Starfield Isn’t Realistic. That’s a Good Thing.
There’s an artificiality to Starfield that I love.
It struck me most when I landed on a planet and saw an intense hostage standoff at the local bank.
A line of marshals were standing outside, stiff as boards, guns pointed at the bank as them and the hostage takers yelled back and forth through a phone. Wouldn’t you know it, the bank robbers wouldn’t talk to the police. They would only talk to a neutral party.
Good thing I was walking by!
Scenes like this play out all the time in Yakuza, my favorite video game series.
Our protagonist Kiryu walks by countless NPCs (non-playable characters) standing stiff as boards, who upon seeing Kiryu immediately bombard him with their problems and ask him, a total stranger they just met, to help them out.
A lot of people would balk at the absurdity of all this, but the absurdity is what I love about it. The yakuza games are unafraid of showing their edges, their cut corners. They gleefully sacrifice realism so they can spend that effort churning out dozens of weird and memorable side quests each game. Who cares about immersion when you can have fun instead?
Starfield is similar. There may be over 1000 planets but every one of them revolves around the player. This is not a rockstar situation where the world feels like it could exist without you. No. Everything is catered to you. It’s nakedly artificial and I love it.
I haven’t played enough of the game to say any more. I deeply appreciate Starfield for being exactly what it is. It isn’t Baldur’s Gate 3 and that’s okay. I’m glad that someone is out there making weirdly janky games like this, even in 2023.
