Starfield Review
Leon has reviewed Starfield for Gamesradar and chatted to Tom about what he thinks of it. The anticipation is high and who else but the visionary creators at Bethesda could venture into the uncharted realms of space and deliver a gaming experience that transcends galaxies? Get ready to embark on a journey that's been years in the making.
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00:07 So I've got Leon with me and he has been reviewing Starfield for us.
00:11 I'm going to ask you a really hard question.
00:13 Can you sum up Starfield in one sentence or as short as possible?
00:16 In one sentence, it's the best thing Bethesda's done since Oblivion.
00:20 And that will probably change depending on what your first Bethesda game was,
00:24 which for me was Oblivion.
00:26 I know that's kind of like, sort of more almost like a comedy game on YouTube now,
00:30 watching all the funny glitches and dialogue,
00:32 but when Oblivion came out, like the sense of world building and sort of being there and exploring,
00:37 I thought was amazing and they built a whole universe.
00:40 It feels believable. There's just so much to kind of do.
00:44 So yeah, it's like the best thing they've basically done in like 20 odd years.
00:48 So with that, I was going to ask you how the world is,
00:51 but it's more a question of how is the universe?
00:54 It's lots of worlds, obviously, because there's loads of different planets,
00:57 but all the factions, all the planets, everything sort of feels like it's like lots of games happening together.
01:02 So Jemisin, which is on New Atlanta, is the United Colonies.
01:05 It's very kind of Star Trek-y, fighting aliens, which in this case are just like predators.
01:10 Akita is kind of Firefly and Space Cowboys.
01:13 Neon is where you find Ryuji and it's very much Blade Runner, cyberpunk kind of thing.
01:18 You can be a pirate, which is quite like a big sort of heist thing.
01:23 There's Cydonia on Mars, which is very much like The Expanse.
01:26 It's very much like kind of space is rubbish for normal people.
01:28 It's just hard work and horrible.
01:31 And depending on where you are and what you're doing,
01:33 you'll have sort of more kind of run and gun missions.
01:35 There's sort of like heisty things.
01:36 There's at one point you're like essentially trying to rob,
01:39 but what is kind of a museum and there's different ways of doing it.
01:42 And it does create this feeling of like lots of different kind of games happening at once.
01:45 And you've got things like the crafting and the research where you're running around,
01:48 very much like No Man's Sky, like scanning planets, harvesting like iron and nickel
01:53 and different things to make things.
01:55 You can build outposts.
01:56 The outpost building and the resource crafting and that stuff is very much Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.
02:02 It's the same kind of interface, the same kind of workbenches.
02:05 Ship building is completely new and that's fantastic.
02:07 I've lost hours just building ships.
02:10 You basically have all these sort of different modules.
02:12 You have like HAB modules and engine modules and you slot it all together like a kit
02:15 to make whatever sort of ship you want.
02:18 You've got to balance things like engines.
02:19 You can't have anything take too much power from your reactor or it won't work.
02:23 Like I built a massive ship that only flew like four miles an hour
02:27 because I'd taken the weight to the absolute limit of what the engines could handle.
02:32 So I'd gone into it thinking I'd built like this sort of massive Star Destroyer,
02:36 Battlestar Galactica thing and then I hit the engines and it was like 30 miles an hour.
02:40 And I was kind of like, "Okay, I've just got to turn this one around."
02:42 So I've got my main ship which I've been--
02:45 You start off upgrading. You can go straight into ship building.
02:47 It's very complicated. It takes a bit of learning.
02:50 There's a basic option where you can just choose to upgrade
02:53 and if you select the engines, it'll show you if there's any better engines.
02:56 So you can basically just buy some better engines, buy some better reactors,
02:59 buy some better guns and that's how you sort of start levelling it up.
03:03 And after I'd done that a little while, I was able to kit out and build a big ship.
03:07 I'm not like building them big because I want anything like huge and powerful.
03:11 I just like having lots of rooms and things to walk around in.
03:14 So I put loads of windows in. I've got lots of floors.
03:17 I can walk around the ship and look out and see the planets.
03:20 But you can just build an engine with guns on.
03:22 I've got a couple of ships that are literally just an engine, a cockpit and some guns and that's it.
