Another week’s in the books for 2024, and there were some interesting updates in the world of games, anime, and more. Battlefield 2042 is no more, no one knows what’s next for Helldivers 2, Scrabble is woke, and Hatsune Miku fans are mad. Let’s get into it.
Kotaku Staff
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Starfield has been a big success for Bethesda and Microsoft. Not only was it the best-selling game in the US for September, but it’s also been a significant boon for Game Pass. According to Microsoft, the day of Starfield’s launch set a record for the highest number of new Game Pass subscribers.
Microsoft recently held its 2024 first-quarter earnings call. The hour-long conference covered a lot of ground, including the recent completion of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard buyout. However, it also touched on the success of Bethesda sci-fi RPG. This includes its launch day setting a red for Game Pass subscribers and Starfield crossing a massive sales milestone.
“We released Starfield this quarter to broad acclaim,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. More than 11 million people have played the game to date. Nearly half of hours played have been on PC, and on launch day, we set a record for the most Game Pass subscriptions added on a single day ever.”
The executive also reported that Game Pass saw more hours played than ever before. However, he did not specify precisely how many. He added that Minecraft surpassed 300 million units. Nadella also mentioned Microsoft’s strong holiday lineup featuring Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Forza Motorsport.
Yesterday also saw Microsoft publish its 2024 Q1 earnings report. The company overall saw a 27% increase in net income. Gaming revenue grew by 9%, with Xbox content and services rising by 13%. However, Xbox consoles also experienced a dip in revenue, falling by 8%. Still, the beginning of 2024’s fiscal year has been good overall for Microsoft and its gaming division.
Daniel DeAngleo
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Once a distant star on the horizon, Starfield arrived on Xbox and PC on September 6, with a five-day early access period for those who shelled out for the deluxe edition. It’s now been in the hands of gamers worldwide for a little over a month, with folks pouring over its vast world and searching every nook and cranny for loot, side quests, and more.
As expected, a game as massive as Starfield has a ton of stuff going on (there’s 1,000 planets, remember) so a month later, folks are still discovering all sorts of unique quirks, charms, and more than its fair share of weak points to point out, celebrate, and critique.
Read More: 28 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Playing Starfield
Whether or not Starfield will be as memorable as Skyrim or Fallout remains to be seen, but within its first month, here are some of the highlights.
Following its announcement in 2018, the hype for Starfield was real. Promising a scale way beyond what Bethesda delivered with Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield would mark the first original franchise for the studio since the ‘90s and take the Bethesda RPG format to a place it’s never really been before: space.
Read More: Starfield Isn’t The Future Of Video Games, And That’s Okay
Since the highly anticipated game launched, the reactions have been largely positive, but there are some fair criticisms of its structure and the meat of more than a few of its premiere questlines. In Kotaku’s review of Starfield, I praised its scale, scope, and capacity for gorgeous vistas, but criticized a pervasive shallowness in the game’s settings, narratives, and woefully repetitive environments.
In general, Starfield really hasn’t convinced us that it’s a vision for the future of games, and in fact, it seems to be little more than an iterative improvement on what Bethesda has delivered before, for decades now at this point. But whether you see that as a reliable go-to experience of the kind we know from Skyrim and Fallout or a failure to improve upon a tired formula is what makes Starfield 2023’s gaming Rorschach test.
Read More: Starfield: The Kotaku Review
The game currently sits at a Metacritic score of 84, sharing similar ground with well-received titles like August’s Armored Core VI, but falls quite shy of bigger blockbusters like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Player reviews via Steam certainly have their knives out for this Bethesda entry though, often describing the game as “disappointingly average” and “wide as an ocean – shallow as a puddle.”
It was understood early on that Starfield would be enormous. Bethesda touted the impressiveness of the game’s scale and talked at length about how the survival mechanics wouldn’t bog down the fun of Starfield’s core experience. as they do in other space games like No Man’s Sky
Read More: A No-Fuss Guide to Starfield Space Travel
Starfield’s reception amongst those not in the industry and casual players has also been mixed. While many of us have found a calm, contemplative beauty in the game’s endless planet simulation, others have tested just how traversable Starfield’s galaxy really is, and discovered that fast travel is technically not mandatory; you can fly across a solar system if you’ve got literal hours of real-world time on your hands to burn. And you can speed up space travel with a mod if you’re so inclined.
