Starfield (PC) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm contemplating the fact that 'Starfield' is only two letters away from being 'Garfield'. Though one of those letters is the longest T I've ever seen in a logo.

I've already put a few hours into Starfield, but I'm not quite done with it. Mostly because I haven't really done anything yet. If you want to see the story so far click here: PART ONE.

I'm not promising that I'll be able to get anything done in this part either, but I'll certainly make an effort to try out all the game's features before I'm done with it. Even though it will mean that I also have to write about them and try to explain them. RPGs always need a horrifying amount of explanation.

Note: like I said at the start of part one, this is an old version of the game from early 2025, not the shiny new April 2026 updated release. I won't be comparing the different versions because I don't actually know what's different. The update isn't even out yet at the time I'm publishing this.

Another note: beware of SPOILERS.

---

Previously, in Starfield:

My character's first day in the space mines went normally for about five minutes, until they dug out an Artifact and got a mysterious vision. Soon an agent of the exploration group Constellation, Barrett, showed up to collect the Artifact, and Crimson Fleet pirates showed up right afterwards. Barrett decided to give my character his ship, the Frontier, and send them to meet the rest of Constellation at the Lodge.

My character got sidetracked fighting pirates for a while, in space and on land, but they have finally arrived at the city New Atlantis on the planet Jemison, where the Lodge is apparently located.

And now, the continuation:

I'm just browsing through the Creations page for a bit. You can get Useful Morgues and Useful Mess Halls for 300 Screw Attack icons each, apparently. I don't have any of these Creation Credits though, and I'm not going to purchase any with my real life money, so nothing with a price tag on is any use to me.

Oh hang on, this Doom DLC is free huh? Okay, I'll have some of that.

Alright, where was I?

Oh right, I need to find the Lodge in this city. You'd think there'd be a blue quest marker on it.

The city's called New Atlantis and I'm on a planet called Jameson in the Alpha Centauri system. I wonder if that's a game reference... not the 'Alpha Centauri' part, I mean the name of the planet. You see, you play as a guy called Commander Jameson in Elite, which was the first 3D space exploration game ever made.

Wait, sorry, I read it wrong. The planet's actually called 'Jemison'. 

Okay, I've spotted a blue dot at the train station, so I'm just going to go ride the train and see where that takes me.

I found the Lodge! It's up in the north east of the city.

I've got to be honest, I was expecting something more rustic. Wooden beams instead of metal and space concrete. It is a bit overgrown, but that's not really helping the aesthetic.

My robot buddy Vasco assures me that the watch Barrett gave me will open the door. Then I can walk in, introduce myself to the rest of Constellation, and hope they don't do any involuntary brain surgery to get at the secrets the Artifact uploaded into my character's head.

Okay the interior is a lot more like I expected! Except for the giant Artifact display device in the middle of this well-furnished library. I put my Artifact in next to the two they already had and it turned into a floaty sphere. Or at least it's getting there.

The people here are a little annoyed that Barrett handed over their ship and robot to some miner he'd only just met, but now that I'm here they're offering me a place in their 'find all the Artifacts' club. I could just walk away I expect, it's not that weird to ignore the main quest of a Bethesda game... but nah, sign me up for the space adventure.

It turns out that the deal also includes a free room at the Lodge, and a character called Noel is giving me the abbreviated tour.

Oh damn, this is my room? I don't even need it, I've got a spaceship to sleep on, but this looks nice.

Well, it would look nice, if I could figure out how to fix the graphics. I'm sorry, I don't know why the visuals are like this and nothing I've pressed in the options has done anything to fix the contrast.

Anway, I could go look around the room for anything expensive to take, but that message in the top right gives away that I'm already over-encumbered after killing all those pirates earlier. I just haven't found any good shops to sell my loot in yet, though to be fair I haven't really looked.

This time I've got a character called Sarah Morgan tagging along instead of the robot and she's a real improvement. She's very British, but then so am I so we make a great team. Wait, 'Let's trade gear' is a dialogue option! This is exactly what I need.

I gave her 17 of my assault rifles to hold onto and that was enough to spare me from being over-encumbered. Now I can finally move at a normal speed again without suffocating!

Okay, we need to visit the UC Vanguard recruiting office and meet Sarah's contact there. She's got people looking out for strange metal objects and it seems like he's got something for us. He's a recruiter though so he'll try to get me to join the space navy and give me an extra quest line to keep track of.

