I want to point out that you can totally do space race aesthetics, and all the rich 1960s culture associated with it, and make it look awesome. Arkane did it with Prey in 2017 and made it interesting by layering slick corporate facades over clunky 1960s space station guts and then slathering on the lore nice and thick with a trowel. They even made the rocket and retro-future tech in Deathloop look way more interesting than Bethesda's done here.

I find it absolutely awesome, the game has the same "just one more quick adventure... oops 5 hours have passed" effect as TES games, but in space. I think I've also spent 3-4h in the ship editor at this point.

I'm probably a very boring person

give me sovietwave or im just going to be a pirate that kills everyone

Yesterday a friend was streaming the game in our discord.

Dear lord, it felt so dull. We came to the conclusion that the ambiance and art direction, that made the mid Skyrim so awesome, wasn't there.

The Nasa style is just so boring. Is like an hospital, where everything is clean, white and monotonous. There is a word for it, but I don't remember it.

Is just Capitalist Realism in space.

Is not for me, but I'am glad other comrades are enjoying it. Also, I liked the customization.

Further Slander - It's the Corporate Memphis of Space Operas.

I just can't get over how bland it looks. There's nothing you could take a screenshot of that would be recognizable as Starfield. The rovers, the landscapes, the space suits? They could be from Interstellar, they could be from 2001, they could be from dozens of low budget space simulators or tv-shows or tech demos. And space is just bland, too.

TES and Fallout were janky messes, but at least they looked like something.

It's funny because everything I hear about Starfield makes me want to play it less and less

Like even the enthusiastic people are making it sound absolutely boring and tedious

If the best your fucking hype-man can say is "The game gets really good fifty hours in when you beat the main quest", you either need to reconsider your design ethos or hire a new hype-man

I agree with you on the aesthetic, and I've made my position pretty clear on the performance.

However, the more I've played the game the more I've realised that it's probably the strongest base game that Bethesda have ever released. It has a lot of extremely strong points going for it that modders are going to like:

• Planets are all procedural generation. The game seems to generate land and points of interest (POIs) as you go. This benefits the mod scene because they can just churn out POIs and people can add them to their game. Over time POIs can expand and expand and expand, making future play throughs more and more unique and varied the more you add. There will never be any conflict over "did another modder use this same spot for their building/cave?" because everything is placed as you go along.

• The real world future setting has benefits to modding by making everything "real". This means modders can just add real world items and clothing to the game and none of it will be out of place. This is easier for amateur modding than being creative by inventing new armour etc, they have reference material to work from.

The politics seems like trash so far. I don't understand how there's no patriarchy, no bigotry, no racism etc in a corporate capitalist universe. If it's there I haven't seen it so far. It makes absolutely no sense for these things to be eliminated in the universe because capitalism has a profit-incentive to never fully solve marginalised people on account of marginalised people being easier to exploit. I'm waiting to see whether that remains to be true the deeper I go though.

There's no "punk" anywhere to be seen, though.

I've seen some graffiti that implies it exists in-universe but other than that have not come across anything in person. Example:

it seems like the kinda shit i'd like if my rig was up to snuff

i am the weirdo who installs a shitload of immersion mods then rp walks around skyrim though

shhh shhh we don't need them ruining Hammerfell and the only cool untouched parts of TES lore quite yet

Would you consider the art direction of Prey to be NASApunk?

Agreed, though I do admit that it was at least trying something slightly different than the usual "cover a quasi-medieval backdrop with blood, ash, and/or grime" or "have cyberpunk with a lot more cyber and boobah and a lot less punk" AAA cliches. It's bland but at least it's a newer bland.

The aesthetic works for me in certain places. I like lots of bits and bobs that look like they're serving some function.

Some of the environmental design is pretty wack though. The procgen planet stuff is stale and the pois are just kind of sprinkled around artlessly.

I found a funny bit in the Mars place where you're heading toward the bar and there are these two massive fans spinning while set against a solid wall. Not sure what airflow they're managing there.

Look folks I'm just waiting for the inevitable TARDIS mod. I need my confusing as hell ship that didn't hit right in Skyrim, and only worked in F4 due to a 30 year old Easter egg.

do any of the bulky spacesuits have a hard outer layer of armor like a deep sea diving suit, or are they all generic vaguely baggy jumpsuits covered in doodads? i've recently become obsessed with power armor like in maschinen krieger or Special Armored Battalion Dorvack. i already know starfield has mechs in its lore and as ruins in the world that the player can't ever use so my interest has probably already been killed. is there at least a ledge climb or is it all jump jets?

The real question is: how does Starfield compare to Outer Worlds? I wasn't too impressed by that but I also didn't really hear it being accused of being bland (plus you could in the capital).