The scale of each individual planetary zone you can land on, however, has brought up criticism from players concerning the jarring lack of vehicles. Bethesda explained that while it did consider vehicles, it instead wanted to prioritize the on-foot exploration experience. Besides, if you did have a space rover, you’d be in for a bumpy ride with all of the dead animals everywhere.
Read More: Starfield’s Fast Travel Cheapens Space’s Impact
Not everyone’s been sold on Starfield’s size and scope, or how it’s presented. That said, we have caught sight of more than a few interesting things out there in the void. From Star Trek vibes to Dead Space-esque scares, to a planet very familiar to Halo fans, to a galaxy spanning beer run, there are more than a few fun surprises to be found in Bethesda’s space sim. That’s in addition to stuff fans have created on their own, like this awesome selection of space ships from other sci-fi franchises recreated in Starfield’s ship builder. And if you don’t fancy yourself a ship mechanic, the game is more than happy to provide some pretty sweet space rides of its own, such as the Razorleaf, a reward for tackling the Mantis quest.
And don’t forget, Starfield has some neat watering holes if you’re looking for a break from all the space-faring adventures and just want to sit in a weird space bar with a weird space bartender.
Starfield’s engine has a wildly impressive physics simulation. Granted, Bethesda games have always had pretty cool physics, but Starfield’s seems to be a bit more realistic and lively. This has allowed players to engage in some credit theft, but also has inspired some pseudo Rube Goldberg shenanigans. You can also just pack your ship full of junk and potatoes.
Like almost every Bethesda game before it, modders have taken to improving the rougher edges of Starfield’s experience. We’re still collecting a list of must-install mods for the PC version, but at a minimum you should consider installing StarUI as it profoundly improves the experience of a game that’s already encouraging bad habits for the digital hoarders among us.
Read More: Starfield PC Mod Dramatically Improves Inventory Management
Starfield’s mod scene is still quite nascent, and we know proper mod support for Starfield is on the horizon. That said, if you’re willing to mess around with some of the less-than-helpful mods, might we interest you in the most useless modifications to toss into Starfield’s code?
In more interesting news, one Starfield modder has taken to putting their DLSS (Nvidia’s AI-powered super-sampling tech that was excluded from Starfield’s launch due to an exclusive deal with AMD) mod behind a paywall. Now, the debate over paid mods is worth having and is not within the scope of this piece, but when you slap DRM and threaten to sneak malware onto pirated copies of a mod…that’s kinda, well shitty.
Read More: Starfield Will Get DLSS Support, An FOV Slider, And More In Future Updates
Hey, at least DLSS is coming to Starfield via an official update down the road.
We’ve also seen a fair share of silliness via exploits. Yes, you can actually rob NPCs of their clothes with the right technique and, at least for a little while, the game featured a damn mud puddle that’d just make it rain credits (it’s since been patched).
And in case you’re wondering, yes, Starfield has its share of bugs. I’ve seen a number of quest-breaking errors in my time with the game, while others are finding entire cities transported along with their ships. If my own nearly 200-hour playthrough of the game is anything to go by, save often, don’t rely on auto- and quick-saves. Starfield likes to break more often than it should.
Even after spending nearly 200 hours in Starfield, I’m still coming across new things. My opinion of it holds strong, but it’s nice to see such a large game continue to offer new experiences the more you play it.
As Video Games Chronicle pointed out, director Todd Howard stated in a recent interview that experience with previous games like Skyrim and Fallout has taught the studio to design with long-term investment in mind:
“This is a game that’s intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we’ve learned from our previous games, like Skyrim, like Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time. […] How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural, and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.”