Man, I'm so glad I have a quest log in this. It's the kind of thing you begin to take for granted, but without it I'd never remember that I need to chat to a scientist by the tree because of... a thing. I can also investigate brown-outs in the Well, complete a research project, and craft or modify an item. And those are just the 'Activities' quests I've collected.

Alright I'm going to go back to my ship, take off, and then see where the quest marker wants me to go next. Actually, wait, I'm getting a distress call so I should do that first.

AT HELL'S GATE

I have to admit, this isn't how I expected this rescue mission to go. Though my first clue that I'd accidentally wandered into the Doom DLC was when I picked up the Doom Slayer shotgun. (Travelling to Mars was also a bit of a giveaway.)

I'm mostly shooting regular human cultists rather than Doom demons, but I guess someone has to shoot them. On the plus side, humans are much more likely to be carrying loot.

Aww, this poor cultist's rocket pack just malfunctioned and he got embedded in the ceiling. His head's really jammed in there.

I just spent a skill point to unlock boost pack training, so I'm going to be jetpacking around now myself. In fact I need to remember to do it 10 times during combat to complete the associated challenge. Levelling up is a bit weird in this.

Okay I've found the demons! Finally, a bit of enemy variety.

I've also found the Doomguy armour and a sword, and I'll be taking these back out with me. I should probably kill these demons before I leave though. With the music that's playing right now it'd be a shame not to rip and tear, until it is done.

There was a bit of a boss enemy waiting by the exit, but spraying it with bullets from the safety of a staircase sorted it out, and then I was free! I don't think I've ever actually escaped from Doom before, as there's always a twist at the end of those games that leads to more demon slaying.

Though while I'm on Mars I should go look around and see if there's anything else that's interesting here.

Hang on, this nearby tower is just like the demon-infested Doom DLC tower, except much less demon infested. I'm suddenly getting the feeling that I'm going to be seeing a lot of repeated prefab bases across the galaxy.

I went exploring the vents and found a contraband item just lying there. I should probably leave it alone, as if I bring contraband onto my ship it'll show up on a scan. Then the space police will want a word.

I haven't actually got anything I want to say here, I just saw this control panel and was struck by how good the retro-futuristic art design in this game is. I love everything the artists have created for it, all the spaceships and weapons and computers.

Okay the game might be notorious for having terrible bland sci-fi nightclubs compared to Cyberpunk 2077, or Mass Effect, or anything really, but when it comes to walls of computer monitors and keyboards they nailed it. Maybe there's a hint here that Bethesda needs to let their developers get out more, I dunno.

Speaking of going out, I've shot everyone who needs shooting here, so I'm heading back out to the beautiful Martian landscape.

I'm going to miss my jet pack when I'm done with this game. It's always fun to jump off something and then fire it just before hitting the ground to break my fall. Or to use it to zoom up to the top of the high shelves in a room. It's also good for sprinting without using my feet, as when I leap I can usually get two boosts out of it before I hit the ground and recharge, and that's loads of distance in low gravity.

Alright I can spot another tower to the south, so I should drop by and see if there are any more pirates that need shooting. 

Actually, new plan, I'm going back to the ship. I'm already over-encumbered and crossing this barren terrain just to clear out another identical tower has lost its appeal. I'm right next to Earth right now so I want to pay the old homeworld a visit while I'm in the area and see how they're doing in this century.

A FEW HUNDRED MILLION MILES LATER

Oh damn.

Planet Earth is thoroughly screwed. No water, no plants, no ruined buildings. It's been stripped of everything except rocks and sand. This is somehow even worse than Fallout's future.

I took the ship down for a look and the surface is basically what you'd expect. It's just me, Sarah, and a vast empty desert of nothing.

Though there are some unexplored geographic features here I could scan, if I can be bothered hiking over to them. I could even drill for some resources.

I think the game's running into the same problem a lot of space games do, which is that if you're not a scientist, exploring space is kind of boring. It is cool to step out of the ship and onto an alien world, but not cool enough to be worth all the loading screens it takes to get there. So I'll just go and get on with the plot instead.

MISSION 2: THE OLD NEIGHBOURHOOD

Okay, the main quest has led me to the old abandoned Nova Galactic Staryard. Once again I'm walking around space hallways, shooting (or cutting up) folks in spacesuits.

