Starfield received consistently good reviews when it arrived in 2023, but still a considerable step below what Bethesda's other two series, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, usually receive. But perhaps the problem is that it was Bethesda that made Starfield, because people then compared it extensively to the latter two series.
At least, that's what former Bethesda employee Bruce Nesmith, Starfield's systems designer, believes. In an interview with FRVR, he admits that it's not quite in the same league as Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, but adds:
"I think it's a good game. I don't think it's in the same caliber as the other two, you know, Fallout or Skyrim, or Elder Scrolls rather, but I think it's a good game. I worked on it, I'm proud of the work I did. I'm proud of the work that the people I knew did on it. I think they made a great game."
Ultimately, Starfield has sold well, received a lavish expansion, and has a vibrant community (not least from modders), and he adds:
"If the same game had been released by not Bethesda, it would have been received differently."
Of course, we will never know the answer to that question, but Nesmith also explains that he thinks the problem with Starfield is space:
"...space is inherently boring. It's literally described as nothingness. So moving through it isn't where the excitement is, in my opinion."
He also thinks that aliens and other creatures lacked roles in the game and mostly felt like props, and that the randomly generated parts were more boring than those created by hand. But as we said, he is satisfied, and the epic adventure obviously has a lot of good things too, which you can read more about in our review.
What do you think? If another, less established studio had released Starfield and it hadn't been compared to Bethesda's other titles in the same way, would the reception have been different?