The new game plus function is one of the most unique, and dare I say inventive, elements of Starfield. But Bethesda has indicated that certain elements of the game might change over time. We know that proper DLSS support and request features like an FOV slider are in the cards, but in the same interview, Todd Howard said that the studio might be looking at changing up how environmental damage works. In 2022, Howard also entertained the addition of a hardcore survival mode for those who desire a more punish-me-deep-space-mommy experience.
Read More: Starfield: Should You Rush Through The Main Quest?
How the future of Starfield evolves beyond just repeat playthroughs remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine the game will see the same kind of update support that No Man’s Sky has, but Howard has repeatedly stressed that this is a game that was designed to be played for a long time.
We do know, via the details in the premium version of the game, that a story expansion titled “Shattered Space” will arrive at a later date.
Hype and anticipation met reality when Starfield shipped universally on September 6. It’s more than capable of delivering a fun, can’t-put-it-down experience, though it has more than its fair share of problems and weaker points. The first month has seen a number of differing opinions flourish over Starfield and Bethesda-style games in general. But with promised new features, story expansions, and a growing mod community, Starfield’s story is far from over.
Claire Jackson
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Although early reviews claimed Starfield was Bethesda Game Studios’ most polished game to date, the open-space RPG still suffers from some of the strange, sometimes amusing, occasionally very helpful sorts of bugs and glitches the studio’s work is often known for. Maybe the most mind-boggling bug yet, however, is one that sees players being followed across space, not just by asteroids and other such objects, but even by forests and whole-ass cities.
Read More: Starfield Settings For A More Immersive Experience
Out now for Windows PC and Xbox consoles, Starfield is a game about exploring the farthest reaches of the black sea above us. You’ll join a troupe of space surveyors—as well as several other major and minor factions—to scour the cosmos looking for knowledge, loot, and power. Some helpful if annoying companions can accompany you on the voyage, which is nice. Traveling space can be lonely sometimes. But depending on how busted Starfield decides to be during your playthrough, you may find yourself yearning for that loneliness.
Across the game’s subreddit are posts from folks claiming that the most random of space objects are stalking them throughout the galaxy. On September 15, for example, redditor ReverendRoo posted nine images of an asteroid that had followed them “for the past 30 hours” like a pet. Similarly, on September 20, user Ultimastar shared four images on r/Starfield of an asteroid that “randomly attended my wedding” after 100 hours of gameplay. User Royal_Schedule4209 took to Reddit on September 22 to share an image of “a whole forest” that’s somehow been trailing their spaceship. Probably the wildest example of the bug, however, was shared on September 21 by redditor Punidue, who posted an image of “the whole New Atlantis” city creeping on them in space. Yikes.
That’s not all the things that’ve been breathing down the fuel tanks of Starfield players. One redditor claimed to have been followed by a part of a cave, while a separate commenter on user Xthekilr0y’s post about the asteroid following bug said they’re being chased by four pet rocks after mining asteroids. According to a few comments I’ve seen across multiple posts, the bug is seemingly permanent even if you reboot the game. The only way to get rid of them, at least for right now, is to either use console commands on PC or load a previous save. Regardless, this might be the most difficult dogfight you’ll ever find yourself in.
Kotaku reached out to Bethesda Games Studios for comment.
Read More: All Of Our Starfield Tips, Guides, News, And Reviews
Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
The world is big, but space is bigger. It’s nice having friends to help the years spent gravjumping from system to system speed by. I’m just not sure these space objects are the besties we want hopping galaxies with us. They’re all sus.
Levi Winslow
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Elder Scrolls VI won’t be coming to PS5 whenever it finally debuts. Though you might’ve already filed this news under “well, duh,” it’s now clear as day courtesy of official documentation from Microsoft.
Originally announced at E3 2018 (which Bethesda’s own Todd Howard thinks was perhaps a tad too early), The Elder Scrolls VI will mark the first single-player entry in the fabled Elder Scrolls series of big-ass open-world RPG romps since the undying colossal success that was 2011’s Skyrim. News on the TES6 front has otherwise been very quiet, and Bethesda only just released its other epic, long-in-development RPG, the space-themed Starfield. New reporting from Axios’ Stephen Totilo, however, makes it clear that TES6 will be an Xbox and PC exclusive.
