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Starfield has lost 97% of its Steam players in less than six months.

Topher

Gold Member
Similar metascores is all we need, apparently!
CBABErR.png


Three Stooges Face Palm GIF
 
Its a single player game, isn't that normal?

Era used the same argument for Hogwarts Legacy to prove it wasn't a good game....

Ouch, you just hit GAF for massive damage.

Also I would like Starfield a lot more if it had Fallout type gore or even a tiny shred of viable melee gameplay.
 

StereoVsn

Member
You can take your common sense and go elsewhere, kind sir!
As others have pointed out, virtually all the modern Bethesda games have higher amount of users and had them higher at similar time of release.

It’s a newest game with fewest users, both adjusted for time post release, and total. It’s Bethesda game in which modders aren’t interested and yes, you can lookup similar timeline for mods with say Fallout 4.

There is no narrative or particular hate, and especially not of conspiratorial kind. A lot of folks are just very disappointed in this game.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
As others have pointed out, virtually all the modern Bethesda games have higher amount of users and had them higher at similar time of release.

It’s a newest game with fewest users, both adjusted for time post release, and total. It’s Bethesda game in which modders aren’t interested and yes, you can lookup similar timeline for mods with say Fallout 4.

There is no narrative or particular hate, and especially not of conspiratorial kind. A lot of folks are just very disappointed in this game.
But games like Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk have all seen similar drop-offs - Bethesda couldn't hold an audience like they did in 2015 - well no shit, no-one can. Plus they have to peel players away from their own games which have mods and extra content that can keep people playing almost forever for free.
 

Chronicle

Member
As others have pointed out, virtually all the modern Bethesda games have higher amount of users and had them higher at similar time of release.

It’s a newest game with fewest users, both adjusted for time post release, and total. It’s Bethesda game in which modders aren’t interested and yes, you can lookup similar timeline for mods with say Fallout 4.

There is no narrative or particular hate, and especially not of conspiratorial kind. A lot of folks are just very disappointed in this game.
Yes. I agree with you. I carr neither way. I'm talking about the argument itself. Just an interesting quip about era. That's all.
 

Fredrik

Member
see, this reminds me of the people who love tears of the kingdom: they love the game that they were given. me, I was simply disappointed with the game i was given. but that doesn't necessarily mean the game itself is complete shit. it just means i couldn't get into it as it is: a game that allows me to do a whole bunch of stuff that I myself have no interest in doing, while coming up short on stuff (story/characters) I am interested in...

anyway, glad you enjoyed it. wish I had, as well...
I love Tears of the Kingdom, I’ve never finished it but the creative mechanics are so unique and I just love the freedom there. Couldn’t care less about the story, I assume I’ll save Zelda at the end and kill Ganon, it’s been done before so that’s definitely not why I like the game lol

Anyway I have no trouble seeing where Starfield is missing the mark, but I still love it because of the building mechanics and general freedom, like in No Man’s Sky I can make my own space adventure. I’ve done the same thing in Skyrim, just went off grid and spent my time doing other things. The main quest is the weakest part of the game that’s for sure, maybe for all Bethesda’s games but I haven’t played all so that’s just a guess.
 

Rubim

Member
Tweaking dogfights? You mean like this?:


Like I said, the creation kits enable people to create gameplay content, not just tweak or add items/features that already exist in the game. Hence I mentioned overhauls. Alternate start mods also fall under that category and will require the creation kit.

But if you want to assume that Starfield will suddenly start getting more mods than the older and vastly more popular Bethesda titles then you're mistaken. Look at the most popular/downloaded mods on nexus for both Skyrim and Fallout 4 and look at how many of them necessated the use of the creation kit in order for them to exist.

Starfield is the newer Bethesda game and it is unprecedented that modders haven't flocked to the newer title to get critcal mod tools and mods up and running. Even with all the changes from oblivion to skyrim (and from fallout 3/NV to fallout 4) you didn't see the discrepancy between the older titles and newer ones that we are seeing now.

Like I've said earlier, bookmark these posts and feel free to revisit after the CK has been released. Bethesda's decisions have made it more difficult to mod this game than any of their previous titles and you're hoping that the CK is suddenly going to reignite interest from a modding community that have been open in expressing their frustration/disinterest at a time when the game will be more dead than ever in terms of an active player base? Good luck.
Let me repeat exactly what i said:
It's one of the reasons why we can't tweak the dog fight more.
Thinking that it wont get more traction after CK releases is absurd, of course it will. That does not mean it will keep the user base after some time nor that it will surpass every other bethesda.

