It feels as though I've been waiting all of my life for another single-player Bethesda game... in reality it has only been a decade, but the feels. It feels as though it's been an age and a half.
For me, there's just something about Bethesda games. The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, even the sub-par Skyrim), Fallout — perfect examples of worlds I can live in forever whilst ignoring the real world. There are quite a few people out there who find these worlds empty, repetitive, boring, but these worlds where I can create my own personal story are what I crave; they're where I thrive!
I was going to wait until the game officially launched on the 6th of September, but then my second hardcore rogue died in World of Warcraft (at level 22) and one of my friends has been playing Starfield early and loves it and ugggghh. I threw my hands up into the air, refunded my standard edition, then repurchased the premium edition so I could play NOW.
We start off in a mine where my character is the newest member of this excavation team.
I grab a tool, learn how to do some basic movements, how to mine (very No Man's Sky), and finally... it happens. There's something special that I, the rookie, get to collect and as I grab onto it my person blacks out and...
...the most important thing appears! The thing that I can spend a good hour in before even starting the actual game. The thing that I always mod as soon as I'm able because I like hundreds of hairstyles and make-up options and eye colours and whatever to choose from.
The character creator.
I'm very happy with the creator! It is lacking a few colours and complexions and hair options. And tattoo options. But part of me is wondering if I can collect these things in the game like you could in Fallout 4. 🤔 If not, there are always mods and apparently you can change your appearance in-game.
Woo!
You select a background and traits for your character which have negative and positive connotations. For example: perhaps your parents are still alive and you can actually visit them!!!! However, you'll give them 2% of your earnings. Hahaaha. MY MONEY! MINE!
There's also the Hero Worshipped trait which seems to give you access to the ye olde Adoring Fan of whom I have no interest in, thank you very much.
But I made my character start out as a Space Scoundrel for a headstart in pistols, piloting and persuasion. And her traits are Empath (if she does things her companion likes, she is better at stuff), Neon Street Rat (I don't know, sounded good, I get a bonus with other Street Rats I think), and Terra Firma (I have better oxygen and health and whatnot whilst on-planet, not in space.)
Once Kaelci the Space Scoundrel was created (it took me 50minutes to create her!) and her new mining brethren were satisfied she was healthy enough to be left alone, I hopped straight into one of the things I'll be playing with a lot... the photo mode!
It's your standard photo mode. Nothing to complain about, really! It has heaps of frames, filters, depth of field, brightness/saturation/contrast, the ability to move the camera around, etc etc etc.
My one criticism is that you can't set your character to "look at the camera" like you can in Cyberpunk 2077.
I had to angle the camera around until finally it looked as though she were looking at it. A "Look at camera" feature would be nice.
There's an in-game photo album of all the photo-mode pictures you take!
My pleasure quickly dissipated as soon as I looked at my inventory.
That inventory screen is one of the worst things I've ever seen and I hope so badly that someone creates something much easier on the eyes than this horrendous-looking thing. Something more akin to SkyUI.
I think I've mentioned this at least once before: when it comes to space games, I hate how developers feel a need to make things look "techy." This inventory screen is the epitome of my techy disdain and I'm going to mod the shit out of it as soon as I can.
Out of curiosity, I then entered the skills menu to see how levelling up worked. While the Inventory screen looks overly techy, the Skills screen looks... underwhelming.
I like how they've set up the trees. I like how you complete "challenges" for each skill which then unlocks greater powers for that skill. But I hate the appearance of the trees. It looks as though someone very new to UI design created the thing.
After leaving the horrors of the user interface behind, I continued through this little mining outpost... a ship flew down with a man onboard ready to claim the thing I found in the mine, then pirates soon followed.
A battle ensued and soon the pirates lay dead and, due to circumstances, the man aboard the ship decided to give me his ship! So I could go to the people of Constellation and tell them what I had found.
The ship is ugly but serviceable and I can't wait to learn how to build my own ship!
Once on board the ship, I investigated a little as I wandered around and found a research table which enables me to learn how to improve med kits for healing, foods, outpost things, weapons and whatnot.
Once again I'm very iffy about the UI design.
There's just so many different UI designs in this game! It's like they had ten different people working on this one aspect instead of keeping a nice uniform continuity across the interface visuals.
It's overwhelming and jarring.
But, as with any game, I'm sure I'll eventually get used to it... and from what I've heard, a few people are annoyed at the UI as well so I'm assuming there'll be mods to change all this quick-stat.
I set off in my newly acquired spaceship and soon discovered the flight controls. It doesn't mention it in the tutorial, but default key to switch from first person to third person is by clicking the mouse scroll button.
I recommend it. Third person flying is much more intuitive and enjoyable than in first person.
Once I flew around for a bit and decimated some space pirates, I was directed to a nearby facility where the pirate base was. They were interfering with the mission and needed to be destroyed.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the map's design is pretty sub-par.
I am soooo looking forward to the inevitable UI mods. I can't state this enough.
Don't get me wrong. I can tell already that I'm going to love and play the absolute shit out of this game, but the UI in all aspects is just so atrocious. Menus behind menus behind menus. Jarring. Somehow overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time.
It's just so strange.
As we all saw in the various gameplay snippets that Bethesda has been showcasing over the past few months, you have a mining laser akin to that in No Man's Sky with which you can attack things with, scan materials and what not, and shoot resources so they enter your inventory.
It's pretty straight forward. One thing different from No Man's Sky is that you need to scan a few things several times before you unlock the entry.
So far I'm still on the first planet/moon/thing, searching for the pirate base so I can actually continue to Constellation and begin the game properly. I feel as though technically this is still part of the initial tutorial.
Some nvidia users have been experiencing performance issues, likely due to the lacking DLSS since Bethesda partnered up with AMD for some inexplicable reason when 80% of the gaming world uses nvidia. But I haven't experienced any issues yet. I'm playing on Ultra graphics at 4k and everything seems smooth as butter.
In saying that though, I haven't gone to any cities or anything yet so it's possible that might change.
Also in saying that though, Bethesda released the files of the game to a modder so that DLSS could be modded into the game at launch and it's currently available on Nexus Mods. I haven't seen a reason to get it yet, but I will if necessary.
As I've mentioned a hundred times in this write-up, the many, many, many menus and user interface designs are weird and jarring for me personally, but as with anything, with time and playing I'll get used to them. I'm totally going to mod them though once nice user friendly ones are made available.
I've only experienced a small amount of actual gameplay as of yet and haven't used any weapons other than my mining laser, but it seems just as it was in Fallout 4 which is cool with me.
Despite my disdain with the UI, I'm enjoying myself so far and I expect I will continue to do so!
Expect another write-up soon, detailing any further thoughts and impressions. 😊
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 