03:25 Very much like the Rosie in the Expanse was a gunship.
03:28 It is literally an engine, a cockpit and some guns.
03:31 My ultimate goal I think is eventually to build almost like kind of a big Federation ship.
03:36 Again, not because I want anything powerful, but I just want to have lots of rooms
03:38 and lots of space to walk around.
03:41 So you can do anything and that's been probably my biggest vice
03:45 in terms of not completing any of the main missions.
03:48 Just pottering around building ships, scanning planets,
03:51 because if you complete a planet scan you can sell it for lots of money.
03:54 So in between missions you sort of suddenly go like,
03:56 "Oh, I've done like 60% of a planet scan. I might as well finish it off."
03:59 I just check what engines I've got.
04:01 A day later you've built a whole new ship.
04:04 It's kind of nightmarish to try and actually finish anything
04:07 because there's so much kind of there and so much to do.
04:10 It also sounds like from what you're saying about all of the different planets
04:13 have a very distinct feel, but they also have different specific missions.
04:17 And then you've clearly fallen into the ship thing.
04:20 There's an element of like there's so much to do here.
04:23 Everybody will find something that they enjoy,
04:25 whether it's the ships or the scanning or the whatever it is, combat.
04:29 So there's like just what do you want to play with?
04:31 I think that's it. I think it's whatever you kind of want to do,
04:33 there is something there for you.
04:35 I'm about 80 hours in at the moment.
04:37 I think it's 80 and a bit hours worth of play.
04:41 And I've not sort of got bored or like fatigued any part
04:46 because whenever I'm kind of like, "Okay, I'm done.
04:48 I'm done doing the big story missions. There's a moon there I haven't looked at.
04:51 I'm going to go and have a quick look at that."
04:53 I've done exploring, like I'm going to tune my ship.
04:55 Like, "Oh, I found a weird little side mission. I don't know what it is.
04:57 I'm going to go and have a look."
04:59 So yeah, there's this constant kind of flow and change of things.
05:03 And yeah, whatever you kind of want to do, you'll probably find it.
05:07 You can just go in all guns blazing. You can sort of kill everyone.
05:09 I've done a lot of persuasion, which is like in speechcraft,
05:13 so I can talk my way into and out of almost every situation.
05:16 Yeah, I've done a lot of shipbuilding.
05:18 I've done lots of research and crafting.
05:20 So if I find like a gun I like, I'll put on like better barrels,
05:24 better sort of muzzles. I'll add like different magazines.
05:26 I'll tune the guns to what I like.
05:29 The same with spacesuits.
05:30 I can add like different shielding or pockets to let you carry more.
05:34 But you don't have to do that.
05:35 You can literally just pick up stuff off the ground
05:37 and you'll probably do just as well.
05:39 So yeah, whatever you kind of want to get out of it,
05:41 you'll probably sort of find that game there.
05:43 And if you do at any point be like,
05:46 "Maybe I've played enough of this for a while,"
05:47 you'll find something else in the game to do
05:50 and carry on kind of that way.
05:52 You've mentioned it a bit there, but how is kind of the...
05:55 Obviously there's a lot to do, but there is a main crux.
05:57 There is a main story. How is that?
05:59 Well, I mean, there's like several.
06:01 Like I say, you have the faction mission.
06:03 So yeah, Constellation is more...
06:06 It's meant to be like the main mission.
06:08 It's to do with sort of exploring.
06:10 There's like a mystery out in space
06:11 and you're trying to uncover what it is.
06:13 So that's like the main mission in kind of like air quotes.
06:16 The UC vanguards are the United Colonies.
06:19 They're like I say, they're sort of almost like the Federation.
06:22 With them, you are, yeah, you're doing kind of starship troopers,
06:25 like kind of trying to deal with these sort of alien predator
06:28 monster things.
06:29 They're just like the aliens in the game are all just like monsters.
06:32 They're just like big space cows or like praying mantis
06:34 and things like that.
06:35 And there's a nasty one they're trying to deal with.
06:38 They also, you can join the pirates undercover
06:41 and the pirates are basically looking for a lost pirate treasure,
06:45 essentially.
