So, Starfield was a disappointment (in my opinion). The story isn’t interesting. The lore and world-building do not make sense. The game mechanics do not mesh together. (And it doesn’t run well on the Steam Deck.)
But the promise of Starfield? The big space game? The big space RPG where you can play as Captain Reynolds type character? That’s something I can get behind. I want to traverse space, visit different planets, get lost, meet interesting characters, solve their problems, and shoot some stuff. Two games come to my mind when I think of this:
- No Man’s Sky
- Mass Effect
I’ve only played a few hours of No Man’s Sky, but I think it does space traversal well. To put it bluntly, flying from planet to planet without interruption is better than fast travel. But the gameplay loop did not
Mass Effect nails the space adventure side of things. You visit multiple interesting places, you meet different people with curious problems, and you solve these problems (mainly by shooting). But it’s a typical Bioware game: The places you visit are small and confined, and there are (comparatively) few of them. The space traversal is done by clicking a few buttons in a menu.
My question is: Are there any “big space games”? Are there any games that deliver on the promise of Starfield? What are your favourite sci-fi RPGs?
I’m commenting late, but there is The Precursors which does require Slavjank tolerance, but if you have it, it provides an interesting flavor on a space opera adventure.
I also haven’t tried The Tomorrow War which seemingly requires even higher Slavjank tolerance, and probably isn’t a top of all time game, but seems interesting if you like peering into strange forgotten games. Warlockracy did a video of this one.
I’ve actually heard of The Precursors before. It was featured in Tehsnakerer’s Playing series. I don’t know what my tolerance of slavjank is. I’ve played Operation Flashpoint a lot when I was a kid. Does that qualify as slavjank?
Really it just means the sorts of bugs you find with minimal QA testing combined with stilted voice acting, potentially untranslated audio or text, cultural beats that don’t quite cross over, and some game design choices that are different than how a game developed alongside western games might do things.
If you can stand this lack of polish, these sorts of games can at least give amusement for their price point.