PlayStation-owning fans of Bethesda jams have been holding out hope that despite Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda in 2020, Elder Scrolls VI might still come to a Sony machine. CEO of Microsoft gaming Phil Spencer has said as recently as September 6 that the company considers exclusives on a “case-by-case basis” and that it “wants to make sure that [its] games are available in so many different places.”
As per a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Stephen Totilo of Axios, Microsoft’s communications during the FTC case concerning its controversial Activision merger spelled out that The Elder Scrolls VI is coming to Xbox and PC only. In a Microsoft-confidential chart that saw release due to the legal proceedings, The Elder Scrolls VI clearly has a big ol’ red X in the “Released on PlayStation?” column.
https://x.com/stephentotilo/status/1703758480509661480
The same chart indicates that The Elder Scrolls VI is aiming for a 2026 or later release date. Given the size and scope of Bethesda games, they do take a long time to make. After The Elder Scrolls VI, Bethesda is expected to release Fallout 5.
So, sorry PlayStation Skyrim fans. But, hey, at least you got a head start on Baldur’s Gate 3. And given TES6’s likely release window, at least you’ll have enough time to save up for an Xbox or gaming-worthy PC? Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the messenger.
Claire Jackson
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In the months (nay, years) leading up to Starfield’s September 6 release, the hype for the Bethesda RPG grew and grew until it was a heretofore unseen beast, a giant Kaiju of expectation that threatened to take down Sony, upend 2023’s GOTY race, and suck up all of gamers’ precious free time.
Ahead of its launch, game director Todd Howard and Xbox head Phil Spencer were a dynamic duo, showing up at Summer Game Fest together to expound on the awesome power that Starfield would showcase, the 1,000 planets you could step foot on, the bugs you almost certainly wouldn’t encounter. That same weekend, Starfield got its own 45-minute-long “Direct” presentation during the Xbox Showcase, and a physical version of the expensive Constellation Edition sat behind a glass case at the event itself.
Head of Xbox Creator Experience Sarah Bond joined in on the fun, calling Starfield “one of the most important RPGs ever made.” Bethesda head Pete Hines said it took him well over 100 hours to properly start Starfield. All of the hype whipped Xbox fans into a frenzy, and indirectly fueled the flickering flames of the console wars. Starfield’s scope, its potential, even made the then-unreleased game a talking point in the FTC trial regarding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard.
Then, after a few days in what Bethesda dubbed “early access,” available to deep-pocketed players who shelled out big bucks for one of several premium editions, Starfield launched. It is surprisingly not buggy, and jam-packed with side-quests that offer a steady drip of serotonin. But it’s woefully inaccessible, its UI is daunting, and it is, ultimately, just a new Bethesda game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a stark reminder that hype trains are just marketing tools in a different font. Starfield is a good game, but it is not a groundbreaking one.
Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
Before I got a chance to dive into Starfield, I wondered aloud (and on social media) if the game would occupy a similar space in my life that Skyrim has held on more than one occasion. Skyrim never floored me and never lingered after I powered off my console, unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man’s version of Manhattan, or story beats in Mass Effect 2. But every time I dropped back into Skyrim, I fell into the same satisfying loop, emerging from a lengthy play session a little dazed, uncertain of the time, blinking to reaccustom my eyes to the real world outside of its pixels.
Every time I jumped into Skyrim I’d go off searching for some tucked-away relic or NPC in need of help and end up climbing to the top of a peak I saw in the distance, or scurrying through caves like a little gamer Gollum, furiously lining my pockets with shiny objects. I’d “just one more side-quest” myself into the wee hours of the morning, surreptitiously pulling tokes from a pre-roll resting on the table in front of me. No matter what I did, whether it was becoming a vampire or participating in a drinking competition, I was never blown away or taken aback by what Skyrim unfurled before me—I was, however, hooked.