06:46 And that's kind of like quite sort of lots of robberies
06:49 and heists and things like that.
06:51 Yeah, and the Ryujin is kind of corporate espionage.
06:55 So you're like trying to steal things from offices
06:57 or plant evidence, that sort of thing.
06:59 And so they all have their own kind of distinct stories
07:02 and their own kind of vibes.
07:04 Yeah, heists and sneaking and all sorts of stuff.
07:07 There's one mission on a ship where you basically just talk to people
07:09 for like an hour because you're trying to uncover some embezzlement
07:12 and you're trying to get some dirt on someone because if you can get dirt
07:14 on them, you can get--you can lever them into helping you.
07:18 So you're just wandering around essentially like a cocktail party,
07:20 just sort of chatting to people.
07:23 Yeah, there's a heist where you can do one of about four different things
07:26 to steal the thing you're there to steal.
07:29 I went back and reloaded the save because I wanted to see which is the best
07:33 and there is a best version.
07:34 It's like which one you like the most essentially.
07:37 That's nice.
07:38 That seems--again, the variety in this seems absolutely insane.
07:41 It's just because of the games they've made before have such a long endgame
07:46 to a certain extent with the games that have come before with Oblivion
07:48 and Skyrim where people just keep playing them over and over.
07:52 Do you think this might have that kind of longevity in that people
07:56 will be playing this in 10 years?
07:58 I think so, yeah, because there are--let's say the main sort of faction
08:01 and story missions are big.
08:03 They're ongoing.
08:04 They're quite long.
08:06 Again, in a good way, there's a lot to do there.
08:08 There's loads of weird random things to find.
08:11 There's lots of different ways to do everything.
08:13 Like I'm being nice at the moment, but I think you can be nasty.
08:17 You can kill everyone.
08:19 You could--yeah, you can stealth.
08:21 It's got a bit more--because of the way you can sort of kit out
08:24 your skills and abilities, there is a little bit more of--you know,
08:27 you could talk your way through things.
08:29 You can use tech.
08:30 You can use gadgets.
08:32 There's a little bit more of that, so you could replay it
08:34 with different kind of role-playing kind of intents.
08:37 Then there's procedural stuff--not procedural, but there's randomly
08:40 generated stuff.
08:41 If you go to just a random planet that doesn't really have much on it,
08:45 you will find some abandoned bases.
08:47 You'll find some caves.
08:48 There'll be enemies.
08:49 There'll be loot.
08:50 There'll be a kind of like an ongoing kind of amount of that.
08:53 I haven't--I've not done a huge amount of them yet, but some of the
08:56 bounty missions and things where you have to deliver, you know,
09:01 5,000 to Iron to Jemisin, things like that, I think they just--they will
09:04 just sort of keep going.
09:05 You'll set up an outpost to mine iron, and it will ship off,
09:08 and you'll tick that off.
09:09 Or, you know, there'll always be "Get X-Bandit at Planet Y."
09:13 So that kind of stuff goes on forever.
09:14 I think just the core game alone is, you know, hundreds of hours of kind
09:18 of A, just completing it the first time, but then also go back and be like,
09:21 "I want to--you know, I want to be big on guns.
09:24 I want to be big on stealth.
09:25 I want to play it like this.
09:26 I want to play it like that."
09:28 I haven't got to the outer reaches of kind of shipbuilding yet,
09:32 but I know that I've seen a few warnings where like, you know,
09:35 if you build a ship past a certain size, you just can't land on planets.
09:38 So, you know, I think, you know, there's that sort of level of, you know,
09:42 you could just build ships and just kind of do all that.
09:46 As long as you're okay with them going 10 miles an hour.
09:48 Well, if you get the engines right and balance all the reactors and stuff,
09:51 then you get like a good turn of speed.
09:53 But yeah, like I pushed the absolute limits of what I had,
09:55 and it was a very slow ship.
09:57 It still sounds like fun, though. It sounds great.
10:00 Yeah, yeah, no, it is.
10:01 Yeah, like it's the potential is kind of unlimited, really.
10:05 So are there any negatives with it?
10:07 I know that Bethesda have had a bit of a ropey innings with some of the gunplay
10:11 in their previous games, but how is it in this?
