With so many great games coming out this year, it can feel like we don't have the time to play them all. Some are debating whether we should look for shorter experiences in our games, but Starfield's creator Todd Howard seems to think otherwise.
Speaking with the BBC, he defended longer games, saying: "In my career I've found two things about people who play games. Often they do play one title for a really long time rather than moving on to something new. But even if they only play for 10 or 20 hours, finish the main story, save the world then move on, they'll have at least seen all the other choices that could have been taken. It means those 20 hours will be different for every player because they were exposed to so much choice - which impacted their appreciation of the story and experience."
We've seen some who've played Starfield from early access say that it's actually best to rush through the game's story, then explore at your own pace on New Game+. Howard doesn't recommend that, but does say that going deeper into the game is what'll make it stick with you.
"Options are what I think keeps a game going in your head. When you put it down, you start thinking about when you can pick it back up? What am I going to do next? Or when you get distracted by choices in a game, and the hours go by, that's when I start feeling good about a game I'm making. Things are always a bit of a mess during development, but you know things are starting to gel together when you go in to test something, and it's late in the day and you've got to finish up soon, and you start playing. Next thing you know, three hours have gone by and you're like 'oh my, I didn't even know!'"
It seems that most are in agreement with Howard. We gave Starfield a positive review (which you can read here) as did many other outlets. It might not be sitting at the top Metacritic score of the year, but it is certainly up there.