I’m about 20 hours into Starfield and can safely say it is exactly like Skyrim in space. The steady serotonin drip of overhearing a conversation, marking the quest associated with that conversation on my map, completing it, then going back to the list and selecting the next thing is unparalleled. It is the kind of game that completionists salivate over, the kind that I find myself longing to return to and get lost in during my workday, on the train home, while finishing off a workout.
After progressing the main campaign a bit, I violently veered into side-quest territory, spending nearly four hours straight on the Blade Runner-esque planet Neon. I joined a gang, I helped Starfield’s version of Björk recover her music, I tried to console a grief-stricken widow in the shadow of a fish corpse. I paid for VIP lounge access at a bar, helped squash a squabble over a robot that had been vandalized, and rented a room in a hotel just to say I did. Starfield has hooked me in a way that only Bethesda games can, because it is so thoroughly a Bethesda game with a shinier coat of paint.
There is nothing wrong with Starfield feeling familiar—Bethesda’s formula works, and has for over two decades, so I’m not crucifying Todd Howard for refusing to reinvent the wheel. I am, however, noting that there’s a clear disconnect between calling a game “one of the most important RPGs ever made” and that game then reusing long-existing RPG gameplay mechanics and storytelling techniques throughout.
As Kotaku’s Zack Zweizen points out, Starfield is “still a Bethesda RPG. You can almost feel the ancient bones of Morrowind and Fallout 3 poking through bits of the scenery and menus as you play.” Companions still linger behind NPCs chatting you up, players are still almost always overencumbered, enemies still fall over like action figures when you send a gust of gravity their way that feels almost exactly like Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about Starfield, save for maybe its scope, which is possible largely because of the technological advances that have taken place within the last several years, and are now readily available in consumer-facing products like the Xbox Series X/S and modern PCs.
But as for Starfield bringing new ideas to the genre, or adding anything new to its well-worn formula…it doesn’t. Bethesda has been quietly moving its own role-playing goalposts closer to the more shallow end ever since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, narrowing the scope of what the player can actually influence, placing you in a world that feels perfectly carved out for you to slot into, its problems cleanly laid out for you to solve. Cian Maher’s quote from an Oblivion piece for TheGamer comes to mind: “I also don’t reckon Skyrim ever managed to carve out a portion of its world and imbue [it] with the necessary narrative significance for a conclusion to not seem like deus ex machina.”
Aside from extensive ship-building mechanics, there aren’t any shiny new gameplay additions in Starfield. Building an outpost is just Fallout base-building, leveling your lockpicking or melee abilities follows similar logic to Skyrim, and there are many eerie similarities to Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds. The most noted difference comes not in an updated role-playing system or deeper NPC interactions, but in gunplay—Starfield improves upon Bethesda’s infamous combat clunkiness, and it’s welcome.
But Starfield feels the same way Fallout 4 did, which felt the same way Skyrim did, and that does not make it “one of the most important RPGs” ever made. It just makes it a good Bethesda game, a game made by a studio that Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire. We’d do well to remember that, both as consumers and critics, going forward.
Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
Update 9/9/20-23 at 10:22 a.m. EST: Removed incorrect reference to No Man’s Sky shipbuilding, added relevant link.
Alyssa Mercante
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Starfield, Bethesda’s newest RPG, is, well…a big game. It’s filled with quests to complete and aliens to shoot. It’s also jam-packed with items to grab, sell, and manipulate. And it’s very easy to pick up too much junk and suddenly find yourself overencumbered, unable to fast-travel or sprint as much as usual. That’s no fun! But you can avoid this annoying situation.
I’ve played about 55 hours of Starfield so far, and for most of that time, I’ve not been overencumbered. In fact, I’m usually carrying under 100kg of weight at any given time. What’s my secret? Well, after years of playing Bethesda games, I’ve gotten pretty good at managing all the weapons, health items, and junk you collect as you adventure through the studio’s massive open-world RPGs. So let me help you stop being overencumbered with these tips and tricks!
Look, okay, I know this is very obvious and all that, but…yeah, stop grabbing everything! I get it. This is a Bethesda game and one of the joys of these RPGs is how everything can be grabbed, manipulated, stored, and sold. Every plastic cup and dart and sandwich. But you don’t need to grab it all.