Last time I mentioned that Fallout 4 would be an obvious comparison, even if there's no VATS system in the game that I'm aware of. Just a lot of fairly well made first-person shooting. It also reminds me of the game Rage in a way, as that had lots of FPS action dressed up with a bit of RPG story as well. I liked Rage.

Hang, on, what am I suppose to be doing again? Oh right, I'm looking for a guy who has the next Artifact. Turns out that he's not actually here any more, though he did leave behind a note saying that he's heading to Neptune. Well Planet Neptune has a surface area of 15 Earths, so that really narrows it down. Alright, where did I leave my ship docked?

NEPTUNE

Found him!

Unfortunately his ship has been overrun by bad guys, so it's currently trying to destroy me. I need to use my piloting skills to carefully disable the other ship without destroying it. Unfortunately I don't have any piloting skills yet, I'm rubbish.

I knocked down the shields, targeted engines, and... successfully disabled it! Then all I had to do was board, kill all the mercs, and chat to the pilot who offered me the next weird bit of space metal for my collection. That's my first Constellation mission completed!

Now I've got a choice of three different missions to do next, and I can pick who I want as a companion. I'm finally free to go do whatever I want!

BUT THEN...

Okay, so what happened is that my ship got scanned for contraband and then hauled in by the space security forces. So my freedom didn't last long.

The thing is, I'm innocent, I didn't have any contraband! Unless you count that stuff I found on Mars and then left behind. This whole situation is very suspicious, especially as it turns out that they want me to work for them as their inside man in the Crimson Fleet!

This ship has a really nice bridge though. It looks very military. Very utilitarian. You can that tell these security people are serious about security.

Just don't tell them that I'm reading all their computer files.

After playing so much Fallout it's nice to find an in-game computer that uses a more modern OS for a change, with text that's a little easier to read. Though not when it's on a tiny resized screenshot.

UC SYSDEF SIDE MISSION 1 - DEEP COVER

Hey I was right earlier, it is using my screenshots as loading screens! That's awesome.

I took this back in Jemison when I went climbing up to the top of the buildings. I didn't get anything for doing it, but the view was nice.

I was sent back to Mars, specifically to the colony of Cydonia. If Jemison is humanity's shining utopia, this is its opposite: a crappy dystopia. A perfect place to go to offload the space drugs the UC SysDef gave us.

Commander Ikande told me to use my judgement and do what I thought was necessary in order to convince people I'm a badass pirate, but whenever I make threats I get a message saying 'Sarah disliked that'. I don't want Sarah to hate me just because I'm playing a role!

It turns out that being an undercover agent is less glamorous than the movies make it seem, as these folks love to make me jump through hoops and spend my own money just to keep the quest moving. First I had to pay 1000 to the contact, then 3000 to the guy I was sent to rough up for not paying his debts. I could've just roughed him up a bit like I was told to, but I don't think Sarah would've liked that.

Incidentally, I can sometimes let Sarah speak on my behalf, which can be useful. I like it when companions are there for more than just shooting folks and carrying my burdens. And disliking everything I do.

UC SYSDEF SIDE MISSION 2 - ROOK MEETS KING

My career as an undercover agent was going fairly smoothly until I reached a space fight that keeps kicking my ass.

I feel like I'm massively underlevelled for this, as the moment I get into combat the enemy strips away my shields and cuts through my armour. I've been trying to do hit and run attacks, dealing any damage I can and then getting some distance to let my shields recharge, but it's not been working out. I'm getting a bit sick of watching my ship explode to be honest, it's really demoralising!

I gave up and checked a walkthrough in the end, and it suggested... having a better ship.

Turns out that there's a ship services technician standing around the New Atlantis spaceport, and he's the one I need to chat with to get a new ship. The game could've made that clearer, but whatever.

Now I need to make something formidable out of what I can afford, taking different modules and components and connecting them together.

Kingdom Hearts (PS2)

Its a lot like making the gummy ship in Kingdom Hearts. And that's a game I did not expect to be comparing Starfield to.

Man, the game is never satisfied with my brilliant designs. It's always whining that I have too many reactors and too many shield generators, and that my ship weighs too much. I need those extra shields so that I don't explode!

I don't think a Class A ship is ever going to be enough for me. I need to upgrade my spaceship skills so that I'm qualified to pilot the superior Class B ships, and for that I'm going to require level ups. I think there's a place in the city with a flight simulator I can use to complete some of the level up challenges quickly. 