What im saying is:
With CK release we should see some bump on mods. That's something that's not even for debate my dude.

Does this means it will surpass every other Bethesda Title? Probably not. My main issue is, comparing something that's not even supposed to have mods yet.

And even if you take the early days of FO4 mods, it would be disgininous to Fallout 4 itself, since modding was still growing.

FO4 on April 26th, 2016 (CK release date), had:
8.320 ± 80 Mods (Removing all Reshades, Last page was 619 it ends at 723 (80 items per page) so 104 * 80 = 8.320
6 Months to Develop 8320 Mods.

STARFIELD SO FAR:
Number gotten directly from Nexus Total Counts after removing reshades profiles.
7 Months to Develop 7223 Mods

So yeah, its pretty good so far, specially on a game that's not as good.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Member
Surely most single player games are like this? With peaks when they go back in sale or have significant content updates.

This isn’t unique to Starfield.

People rush in to play new AAA games, and if they don’t maintain interest - they stop coming.

To be fair on Starfield we have also had some bangers over the past few months.
Just picked a few from the main page, but as people pointed out - Skyrim, a 12-year old game is having way more players than Starfield does.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
Just picked a few from the main page, but as people pointed out - Skyrim, a 12-year old game is having way more players than Starfield does.
But the point is in general most single player naritive driven games drop off in this way (I suspect). It would actually be interesting to see stats on this in general to see what the drop off for this is aligned with a load of other games in a 6 month window.

I imagine Skyrim itself has been a lot more sticky than most, so like people are saying it shows Bethesda has it in them. I imagine Starfield will have a long tail and people will come back for DLC, mods and it will gather more momentum with the inevitable PS5 release.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Just picked a few from the main page, but as people pointed out - Skyrim, a 12-year old game is having way more players than Starfield does.

No surprise. Aside from being a better game, there’s a zillion mods to play with that enhance every aspect - or change the game entirely.

You picked a game that goes against the norm though. The vast majority of single player games do plummet in player count as they age.
 
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TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Sad to see how Bethesda games keep getting worse and worse with each new release, makes me worry for TESVI.

I put very little time into Starfield, but it felt to me like Bethesda has no clue of what made it's previous games feel so special. The sense of discovery is gone and replaced with load screens and the lore is boring shit.
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
Sad to see how Bethesda games keep getting worse and worse with each new release, makes me worry for TESVI.

I put very little time into Starfield, but it felt to me like Bethesda has no clue of what made it's previous games feel so special. The sense of discovery is gone and replaced with load screens and the lore is boring shit.
At this point my 5yo son will retire sooner than Bethesda retires Creation Engine.
 

MAX PAYMENT

Member
Don't you think the sense of exploration is way different in Starfield? I understand that a lot of gameplay is similar but this is a big point of the Bethesda's loop
Wandering into stuff accidentally doesn't happen the same way. But I can't help but feel that basically every other system feels exactly the same across the bethesda titles. They certainly have a formula and game engine they absolutely wear out.
 

Variahunter

Member
Starfield should have been a great game.

I was so disapointed in the end, both by the disingenuous marketing that hid most of the downsides, and didn't show proper gameplay.

The game feels disjointed, and the exploration is really bad. Here's why :

- Loadings

- Travelling does not require any ressources, so no preparation required either... which also makes the progression curve suck.
In a thousand planets game, they could have made the starting point easy, and the farthest you go in the galaxy from this starting point the harder the planets would have been. They also could add difficulty spikes aka sprout some randomly hard planet close to the general level planets to spice things up. They could have done that, only if travelling required ressources. But they chose not to. Kills the exploration.

- Travelling is also devoid of any danger. Because you can just warp anywhere, from anywhere, which is shit. Completely kills the dread of a SPACE EXPLORATION GAME, where you should feel excited to venture into the unknown, wether it's bad or good. Risk matters. Most planets were not dangerous, I never felt threatened by any climatic environment. Kills the exploration.

- You don't even need to pilot your ship, it's all for show except when you want to explore a new space station. Even in a solar system you don't need to pilot your ship. Also no landing on a planet by piloting your ship. Kills the feeling of exploration.