You might be thinking “I’ll sell this all for credits!” Well, sure, but you won’t get that much for that junk. And there are better ways to make credits in this game, like doing quests and selling high-value items like rare suits, guns, and very lightweight objects that are worth hundreds of credits. So yeah, stop. Put that cup down. Walk away. Leave it. Leave it! I’m watching.
Certain stats are always useful in a Bethesda open-world RPG. Having extra health and the ability to lockpick anything, for example, are as handy in Starfield as they were in Skyrim.
Similarly, leveling up the skill that lets you carry more stuff without becoming overencumbered is very useful. I also recommend grabbing this early so you can start grinding away at its requirements to unlock higher levels. Trust me, this will save you time in the long run.
You can sort your entire inventory by weight and you should do this regularly, as you’ll often find some random spacesuit or other item taking up a large chunk of your carrying capacity. Take care of these items and don’t let them clutter up your character. While looking at your heaviest bits of junk, you might also find one of the most likely culprits for why you are overencumbered: ship parts.
Ship parts! These items are very useful, letting you repair your ship during combat. However, they are also very heavy, weighing 10kg each. It’s very easy to collect a stack of these and not realize it until you pick up a gun and become overencumbered.
Making matters worse, these heavy items are found not in your resources or misc. tab, but instead buried with your aid items, like food and health kits. This makes them easy to miss when dropping off resources to your ship. I’d love a future update to move these to resources by default. Until then, double-check whenever you feel too heavy to make sure you aren’t carrying around a bunch of these bulky items. And, one last thing: You can store these on your ship and still use them, no need to carry them around!
There are a lot of weapons in Starfield, from laser rifles to old Earth shotguns and more. It’s a smorgasbord of killing options. But while I recommend you try everything at least once early on in Starfield, after the opening hours you should settle on three or four weapons and sell or store the rest.
This has a lot of benefits. You can focus your skills more, carry less ammo, and not have to manage an armory everywhere you go. But also, it means you’ll not be bogged down by 12 weapons all using up your precious carrying capacity! And that’s—hey, I told you to put down that plastic cup! Stop! Just because we’re on a new tip doesn’t mean I stopped watching!
After you’ve been out on a planet exploring, mining, or completing quests, you should take a moment to drop off excess items in your ship’s cargo hold. Thankfully, Bethesda added a hotkey that lets you send all your resources—like minerals, metals, etc.—right to your ship with one button press.
But don’t just store resources in your ship’s cargo containers. You can store rare suits or guns you want to sell later in there too, as well as other items that are taking up space. And if your ship starts to run out of space, well, first, maybe stop grabbing everything. But also, invest in adding some more storage to your ship, which you can do at any spaceport with an NPC starship technician. Oh, and don’t forget: You can upgrade your ship’s storage capacity via the Payloads perk.
During my third night of playing Starfield, I stumbled upon a legendary suit that let me carry 40 extra kilograms on my character. While you might not find one as good as this, keep an eye out for spacesuits that provide extra storage.
If you travel with a companion, don’t forget to use them like a pack mule. They can carry quite a bit, which can help out a lot in big space dungeons filled with good loot. Just talk to your companion and ask to trade, then shove all the plastic cups and crappy guns into their inventory so you can sell it all later.
Perhaps you’ve done everything above and yet still find yourself carrying too much junk. Well, that’s why I recommend keeping some whiskey or other chems on hand, as using them can increase your carrying capacity.
Keep in mind that these are just temporary solutions and won’t last forever. But they can, in a pinch, help you stop being overencumbered just long enough to fast-travel and sell all your junk.
Zack Zwiezen
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Starfield is finally here and it is big, complex, and often overwhelming. There are tons of menus to navigate, cities to get acquainted with, and skill trees to invest in, not to mention resource mining, base building, and ship customization. Before you get into any of that, however, let’s go over some basic tips and advice to get you started.
