Probably safe to suppose that Starfield will actually have a good, usable UI too. Even if it looks exactly like NMS, that will make it 100x better by itself.
You mean once a better UI mod is out a week after release?
Do we know if Bethesda formed a bigger team for Starfield? Seems like more hand-crafted content would need more hands.
I think there is a bit of ‘people misremembering how the old games truly looked like’ around Internet and this game. In particular, comments about how the faces look the same as other Bethesda games, they aren’t improving like in for example Horizon Forbidden World.
And yeah, they won’t look as good as Cyberpunk, Last of Us 2 or Horizon Forbidden World, to mention three games where they look really good, but there is already a notable improvement:
Skyrim
Fallout 4
F76 vs Starfield
More Starfield
The models definitely look a lot better but they still have that same dead eye, stand still, arms down stare. That last picture with his hand near his face is new. I don’t remember that in the trailer. Mass Effect went a long way to try and make character interactions less info kiosk-esqe 15 years ago.
The DF video noted they still don’t seem to be using subsurface scattering for faces, which does seem pretty last gen. But they do look better.
That Fallout screen is definitely a mod.
Fallout 4 models are fugly as hell. Like Bethesda doesn’t even bother to hire someone to try to make people look good most of the time using their own tools.
This is what Piper looks like:
But that was a while ago, what else came out that year?
Oh, right.
Starfield is a hell of a lot better than Fallout 4/76, that’s for sure. Still below par imo, though.
Edit: If anything the thing that impressed me the most was that faces emoted a lot better.
In the Digital Foundry look at the game, they say this:
The big question I have regarding space travel is less about visuals and more about possibilities - I’d love to see ship management play into travel. Imagine getting up from the captain’s chair to explore the ship, while managing resources and systems alike. I think this could make the journey between planets more engaging and challenging. It’s unclear if this is an option, however, or if the player simply ‘becomes’ the ship while flying.
Man, I really disagree with that. If there’s going to be any management of resources, I hope it’s just done through the HUD, and not from walking around on the ship. I really hope you do “become the ship” when you’re on the ship, I think that’s a much better implementation. If you’re going to make space battles slow and ponderous enough that you have time to walk around on the ship managing things, you’re already in a very different type of space combat. One that I would find pretty boring.
Nobody’s saying you should walk around your ship in the middle of a dogfight, or even a broadside-type encounter. Imagine you just finished a mission to infiltrate an orbital station, achieve your objective, but as you leave your ID codes are compromised and suddenly are being chased through various wormholes by a fast interceptor, and it’s slowly gaining-- then you leap out of the pilot’s seat to engineering to talk to your flight officers to strategize how to escape them, by slingshotting around a gas giant, or installing a new boost capacitor, or to talk to your allies on Septeminum VII to establish a diversion, or any of a dozen other pretty common scifi scenarios. Tons of possibility opens up when your ship is a navigable map. That’s all compelling gameplay you wouldn’t get glued to the cockpit.
Not to imply Bethesda will do any of that, of course, but they could, and they’re great reasons not to dismiss the feedback.
My abject hope is Starfield will inject the RPG back into Bethesda open-world games sadly lacking in Fallout 4. I want a progression system in everything. It should be pervasive. Stats, numbers, hard decisions on how to spend your points where you’re forced to choose between multiple feats and you want them ALL. Combat, diplomacy, stealth, choices everywhere. A deep decision tree defined by your choices.
I still don’t find any of those scenarios as appealing as being the ship. I was even annoyed in Independence War at switching between the four crew stations. I just stayed in the pilot’s station and did everything from there. That’s a great game with a lot of strategic decision making and huge variety in mission parameters.
Well, then we disagree! That’s OK too.
I mean, if they do anything like this, it will just be the Normandy.
I don’t recall Mass Effect ever actually doing anything like I described. But sure, the explorable space would be similar. And that’s awesome.
Yes, that’s what I mean. If they do it it will be closer to the Normandy (or the equivalent in Outer Worlds) than what you’re describing (other than as dialogue trees, I suppose).
Who knows? The possibility space is there.
This is the whiniest article I’ve read in ages.
Maybe, but I’ve seen that disapointment/sentiment in many outlets, including PC Gamer and Kotaku, iirc. Plus several forum posts. I think folks had taken it for granted, because of No Man’s Sky, which honestly is to me a fair criticism.
I don’t agree. Seamless transitions are typically just a waste of time. I can only think of a couple of games in which it adds meaningful gameplay.
THE LORD OF SPACE HATH SPOKEN!
It would have been nice, but I guess as long as the loading time is quick I won’t care. The worst outcome would be forcing me to watch the same 40 second unskippable cutscene of my ship landing or taking off over and over again.