10:13 Yeah, the gunplay is good.
10:15 The gunplay in Fallout has always been a bit of a kind of like,
10:20 not controversial, but people have strong opinions on Fallout's gunplay,
10:23 so it can feel a bit rattly and lightweight.
10:25 This, it feels nice. The guns feel good.
10:27 It's got quite a lot of impact to it.
10:28 There's a lot of variety between sort of ballistic weapons and laser weapons
10:32 and particle beams.
10:33 Mag arrays are their new thing, which is like the sort of the magazine
10:37 and the barrel is like one whole thing.
10:40 So you'll have like a mag rifle that has like, essentially like 20 tiny little
10:44 barrels and it can almost like fire them all at once.
10:47 Magnetically, they're really good fun.
10:49 Like all the guns are like, you find something, oh, this is cool, this is fun.
10:51 Everything has a lot of like punch to it.
10:53 So there's a lot of like, you know, you find something, you like it,
10:56 you use it until like the numbers are no longer sort of valid.
10:59 Like you've got other guns that do more damage, but you end up with one you like
11:03 that you stick with until the last possible moment.
11:06 There's a few weird things where skills are kind of,
11:10 almost feel like some skills are completely locked off where, so,
11:15 in the past, say for example, stealth, you could sort of sneak around
11:18 and you'd be bad at it, but you could still get away with it
11:20 without putting points into stealth.
11:22 Stealth skill would make you better.
11:25 This feels a bit like kind of stealth doesn't work at all until you
11:29 put any points into it and you unlock a stealth meter and then,
11:33 you know, that sort of progresses.
11:34 You can't lock, I don't think, I can't pick any pockets because I haven't
11:38 unlocked that as a skill yet.
11:40 So that's kind of interesting in that, yeah, there are some things you,
11:44 things you used to be able to do badly and would spend points on to get better at,
11:48 you just can't do until you've unlocked the base level.
11:52 And the way you do skills is different now where you,
11:56 if you earn a skill point, you can either unlock a new skill
11:59 or upgrade an existing one.
12:01 So there's a real kind of like weight to your choices now.
12:06 Do you unlock loads of things and kind of be sort of not great at a lot of things
12:10 or do you drill into getting better at some things?
12:14 Like I've put a few repeat points into, say, ballistic weapons because I've found,
12:18 you know, I use a lot of ballistic guns, so I've been levelling up the weapons damage,
12:21 but it means I'm not getting a new skill because I've put, say,
12:24 three points into ballistics instead of three new skills.
12:29 Shipbuilding as well, you can't fly certain ships and you can't use certain
12:32 components until you've levelled up your sort of shipbuilding skills.
12:35 But again, you know, you can just steal a ship in space and get new ships that way.
12:40 So, you know, you take what you want and, you know,
12:43 go after the things that appeal to you.
12:45 If you put it all into ballistics, you could just go steal the ship.
12:47 I don't need to have the points in building it.
12:50 Stealing ships is just so much fun.
12:53 It sounds so good just coming across them on the planet or like boarding them in space.
12:57 It's just, oh my God. Well, that sounds really promising.
12:59 So bearing all that in mind, the positives and a few tiny negatives,
13:04 what score are you going to give it out of five?
13:06 It's five stars for me. I think it's the best thing Bethesda have done in years.
13:10 It's one of the best games I've played in years.
13:13 I love big open world sort of things where avoiding the main mission is the main mission.
13:20 And this is just absolutely one of the best examples of that kind of game ever.
13:24 Like, just pick a direction, walk off in it, see what you find.
13:28 And, you know, you'll be doing something all night, all weekend.
13:32 It's exceptional.
13:34 Wow. It sounds like kind of game of the year contender as well.
13:37 We've got a few of them already, so this could be interesting.
13:40 It's out in early access on the 1st of September.
13:43 And it's out properly on the 6th of September on Xbox Games Pass.
13:47 It's out on the Microsoft Store. It's out on Xbox Series X and S.
13:50 And it's out on Steam.
13:52 So yeah, go get it if you're interested. It sounds great.
13:55 I'm really happy that it's like we've proved the way.
13:57 It's been worth the wait at least, which is great.
13:59 Absolutely.
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