After many years of development, Starfield really had the possibility of being one of the greatest Xbox games. Todd Howard really promoted this game as the ultimate space exploration title, but the end result was nowhere near what it really was.
According to an X post, a former employee of Bethesda, The Axis Unseen creator, talked about how he wanted to make the planet more full of life and not so procedural. Some players are even comparing it to Fallout, saying that this game has a more developed world.
Starfield had all the potential to be the next greatest game of Todd Howard and company
Last year, Bethesda finally released the great space exploration game, Starfield, to reviews ranging from average to great. However, a significant number of fans expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome, particularly due to some poorly implemented features. Players talked about how planets were very empty, with many of them just having generic procedurally made content to fill the land. Other features were also not so well-designed.
The other major issue with the game’s rhythm was that to travel to a planet, you could not control your ship at will; you would need to go to a menu and choose the planet, then wait for a loading screen, and the ship would land automatically. This kind of decision makes freedom almost nonexistent, so the whole space exploration part is not even close to what fans were waiting for. This kind of detail made the game unable to achieve greatness.
The Axis Unseen dev was a former member of the team behind Starfield, and he talked about how a key idea was discarded
Thanks to a viral post on X where a player complained about the potential that Starfield had and was wasted with generic content.
FWIW I tried to push for that, hard. 🙂 When I left it was one of the major things I listed that I thought would be an issue. (Also said it would get delayed haha)
— Nate Purkeypile – The Axis Unseen 🤘🏹🔥 (@NPurkeypile) April 22, 2024
I wish that’s the game that got made instead. It would have been a lot more compelling to me. Also less loads 🤣
One of the former devs of the game, now making its own game called The Axis Unseen, talked about how he pushed to make every planet handcrafted and no procedural generated to avoid load screens. He also said that this will probably make the title delay once more.
This dev really pushed forward to make the handcrafted planet a thing, at least with more than just a few planets, to avoid procedural-made things all over the place. These details prevented the game from becoming a possible GOTY, took the players out of the experience, and even made some false advertising. But at the end, all in all, it was a great Xbox exclusive to begin with, but Bethesda will have to improve for the next games.
The company that Todd Howard leads is preparing several games in the upcoming months and years: Indiana Jones, Fallout 5, Marvel’s Blade, and many more. This group of studios really has a lot of IPs to make fans happy, and there is a lot of potential to make great games. Xbox has the opportunity to elevate the reputation of its exclusive titles to unprecedented heights. Microsoft made a great acquisition.
What are your thoughts about this game? Let us know in the comments!