Actually, I'm just going to get on with the main quest instead and if the UC SysDef has a problem with that... well I guess they can haul me into their giant spaceship again.

MISSION 4 - THE EMPTY NEST

Hey I'm on a cowboy planet for this quest, and a pretty friendly one too. It's not a depressing nightmare on the brink of total collapse like the colonies in The Outer Worlds. I like that there's a bit of variety in the game, so it's not all gleaming utopian cities and bleak dystopian outposts.

In fact the place is so cowboy that I even start off by sorting out a situation at the bank. The Shaw Gang has hostages! 

There are a number of different approaches available to me, like shooting, sneaking around the back, and even talking.

The game has a persuasion system, where you get a number of turns to try to fill up that persuasion meter at the bottom left. It's all based on a virtual dice roll and the more dramatic responses come with more risk, but sometimes the safe choice will guarantee failure. I mean, if I've got eight bars of the persuasion meter to fill and and three turns, then succeeding at the safe +1 option three times will get me less than halfway.

Anyway I chose poorly and it all ended up devolving into a shoot out. But that's very cowboy too, so it's fine. I'm just happy when I get a bit of hand-crafted fun and variety to my missions and it's not more procedurally generated emptiness.

MISSION 5 - INTO THE UNKNOWN

This space station is cool too. It looks like its belongs in an episode of Thunderbirds. Or maybe Moonraker.

I'm going to go over and dock, and with all those windows I'd better be able to see my spaceship from the inside.

Look, there it is! I didn't upgrade it all that much in the end, but that's definitely my own personally-customised spaceship out there.

This is one of those missions where you dock, talk to a guy, and then leave again. I don't know if actual space travel was 100% necessary for this in a universe where they've invented the mobile phone, but whatever, the view is nice. It turns out that the station's picked up a large signal that might be Artifact related so I'm going to go to its origin to check it out. 

I'm bringing Andreja with me on this one. She's a bit mysterious and a little strange, as she does not use contractions and seems to understand violence more than she does jokes. She doesn't even have a last name. But she's cool, I like her. I like all the companions so far, except for the robot, it's just a shame I only get to bring one out at a time as it really limits their banter.

Hey the signal led us to a pretty snow planet, nice!

Okay, now I need to follow the distortions on the scanner in order to locate the source of the signal. Or I could just look at the map, as it's a giant obvious alien structure.

Oh I should mention that dragging all that loot around with me finally paid off as I just spent 25000 credits on a new space exploration buggy. I'm finding the controls a bit awkward, but now I can drive around an alien landscape full speed without having to worry about being over-encumbered any more! It's an actual miracle.

Honestly, I had pretty much given up on exploration by this point, but with this thing I can go check out all the identical prefab towers and patches of minerals I want without any danger of running out of breath and keeling over.

Okay, this isn't what I expected to find inside the alien structure. Seems like these Artifact builders really love their nested rotating rings.

I can hover around in this place, like in Anthem, and I need to fly over and collect all the sparkles as they appear, like in Anthem. Though unlike Anthem it literally played an anthem when I completed the challenge (plus I didn't have to cool my jetpack down by flying through waterfalls).

And then, I got my reward... ACTUAL SUPER POWERS!

Well I can make dust float upwards at least, though it doesn't seem to affect people or even bother them that much. The important thing is that the Force is with me, or maybe it's the Schwartz, I don't actually know what to call it yet.

They told me to show off the power by the way, I wasn't trying to FUS RO DAH my friends across the library for a laugh. Oh, that's one of the dragon shouts from Skyrim. In fact the powers in this are a lot like dragon shouts now that I think about it.

Alright, have I seen enough of this yet? Can I turn the game off now?

Nope, it turns out that I have even started building outposts yet.

I grew to like making settlements in Fallout 4, and maybe I'll grow to like this too. Being able to see what I'm doing from overhead view definitely helps.

What I do here is I place the different structures down so that they connect... and then I guess it'll start producing resources passively? It's going to take me a while to get my head around it.

I'll probably need to assign someone to manage the outpost. My old boss Lin seems ideal for the job, seeing as her skill is 'Outpost Management'. I'm definitely not putting Andreja, Sam or Sarah here, as they're my companions! Plus I've got them assigned to the ship. I'm sure their skills in piloting and astrodynamics are going to come in useful in combat... or maybe they wont, I don't know.

