Starfield kind of came and went, but that doesn’t mean players still don’t hold a grudge over the game’s features, or lack thereof. A community discussion has now cropped up criticizing Starfield‘s Earth, with numerous players saying our home planet is illogical and boring and that Bethesda should’ve done more.
Many fans have already expressed their opinions on the game’s various lapses since its release last September, but fans of the title have today pointed out a particularly disappointing part of the game that flew under people’s radars: the depiction of our home, Earth. Starfield‘s rendition of Terra should’ve been more, could’ve been more, but modders still can do more, according to fans in a Jan. 11 Reddit thread.
Even glancing at the image above will immediately tell you all there is about Starfield’s future Earth. It’s sand, rock, and the occasional well-known monument that you may randomly encounter in select parts of the world. One player argues the reason why everything on Earth feels so bland is that the game made it almost entirely flat. Like honestly, there are no mountains to be found on the planet, as if the alleged solar winds could have leveled the planet.
The flatness of the world means there are no post-apocalyptic Himalayas, no bottom of the Mariana Trench, and no Rocky Mountains. Bethesda’s concentration on making the Earth a global Sahara also means there are no ancient metro systems or underground tunnels that would have survived such a fate—and certainly no Vaults from Fallout. That’s not to say the planet is totally devoid of anything interesting, with several familiar derelict buildings acting as easter eggs. Truly, remarkably, for a game over a decade in the making, there is strikingly little on humanity’s homeworld to speak of, if you don’t count the endlessly repeating sand and rock formations.
But what’s the bottom line here? The saving grace, as with any Bethesda game thus far, is modders. The flatness and emptiness of Earth means a ton of space for modders to utilize and turn into something great. So long as they are adamant enough about it, and we know many modders are absolutely not, Starfield’s Earth has the potential of being modded into something more than great.
Bethesda has planned plenty more updates in the coming future, so here’s hoping we won’t need to rely solely on modders to experience more forgotten details in Starfield’s universe.
