This is by far, the biggest Starfield controversy yet. Apparently you can't seamlessly explore an entire planet, instead the planets have procedural generated zones that have invisible walls. It can only take around 10 minutes by running in a straight line on a planet from your ship to reach an invisible wall. This was seen in a roughly 1 minute leaked video that was played in fast motion of a player traversing a very barren Earth with a lot of rocks taking time to render in the distance. There was absolutely nothing to do in the area that the player was running in and it looked incredibly boring. This video was eventually removed on YouTube and made Starfield look really bad with a very toxic comment section. The planet zones are incredibly small which really sucks, I'm not sure if the planet zones vary in sizes though. I hope that there are much bigger zones so that there is much more to explore without getting interrupted by an invisible wall so quickly. I understand why there aren't land vehicles because you would reach an invisible wall in no time. The zones are randomly generated with hand crafted content and aren't even linked to each other. For example, if you land in a zone next to New Atlantis you won't even see it from a distance, New Atlantis is its own separate zone. I'm personally devastated and am no longer excited for Starfield. This really breaks immersion and I'm mad at Bethesda because they lied to us saying that we have unparalleled freedom in this game. I wouldn't be surprised if Starfield only scores in the 80s on Metacritic and gets mixed reviews which would be an epic failure for this hugely anticipated game. For me, planet boundaries is the nail in the coffin for me, what do you think? This is a very hot topic right now and needs to be discussed, thanks.
First: You must be new in the gaming scene if you feel like Bethesda Softworks overpromising is something unique. They've always done that. And sometimes this led to disappointment (Fallout 4), but often the games themselves were so good that everybody was forgiving of Todd Howard's big words (Skyrim).
Second: we don't REALLY know many details about the visible walls. Everything we do know is from a few details of people breaking NDA's. Bethesda shut them down rightly, because they were clearly leaking, and responding to leaks by giving information... would provide even more space for people to go out and discuss the game. So it's not like Bethesda is evil for shutting these discussions down. People shouldn't leak.
And because of it being leaks, we are actually still lacking details of how this would work and if it ever would be a problem. What I read from people online is that all of these invisible walls would only be encountered after a long time of walking, some of these equal more than the whole map of Fallout 3. If each of these planets is bigger than Fallout 3, I feel like... I won't encounter those moments anyway, so it's kind of a lot ado about nothing (if that's the case).
I don't really worry about that. It's an Action RPG, not a sim game like No Man's Sky. And I think everybody needs to get their expectations in check. As long as dialogues are great, side quests are good, gameplay loop is satisfying, I think this game is easily going to score 90+ on Metacritic, regardless of how many invisible walls. A good RPG is a good RPG - take FFXVI for example.
I do worry about this game, but that's because I don't know if Bethesda is still the great studio it once was. However, going by what we've seen so far, things are pretty positive. Press sounds excited for this game - they're playing the game right now, if it was a big disappointment, their excitement would be lower for sure. It has previewed well so far, and Bethesda handing out review copies quite early, they seem really confident it is a great game. Considering all of that, I wouldn't worry too much about invisible walls.
This is the problem when trying to make a game with 1000 planets. The majority of those planets are going to be just filler wastelands with nothing unique. No Man’s Sky devs learned this the hard way and went back to change the algorithm, so certain event would happen regardless of which planet the player landed on.
The talk about this game having 150+ hours of meaningful content is just ridiculous marketing hype. No single player game has had 150 hours of interesting content because after the 80 hour mark the gameplay loop becomes repetitive and you’ve pretty much exhausted the potential of it.
Starfield is going to be the same story. It’s going to be a good 75 hour game though.
@NotTelevision Starfield is a game about space exploration. You can build your ship and go anywhere in the so called "Settled Systems".
In order to make a game about space exploration reasonably grounded on reality, most planets and moons are supposed to be barren. There aren't Starbucks in Enceladus.
Hence, the game designers of Starfield had to make one of the following choices
1. Don't let players go anywhere they want, only let them go to specific planets.
2. Let players go anywhere, but every planet in the game supports life, which is not realistic.
3. Let players go anywhere, but 9 out of 10 planets will be barren, for realism sake.
They chose option number 3. And I like option number 3! I don't need to visit every barren planet. But I like that the game does not forbid me from going there.
Not every planet/moon devoid of life is boring! I think Venus, Io and Titan are very, very interesting places, and I'm talking only about the Solar System. There are other kinds of interesting planets outside of the Solar System I'd love to check as well, like a tidally locked Super-Earth. Visiting those sites will be enough to engage Astronomy nerds, even if there aren't missions in those places.