Currently live for fans who purchased the Deluxe Edition or Game Pass upgrade, Starfield is a sprawling sci-fi RPG where one minute you’re haggling with a bar keep for information and the next you’re shooting a bunch of space pirates and stealing all of their credits. But there’s a lot of minutia to get lost in, from confusing menus to maps that don’t tell you where anything is. What follows is a quick guide with some tricks and shortcuts for surviving Starfield’s opening hours and beginning your journey into the outer reaches of the galaxy.
You can change it anytime by visiting an Enhance! shop and paying 500 credits. The nearest one at the start is in the commercial district in New Atlantis.
You never know when things might go wrong in Starfield. You might fail a persuasion roll or get jumped by giant aliens, or even accidentally crash your ship into the space station you’re trying to dock on. The game auto-saves but it’s not foll-proof. It’s a Bethesda game, after all.
Starfield comes out of the gate with very loud and intense music. And that’s fine. But after about 20 minutes, I struggled to hear what people were saying. Looking at the default settings, voice volume isn’t as high as it probably should be, so knock that up a bit and turn music down a little, too. Trust me, you’ll still be able to hear it fine.
The first big fight in Starfield isn’t very hard and the game quickly pushes you to leave. But first, go grab at least one assault rifle (and some other goodies) off those pirates you just wasted.
Speaking of looting stuff, feel free to grab everything and just dump it on the robot who partners up with you in the early hours of Starfield. Like in previous Bethesda games, your companions are pack mules with dialogue trees. Use ‘em! To do so, just chat with the bot (or other companions) and ask to trade items.
Aiming near cover will have you pop out in a way that feels unlike any previous Bethesda RPG. Sure, dynamic cover like this has been around since 2012-ish, but hey, I’m not going to complain about Starfield having good combat compared to Fallout 4 and Skyrim.
The Cutter you get at the very beginning is deceptively great in battle. It works on a cooldown with unlimited ammo, and can stun-lock enemies at close range. Pull it out every now and again to save precious bullets early on.
Early on in the game, Starfield tells you to go into your menus to put on your helmet. You might be mistaken and think you have to do that every time you want to take it off or put it on. (And you need it out in space to live.) But nope! Just leave it and your suit on, then go into the inventory section for each. You’ll find an option at the bottom of the screen letting them disappear automatically when not needed, like in towns or stations. No more running around cities looking like a giant dork!
If you don’t want to waste all your resources fighting through every encounter, make sure to put some points into persuasion. It will increase the odds that you can talk people down from fights and generally make it much easier to manipulate people, which is why you’re playing this game, right?
The game won’t check you while you’re pawning off all your loot so spam that sell button with caution.
You don’t always have to navigate through your cumbersome star chart to get to a new planet. If you want to go to the next location for a mission and you’ve already been there before, simply use the “select course” option from the pause menu to automatically head to the destination.
Starfield basically gives you detective vision. In addition to scanning planets, your helmet sensor will also scan everything right in front of you, highlighting nearby enemies and valuable loot. This is also how you survey fauna for extra XP. Plus, you can use it to find your ship’s location on the horizon and instantly fast travel to it.
Sleeping will fully heal you and also give you a “well-rested” bonus that increases the rate at which you earn XP.
You can upgrade guns, suits, and helmets as well as cook food in this game. But you’ll need to do some research first. You’ll need some materials, like iron and fiber, but once you have some you can unlock new mods and things to craft, letting you improve guns and make good suits even better.
So be careful, they’re hard to come by!
You don’t just have to give all of your extra items to companions or throw them on the floor, you can also store them in the ship’s cargo hold by selecting it from the ship part of the menu (bottom left). It’s not unlimited but it has more than enough room in the beginning.
As far as I can tell, in the first few hours of the game at least, Starfield doesn’t say anything about favoriting weapons. But you should totally do that! Like in past Bethesda games, you can map guns, medkits, knives, and more to your d-pad and then quickly switch weapons during combat without needing to open the game’s (not great) menus. Simply replace an item with something else to change up your favorites.
Ethan Gach and Zack Zwiezen
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