interest at all in BG3 because turn-based party RPG-s are not really my jam. And I’ve never cared much about story-telling, either. I like good worldbuilding, sandboxing, looting, crafting, trying different builds, doing whatever the hell I like at any moment while completely forgetting that something called “main quest” exists, getting technical and modding the crap out of a game and this is where Bethesda shines.

Hol’ up. It’s another games mistake that the author does not like Starfield as much as expected?

Or do I mixing something up here?

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