@Balta666 I’ve never played a Xenoblade game but the Witcher 3 and Skyrim are both games I admire.
Skyrim has such a big world to explore but the majority of the map is repeated content. The same bandit camps, skeleton caves, and abandoned houses dotted around vast areas of forest. The best part was some of the random people and events you would run into out exploring. It gives the player the impression that there are events going on around them even if you weren’t there to witness them. But I really liked the experience for 60 hours or so, until I got so powerful that the gameplay became stale. It’s an incredible feeling world but as a game it just wasn’t very fun.
The Witcher 3 had better combat than Skyrim but it still became repetitive after 50 hours. I think the game has fantastic side quest and characters though. I felt like it was worth finishing for the story but the open world felt very bland anytime you weren’t on a quest. I think the final 1/3 of it, I flipped on easy mode so I can get the fighting over with quickly to progress the plot.
But I don’t want to be down on anyone who enjoyed every moment of their 150 hours in any game. I hope they can get 500+ hours out of a game and explore every nook and cranny. But for me bigger games with bigger content pools means less and less of the stuff in the game is actually worth it for me personally. Too little of that content is going feel unique after seeing it a dozen or more times.
@NotTelevision Not every level or area has to be hand-crafted in order to still be entertaining I feel. If a gameplay loop is satisfactory and fun, then minor variations in a level can keep the game interesting. Skyrim was a game like that to me, in one playthrough I even put 400 hours. I was saving up for skills, enchanting weapons to make them better and better, putting nice stuff in my house, etc. It didn't matter to me in the slightest that most dungeons could have been auto generated, because I enjoyed the simple gameplay loop enough to have a great time, and small developments like new abilities kept me hooked for more. That's not so different from how players can enjoy playing soccer for millions of hours. It's the same game, the rules hardly ever changes, but if you like the premise enough, then that's enough.
I get that not every game will have that kind of depth. For instance, I played Ghost of Tsushima for over 100+ hours. It's a decent game, but the combat wasn't interesting enough to keep me hooked for that long.
I'm currently playing Horizon Forbidden West. And like the previous game, I love the combat. I will often pick fights with monsters for no reason, just because I like to fight big robots. I don't even care that it costs me more resources than it earns me sometimes, because I'm having fun. I hardly care for the narrative at all, and sometimes have to restrain myself from skipping dialogues. I just like fighting big robots, and I could do that for 100+ hours without becoming bored; and the game doesn't even need meaningful content to keep me interested for the next battle.
What I'm trying to say is that theoretically content doesn't need to be handcrafted or meaningful to keep a game interesting. Roguelike's are based around the idea of generated content, and I've played Cult of the Lamb, Hades and Returnal for many hours, while content stayed the same.
If Starfield's core gameplay loop is fun enough, then the planets don't need to have millions of handcrafted NPC's, events and areas to stay interesting. The promise of finding some kind of ore in a dangerous cave could be enough. But it all kind of depends on what kind of game Starfield wants to be, I guess? And I haven't figured that out yet myself!
(Long post, and don't mean to single you out or anything, just my perspective on long games)
In the real world, India have recently landed on the Moon... What do you think they will be doing? Exploring the whole of it's surface? NO! Just the area they have landed in. How much of that area they will research I don't know, but it sure won't be the whole of the moon. Do they have a land vehicle? NO! It's all on foot. That's how I see my Starfield experience.
@Kidfried Its a 'Space' Sim - that's what it's trying to be. No two playthroughs are going to be the same and its all about what you want Starfield to 'be' within the Lore/Systems in place. Its a Role Playing Game so you can 'choose' your 'role' in this universe - whether you want to discover the 'mystery' of the artefacts or just go off an explore, whether you want to join a Faction or just settle on planets and build a network of bases, whether you want to be a smuggler/pirate or prefer to be more 'law abiding'.
Skyrim has a 'story', but it still grants you the 'freedom' to be who you want to be in the 'fantasy' world they created. Fallout too lets you be what you want to be in a post apocalyptic world - whether you 'choose' to follow the main path or make your own path. Each isn't really known for its main story, but the 'freedom' to play the Game the way you want, be whoever you want to be within that world and freedom to play that 'role' the way you want to - not follow a 'defined' characters role and their linear Story in an 'open' setting.
Its not like Assassins Creed or Horizon - narrative driven Open World games that really lead you through the 'story' of the Character you play - even if it does give you 'some' freedom to upgrade or do certain things in the order you wish. Where 'everything' is scripted and will always happen at the same 'point/place' in the game. This is much more Role Playing so its up to you to 'decide' your 'role' in this game - you may not bother to stick with Constellation and discover the 'secret' of the Artefacts and it doesn't 'matter' because you are role playing the 'character' you create.
