Director Says Starfield’s Criticisms Are ‘Perfectly Understandable’ and He Has a Response to It

Game news Director Says Starfield’s Criticisms Are ‘Perfectly Understandable’ and He Has a Response to It

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Starfield, a game we love to hate?

If there is one game that was particularly anticipated in recent years, it was Starfield. Developped by Bethesda (Fallout, The Elder Scrolls) and published by Microsoft, the new game Todd Howard was sold before its release as a real system seller for the Xbox Series, and above all as a strong argument for subscribing to Xbox Game Pass. First new license in many years for Bethesda, the challenge was to satisfy both new players and regulars of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, all thanks to a science fiction epic of gigantic proportions.

Unfortunately, at the time of its release, Starfield had the effect of a small cold shower in some players. The press was still quite lenient and noted many of the title’s undeniable qualities, giving it a nice 83/100 on Metacritic. The players, on the other hand, preferred to express their disappointment much more clearly. With an average of 6.9/10 on Metacritic and 61% on SteamBethesda’s game clearly did not have the desired effect in the long term, even if it still managed to sell extremely well upon its release.

Its director hears the criticism… without really listening to them

It was during an interview on the English-speaking YouTube channel Kinda Funny Games that Todd Howard (the director of Starfield) decided to take stock of his studio’s new game. According to him, the criticisms of Starfield are “perfectly understandable”. However, while you might think he really understood them, the rest of the interview struggles to convince. Indeed, Todd Howard believes that players were disappointed mainly because the game was “too different from what we (Bethesda, editor’s note.) had done before”. It develops :

We see a lot of players saying “What I want in a Bethesda game is to explore a world in a certain way, and Starfield didn’t give me that. I prefer the way it’s done in Fallout or Elder Scrolls”

In raising this argument, Todd Howard is not really missing the point. Indeed, the overdose of loading times and the lack of freedom in exploration were problems raised by a lot of players. However, the rest of the interview seems to demonstrate that he sees the criticism as an inability of players to appreciate a change rather than justified remarks about the loss of quality compared to previous titles:

I think for us, and for me in particular, playing a science fiction game means being able to land on every planet. I want the game to be able to say “yes” to me, knowing that the content will be different from what we’ve done before.

Howard therefore admits to having preferred to ensure that all the planets were visitable rather than ensuring that they were interesting to visit.. A little later, he outbid himself by saying:

It’s part of the compromises we make to create what makes a sci-fi game like this… to make it what it should be.

One of the main criticisms from players regarding exploration was that there was no real incentive to do so since no point of interest was really useful or even interesting to discover. The planets were very similar and were often vast empty spaces that we ultimately explored using fast travel (and therefore loading time) rather than getting lost and not knowing where to turn. Howard also doesn’t address the directing and writing issues far below the rest of Bethesda’s titles in the interview. Finally note that Todd Howard still points out that he is satisfied with the general reception of Starfield since it is one of the studio’s best launches, particularly in terms of technique.. For those who weren’t completely turned off by the game, know that the first Shattered Space DLC is starting to make waves and should arrive this fall.