Starfield has been out for a little over five weeks now, and the game’s most dedicated players have more than enough time under their belts to determine their opinion of it. In a thread posted to the Starfield subreddit earlier on Oct. 8, players debated where it ranks among the entirety of Bethesda’s catalog of games, with a majority of players coming to the consensus that although the game is solid, it still has some kinks to work out before it can be considered a top three Bethesda title.
Throughout the Reddit thread, most players across the board ranked Starfield just inside Bethesda’s top five, with the most popular choices that outranked it being three Elder Scrolls entries: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Other fans who preferred the Fallout series consistently ranked Fallout 4 above Starfield.
One player in the comments said that Starfield is not a top three Bethesda game “in its current state” and that even with some “healthy updates,” it still wouldn’t crack that threshold. “Not every game needs to be the best ever,” they said.
Bethesda’s fans are usually stalwart in their loyalty to the studio, particularly because of how many of their games follow a similar formula to their predecessors. The engine, progression system, and gameplay loop of a game like Starfield are eerily similar to Bethesda classics like Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
In my experience particularly, I found the campaign to echo many of Skyrim’s progression choices, particularly in regard to the pacing during the midsection of the game. Discovering your Starborn powers a third of the way through Starfield was reminiscent of discovering your ability to shout a third of the way through Skyrim, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg between those two games’ comparisons. I also found that the choice to include four set-in-stone side factions with their own individual quest chains in Starfield (Freestar Rangers, Crimson Fleet, Ryujin Inudstries, UC Vanguard) heavily mirrored Skyrim’s choice to do the exact same thing with the Companions, Thieves’ Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and College of Winterhold.
By no means is Starfield a bad game—in fact, if you’re a fan of the Bethesda game model, you’ll probably end up enjoying it if you haven’t played it already. Although some players on Reddit lambasted Starfield for its “terrible design choices,” like its over-reliance on fast travel, arguably repetitive skill progression system, and heavy over-usage of loading screens, it’s ultimately up to you to decide if those things impede your Starfield experience.