As for 'invisible' walls, that can make sense in this universe - not being more than 'X' distance from your ship for whatever reason - maybe it controls the Life Support of your Suit and need to keep in a certain range. Its not as if you can't land 'anyway' on the Planet and 'investigate' those areas. In any case, I doubt it will be a 'major' issue. I doubt I'd want to 'walk' in one direction for 10mins+ just to see how far I can get only to have to turn round and spend another 10mins+ getting back to the ship to do anything worthwhile....
If I was that 'keen' to get to that area, I'd make sure I'd land 'nearby'. If that is a deal breaker for those 'complaining' about this, well don't buy/play. Not 'every' game is going to be 'perfect' for EVERYONE - even games that got 'Perfect' Scores from reviewers - there is always 'something' that someone doesn't enjoy as much. Some prefer their games to lead them through a narrative, use 'guides' to find collectables etc and 'struggle' to play games that give you so much 'freedom' to be any Role. be 'yourself' if you want, in a 'true' RPG so this may not suit them.
Some will also try to find 'faults' with even the most insignificant aspects, call 'foul' because they 'assumed' and/or deliberately misunderstood, take things completely out of context etc. Look at Game Preservation, Phil Spencer and Xbox 360. Phil didn't take over until into the XB1 generation and has done more for Game Preservation in his time yet still being held accountable for the lack of preservation (mostly by 3rd Party Pubs/Devs from that era). As fewer and fewer 360's are actually in use, fewer and fewer using the 360 store, it 'dies' regardless of whether MS turn it off or not. Those games are ONLY purchasable on a 360 through the 360 store and ONLY run on a 360 too so with 'NO' 360's being made, they would 'disappear' anyway as the hardware disappears - its up to the Publishers, the IP owners etc to 'preserve' their games - but that era was more concerned about the 'next' big thing, evolving 'games' meant that 'older' games were 'obsolete'. Who wants to play the old game on old hardware when we have bigger, better, more graphically impressive games so don't 'preserve', build on top of to 'evolve' them...
I really don't see the problem here.
First: You must be new in the gaming scene if you feel like Bethesda Softworks overpromising is something unique. They've always done that. And sometimes this led to disappointment (Fallout 4), but often the games themselves were so good that everybody was forgiving of Todd Howard's big words (Skyrim).
Second: we don't REALLY know many details about the visible walls. Everything we do know is from a few details of people breaking NDA's. Bethesda shut them down rightly, because they were clearly leaking, and responding to leaks by giving information... would provide even more space for people to go out and discuss the game. So it's not like Bethesda is evil for shutting these discussions down. People shouldn't leak.
And because of it being leaks, we are actually still lacking details of how this would work and if it ever would be a problem. What I read from people online is that all of these invisible walls would only be encountered after a long time of walking, some of these equal more than the whole map of Fallout 3. If each of these planets is bigger than Fallout 3, I feel like... I won't encounter those moments anyway, so it's kind of a lot ado about nothing (if that's the case).
I don't really worry about that. It's an Action RPG, not a sim game like No Man's Sky. And I think everybody needs to get their expectations in check. As long as dialogues are great, side quests are good, gameplay loop is satisfying, I think this game is easily going to score 90+ on Metacritic, regardless of how many invisible walls. A good RPG is a good RPG - take FFXVI for example.
I do worry about this game, but that's because I don't know if Bethesda is still the great studio it once was. However, going by what we've seen so far, things are pretty positive. Press sounds excited for this game - they're playing the game right now, if it was a big disappointment, their excitement would be lower for sure. It has previewed well so far, and Bethesda handing out review copies quite early, they seem really confident it is a great game. Considering all of that, I wouldn't worry too much about invisible walls.
Do you think the planet zones in Starfield will be different sizes? In that leaked video, the player reached the invisible wall by running from his ship in only around 10 minutes. Do you think it can take up to like 40 minutes to reach an invisible wall in another planet zone?
@DarthMaster09 Yeah, I think there will be different sizes!
Apparentely planet zones get destroyed once you leave them. If you go back to the same zone you explored, it's going to look completely different each time you go back to it, what do you think of this? I wonder if your outpost gets destroyed too after leaving a zone.
@DarthMaster09 man, running from one end to the other in Skyrim takes less than 20 minutes if you choose a line without much mountains to get around... 10m running is a massive area on its own!
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