- Planets being procedurally AND randomly generated, not on the scale of the planet but on 20km square rectangle, meaning that even if you land closely to your previous explorated area, you won't see the other area you explored in the distance. Meaning that those areas are just randomly generated in a completely disjointed way. Kills the feeling of exploration AND the immersion. Which is one of the biggest difference with ES and Fallout. If it was just procedural, and the whole planet was generated once you landed on it the first time, even with loadings every 20km, but the zones stayed the same, then it would have been already a much better game. Still not a good game, but a mid one.

And that's the biggest problem it has, because there's a lot of other problems that are relative to the usual Bethesda jank here, so I went in knowing this in advance :
- Dialogues and NPCs
- Some broken quests
- Mid graphics

And two other problems :
- Even lush planets feeling barren (never felt like I was exploring a forest or jungle because everything is so sparse even in those environments)
- Outposts getting copy and pasted ad nauseam (I get it, it's procedural, but it still needs a lot more diversity)

The game needs a total overhaul to be good, perhaps even great. But in this shape, it's a mediocre game that doesn't deliver on what the marketing has been selling, which was supposed to be a GOOD exploration game. Maybe for the next generation.
 
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Alebrije

Member
Starfield should have been a great game.

I was so disapointed in the end, both by the disingenuous marketing that hid most of the downsides, and didn't show proper gameplay.

The game feels disjointed, and the exploration is really bad. Here's why :

- Loadings

- Travelling does not require any ressources, so no preparation required either... which also makes the progression curve suck.
In a thousand planets game, they could have made the starting point easy, and the farthest you go in the galaxy from this starting point the harder the planets would have been. They also could add difficulty spikes aka sprout some randomly hard planet close to the general level planets to spice things up. They could have done that, only if travelling required ressources. But they chose not to. Kills the exploration.

- Travelling is also devoid of any danger. Because you can just warp anywhere, from anywhere, which is shit. Completely kills the dread of a SPACE EXPLORATION GAME, where you should feel excited to venture into the unknown, wether it's bad or good. Risk matters. Most planets were not dangerous, I never felt threatened by any climatic environment. Kills the exploration.

- You don't even need to pilot your ship, it's all for show except when you want to explore a new space station. Even in a solar system you don't need to pilot your ship. Also no landing on a planet by piloting your ship. Kills the feeling of exploration.

- Planets being procedurally AND randomly generated, not on the scale of the planet but on 20km square rectangle, meaning that even if you land closely to your previous explorated area, you won't see the other area you explored in the distance. Meaning that those areas are just randomly generated in a completely disjointed way. Kills the feeling of exploration AND the immersion. Which is one of the biggest difference with ES and Fallout. If it was just procedural, and the whole planet was generated once you landed on it the first time, even with loadings every 20km, but the zones stayed the same, then it would have been already a much better game. Still not a good game, but a mid one.

And that's the biggest problem it has, because there's a lot of other problems that are relative to the usual Bethesda jank here, so I went in knowing this in advance :
- Dialogues and NPCs
- Some broken quests
- Mid graphics

And two other problems :
- Even lush planets feeling barren (never felt like I was exploring a forest or jungle because everything is so sparse even in those environments)
- Outposts getting copy and pasted ad nauseam (I get it, it's procedural, but it still needs a lot more diversity)

The game needs a total overhaul to be good, perhaps even great. But in this shape, it's a mediocre game that doesn't deliver on what the marketing has been selling, which was supposed to be a GOOD exploration game. Maybe for the next generation.
That is the same that happened with Fallout 4.

Poor story
Feels more like a Shooter than an RPG
Exploration lacks of rewarding.
Lack of wise dialogs

Think Bethesda has been living of it's story and os following the UBI path, just recycling the same game on different skin.

Starlfield was sold as the space exploration game of the generation , but is a half baked product..like was Fallout 76 and 4. It's a trending on Bethesdas games. it's Sad because they used to have a unique way to develop games..now is gone.
 

Rheon

Member
I'm playing FO4 right now for the first time and loving the shit out of it.

It's making me want to give Starfield another try when I finish up FO4.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
I could care less about Starfield - I haven't played it and never will -
- but you could make this exact thread title for most games of today:
"-insert any game here-" has lost 97% of its Steam players in less than six months.

