Starfield went through some changes recently.

The 2023 game, which recently released on PlayStation 5, was widely drubbed by critics and players alike for being kind of lifeless, disconnected, and aggressively average upon release, a game that promised a lot of things and then failed to live up to most of them. While (as all games, even bad ones do) it no doubt had its fans and supporters, the longer people played it, the more they tended to drop off as the game fell victim to the usual Bethesda issues— buggy AI and pathing, wide-but-shallow quests and world design, and “thousands of planets” that were little more than self-contained areas joined together by loading screens. It was, in short, a mess. Its first DLC, the icily received “Shattered Space” expansion, failed to address. Similarly, months and years of quiet updates provided some relief, but not enough to recapture the imagination of the player base.

This month, the much-hyped “Free Lanes” update and new “Terran Armada” DLC dropped, as well as a whole bunch of premium expansion content through the oft-maligned Bethesda Creations service. Bethesda higher-ups promised in newsposts that no, this time they’d done it right, Starfield would live up to the hype.

The new update promises things that should have been available since launch, such as a way to cruise around interplanetary space and experience different destinations (where navigation is highly suspect), a fully implemented bounty system (that you have to pay $7 for), and polish. At this point, it seems too little too late, a company releasing a major update merely so they have something to show for their work. For all the “shiny and new,” it seems like the same old Starfield.

It’s a public relations move meant to mimic Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky‘s “redemption arc” stories— games that had a rough release and then built themselves back. Similar fates befell games like Fallout: New Vegas and Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, failing upon release only to be mainstays of “best games” lists.

Where the comparison falls apart is that those games were always good. While it’s true No Man’s Sky overpromised and Cyberpunk 2077 had all the stability of a popsicle sculpture, upon release they provided vibrant, intriguing experiences marred only by their ambition exceeding their grasp and schedule. They were released because a released game is better than a cancelled one and given time and effort to improve because they needed it to improve. Starfield not only had a release that was in no way rushed or delayed, it then had the time those other games got, doing very little with it.

The solution, of course, is that we should stop giving companies a “redemption arc” storyline, because in all but a few cases, they really don’t deserve it. More to the point, we should appreciate the things that a game does get right as opposed to dragging it through the hype cycle and then declaring it a failure because it’s far from perfect.

But what about you? Have you had a better experience with Starfield since the updates? Should we stop allowing games a “redemption arc?” And what’s the game you believe either had or deserved a redemption arc of its own?

 Let us know in the comments below or head over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.

Featured Image: Bethesda Softworks

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