I don't know lots of things about this game. I've been playing for hours and hours, but I haven't yet got a power I find useful, I still suck at space battles, I don't fully understand the point of outposts... etc.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as there's still plenty of game left, plenty of opportunity to figure it all out. Or possibly just ignore it, if that works out better for me.

SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE GALAXY

Damn, take a look at this corridor I've ended up in! It seems like they made the place out of gold and then put a carpet down just to be classy.

Don't ask me how I ended up here. I was flying around in space, trying to not get blown up again, when I stumbled across a big wheel-shaped space station. I didn't expect it to be a completely abandoned space casino. Well, abandoned except for all the people trying to kill me. You knew what I meant.

This is usually the point in a Bethesda RPG where I decide I've written enough and go to turn it off, but then I feel like I need to play it for just five more minutes. I always feel like there's just one thing I need to get done first, one thing I want to check out. It'll just take ten more minutes...

Not this time though. I'm not likely to find a hallway in the galaxy that looks shinier than this, so I might as well quit now. 


CONCLUSION

---

Starfield has problems.

Scattering pieces of an Elder Scrolls or Fallout style open world across dozens of different planets and surrounding them with repetitive procedurally-generated filler was just a bad idea, or at least a worse idea. The heart of Bethesda RPG gameplay is seeing something interesting and getting distracted while on your way to what you thought you'd be doing. There's still a bit of that here with the quest list filling up with missions and side missions, and identical prefab towers in the distance to investigate, but they messed up the exploration, which means they messed up the core appeal of a Bethesda RPG.

Though it's definitely not all bad. I like that it's not really a 'save the world' plot, though it could always turn into that. It's a 'we found something weird, do you want to find out what it means?' plot. Granted lots and lots of people are still likely going to end up gunned down along the way, but that's because they were jerks. The combat, I'm less sure about. I was less enthusiastic about getting into a fight in this, possibly because the enemies were so good at not being seen. Also I found ground combat remained pretty easy while the space combat soon kicked my ass, but that could be due to how I levelled my character.

I'm also conflicted on the way you level up skills by doing challenges. Having to screw around doing stunts with the jetpack before you can unlock the next tier is kind of weird. But jumping around everywhere to improve your stats is also Morrowind as hell, and it makes sense that you'd have to prove that you have experience as a player as well as a character to improve yourself.

One of my biggest issues with the game was getting around while over-encumbered, because I was way too stubborn just to drop anything. I mean, I was walking to the other building in the distance because I wanted more loot, so why would I drop what I already had to get there faster? But then I discovered that this actually has vehicles! They finally did it! I hope this going to be a thing going forwards because I think Skyrim II would really benefit from having a buggy you can drive around in.

The dialogue system is a step backwards from Fallout 4, thankfully. I mean I thought that game's 'yes, no, maybe, sarcasm' system was alright, but being able to say a variety of unvoiced responses gives the player better choices. I didn't have much luck with the persuasion system, but I'll give them points for not bringing back the persuasion wheel from Oblivion! It's also got a new lockpicking minigame. Also a 'fix the gamma settings' minigame, where you have to play around with the video options in order for it to not look like ass. I kept trying that one, but never once succeeded at it. Whatever I did, it always looked like a faded magazine cover. In a bad way.

The actual art design is fantastic though. The barren space scenery may be less appealing than the fantasy landscapes in the Elder Scrolls series or even the irradiated ruins of the Fallout games, but the interiors are awesome. So even though it goes a bit No Man's Sky with the resource scanning and soulless procedurally-generated environments, I was happier when I got indoors, immersing myself in the 'NASApunk' sci-fi world.

Overall, I don't think Starfield's as good as Mass Effect, or Fallout 4, in fact it might not even be as good as The Outer Worlds. Honestly though, I'm into it... for now. It ticks so many of the right boxes just on a concept level that all the game had to be was 'fairly competent' and I was sold. I'm the guy who played through Alien: Isolation with the Xenomorph turned off just because wanted to see the space station, of course I was going to love this.


Though like I said at the start, I played the early 2025 version and things will have changed since then, hopefully for the better.

---

Thanks for reading! I encourage you to guess what the next game is if you think you can.

Also, what do you think about Starfield? Have you played it yourself or did the overwhelming negativity around the game put you off?