This was touted as the game of the forever though. Will be played for decades and have a popular Steam community

Didn’t happen. It’s just another game, and not a good one at that

Bethesda has fallen hard and really need to bring themselves back from this
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
This was touted as the game of the forever though. Will be played for decades and have a popular Steam community

Didn’t happen. It’s just another game, and not a good one at that

Bethesda has fallen hard and really need to bring themselves back from this
Then I guess Stellar Blade, Rise of Ronin and Helldivers 2 aren’t good either, as they all scored less. But we expect dumb comments like that from the resident Sony fanboy that thinks the Steam store is just another online store. We get it, Bethesda hurt you, and you can’t stop thinking about this game. I liked the game a lot, and you think about it way more than I do.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
Then I guess Stellar Blade, Rise of Ronin and Helldivers 2 aren’t good either, as they all scored less. But we expect dumb comments like that from the resident Sony fanboy that thinks the Steam store is just another online store. We get it, Bethesda hurt you, and you can’t stop thinking about this game. I liked the game a lot, and you think about it way more than I do.

This thread is about Starfield. Let’s keep it on topic. Those games didn’t get the game of the forever and Xbox platform savior award marketing hype machine that you and your ilk propagated relentlessly prior to release, with the publisher Microsoft more than happy to oblige as they withheld reality behind a slick pre-release showcase that did a good job of hiding all the massive flaws
 

Atrus

Gold Member
Blame whomever brought up the silly comparison of Stellar Blade vs Starfield. But here's the Metascore.

9OUxadq.png

Starfield isn’t a great game whatsoever and the sycophants that make excuses for Bethesda only serve to lower the bar that manifestly resulted in Starfield’s outright pointless and broken mechanics.

The less people jerk off Todd Howard, the more pressure can be put on Bethesda to hopefully avoid doing the same in FO5 and ES6.
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
This thread is about Starfield. Let’s keep it on topic. Those games didn’t get the game of the forever and Xbox platform savior award marketing hype machine that you and your ilk propagated relentlessly prior to release, with the publisher Microsoft more than happy to oblige as they withheld reality behind a slick pre-release showcase that did a good job of hiding all the massive flaws
And when those that think about the game nonstop, all they love talking about is the pre-release hype. Oh, it was hyped this way and that way. Game of forever. I mean, if people let themselves get hyped on very little, then they’re likely going to be over hyped for most AAA titles, regardless of quality.

Blaming marketing for doing their job will always come off as stupid to me. Starfield is far from perfect. Might be far from great. So discuss the gameplay merits or faults, not the marketing campaign. Just reads like those are grasping at straws.

We can’t compare games because they weren’t marketed the same, might be the stupidest take on this forum.
 
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James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
And when those that think about the game nonstop, all they love talking about is the pre-release hype. Oh, it was hyped this way and that way. Game of forever. I mean, if people let themselves get hyped on very little, then they’re likely going to be over hyped for most AAA titles, regardless of quality.

Blaming marketing for doing their job will always come off as stupid to me. Starfield is far from perfect. Might be far from great. So discuss the gameplay merits or faults, not the marketing campaign. Just reads like those are grasping at straws.

We can’t compare games because they weren’t marketed the same, might be the stupidest take on this forum.

yeah we can’t compare metacritic scores of titles hyped up to be a platform savior prior to release and literally the only major Xbox first party in years, with MS sending out early codes to preselect outlets

Starfield was too big to fail, hence the early onslaught of 10s, followed by reality when looking at later scores, YouTube independent reviewers, and user scores
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
yeah we can’t compare metacritic scores of titles hyped up to be a platform savior prior to release and literally the only major Xbox first party in years, with MS sending out early codes to preselect outlets

Starfield was too big to fail, hence the early onslaught of 10s, followed by reality when looking at later scores, YouTube independent reviewers, and user scores
Sure Jan GIF


Let’s only compare games with similar budgets too. Or games with similar graphics.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
yeah we can’t compare metacritic scores of titles hyped up to be a platform savior prior to release and literally the only major Xbox first party in years, with MS sending out early codes to preselect outlets

Starfield was too big to fail, hence the early onslaught of 10s, followed by reality when looking at later scores, YouTube independent reviewers, and user scores

What a rubbish post lol. All publishers send codes to pre-selected outlets. The rest of it is jibberish as well.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Yeah except MS didn’t include all outlets and many had to go through that pre release option and were forced to rush their reviews

The review embargo window was very narrow for a game of this scope
Which publisher includes all outlets? Also, most games releasing these days from any publisher, including ones you stan for, have the review embargo of 1,2 days to a week max. Starfield's review embargo was a week before its retail release.

We get it, you don't like the game. But all the arguments you're using are things which apply to all major publishers. You're just coming off like a petty hater here. 🤷‍♂️
 
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