Starfield’s planets look better than they play

Starfield is the first new universe Bethesda Game Studios has built in 25 years, and it arrives carrying the weight of that gap. The studio’s director, Todd Howard, pitched it as “Skyrim in space.” That line is a promise about scale and freedom. What Bethesda actually shipped in 2023 is a game that keeps most of that promise and stumbles on a few of the words in it.

Trailer, via XBOX.

A Miner on Argos Extractors

You start as a space miner working for Argos Extractors in the year 2330. That is 20 years after the Colony War, a conflict between the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective that ended in a tense truce in 2311, not a treaty anyone trusts. During a routine dig, your character uncovers an artifact with strange gravitational properties and has a powerful vision on touching it.

That vision pulls you into Constellation, a famed group of galactic explorers who believe the artifacts are one of the greatest remaining mysteries in the settled systems. You deliver the artifact to their headquarters in New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies and the largest fictional city Bethesda has ever built, then join the hunt for more.

It is a clean hook. It is also the last time the main story moves with any urgency.

Over 1,000 Planets, Most of Them Quiet

Starfield’s open world is a volume of the Milky Way stretching roughly 50 light-years around the Sol System. You can land on more than 1,000 planets, plus an unspecified number of moons and space stations. Most landscapes are procedurally generated based on a system’s star, its atmosphere, and points of interest as you approach, with handcrafted content built around them.

The result is a game of extremes. New Atlantis is dense, lived-in, and worth walking slowly. The thousandth barren moon is not. Bethesda built a galaxy and then asked you to be impressed by its size, when the parts that stick are the small ones.

The Settled Systems and Its Factions

The setting has real bones. Grav Drive technology in the 2150s made faster-than-light travel possible, Earth’s magnetosphere began to fail, and humanity fled to Alpha Centauri in 2156. The United Colonies formed in 2159. The Freestar Collective broke away in 2189.

Around those two powers sit factions worth your time: House Va’ruun, a reclusive militaristic cult; the Ryujin Corporation, a megacorporation that runs on corporate espionage; the Crimson Fleet, organized pirates and smugglers; and Ecliptic, technologically advanced mercenaries. Howard dubbed the look “NASApunk,” drawn from real-world technology like NASA’s.

Skyrim in space

That quote is Howard’s, and it is the most useful thing anyone has said about this game. It tells you what to expect and where the seams show.

Ships, Outposts and a Skill Tree

The mechanics are broad. You switch between first-person and third-person at will. Combat runs on firearms, explosives, and melee weapons. You build spaceships, construct outposts, gather resources, and craft. You recruit companions, station crew at outposts, and can romance some of them.

Your crew matters. Companions carry items, fight beside you, speak to other NPCs on your behalf during confrontations, and react to your choices. Each has unique skills. You can pick a background at the start that unlocks three skills, then take traits that cut both ways. The Introvert trait raises endurance when you travel alone and lowers it with a companion. Traits can be removed through quests.

The skill trees span Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech. It is a lot of systems, and most of them work.

The Starborn Raise the Stakes

The search for artifacts draws competition from the Starborn, enigmatic beings with their own claims to the artifacts. What began as exploration becomes something more consequential. That turn is the spine of the game, and it is the part that divides people hardest.

Here is the honest read: the premise is stronger than the pacing. Constellation is a good idea for a faction, and the artifact mystery gives you a reason to cross the galaxy. But the main quest spends too long asking you to care about people it has not made you care about yet.

A Schedule That Kept Slipping

Starfield was announced in 2018 and delayed several times before it landed. Active development began after Fallout 4 shipped in 2015, and the game runs on a heavily modified Creation Engine, rebuilt to handle procedural generation.

That 2026 date matters. Starfield was a console exclusive for years, and the PS5 version only arrived this April.

Where the 8.3 Comes From

Starfield drew generally positive reviews, with praise landing on its open world, setting, and soundtrack. Its story and exploration were divisive. That split is fair, and it is where this review lands too.

What holds up: the Settled Systems are one of the best-realized settings Bethesda has built, the NASApunk aesthetic gives every ship and station a coherent look, and the soundtrack does more to sell the loneliness of space than any single planet does. Ship construction and outpost building are deep enough to swallow whole sessions.

What does not: the exploration loop thins out fast once the procedural generation stops surprising you, and the story asks for patience it has not earned. The Colony War, House Va’ruun, and the Crimson Fleet are all more interesting than the artifact chase that supposedly drives everything.

The scale is not the achievement here. The craft is. Bethesda spent 25 years getting to a new property and delivered a galaxy that is often beautiful and frequently empty, which is a real thing to be and also a limitation. It is worth your time. It is not the game its own premise promised.

Bethesda · game review · PS5 · space RPG · Starfield · Todd Howard