star field One of my favorite games of 2023, but also one of the biggest video game disappointments of all time. I spent well over 100 hours immersed in it and enjoyed Bethesda’s moments of brilliance, but my high expectations weren’t matched. The developer is famous for creating some of the best RPGs of all time with Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, but Starfield’s galaxy is too large to fully recreate the magic of the past. Now, a Bethesda veteran who has worked on all three IPs has given his verdict. While he is adamant that it’s still a “great game” that the studio should be proud of, he acknowledges that it’s far from “on the same level” as Fallout and TES.
Bruce Nesmith may be a familiar name to Bethesda enthusiasts. After a long career designing the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game, he worked as a quest designer on several Elder Scrolls and Fallout projects, including lead designer on Skyrim. Before leaving Bethesda in 2021 and launching Starfield, he worked on space games as a systems designer. In other words, an authority on all things RPG-related.
“I think it’s a good game,” Nesmith said in an interview with FRVR. “I don’t think it’s on the same level as the other two, like Fallout or Skyrim or The Elder Scrolls. But I think it’s a good game. I worked on it. I’m proud of the work I did. I’m proud of the work that the people I know worked on it. I think they made a great game.”
Echoing my experience mentioned at the beginning, he admits that Bethesda’s past reputation has given Starfield high “expectations” that have been difficult to match. Nesmith also claims that “if the same game had been released by a non-Bethesda company, it would have been received differently.”
Space and alien planets have been the backdrop for many great games, but Starfield’s approach to intergalactic RPGs squanders that potential. Nesmith cited the reliance on procedural generation as the main reason why players weren’t clicking.
“I’m a huge space fan,” he says. “I’m an amateur astronomer, and I’m interested in all that sort of thing,[and]a lot of the work I’ve done in the Starfield has been about astronomical data. But the universe is inherently boring. It’s literally described as nothing. So moving through it, in my opinion, is not where the excitement is.”
I was surprised to hear that Nesmith was blown away by Starfield’s approach to aliens. He admits that there are a lot of “cool” creatures to discover and fight, but says they’re “more like the wolves in Skyrim” than epic, challenging, and memorable enemies. He also states that “the only serious enemy you fought was the people.”
Like Nesmith, I don’t buy the theory that Starfield is a “bad” game. Additionally, a second DLC is scheduled to be released, giving us another chance to change people’s perspectives. However, it’s interesting to hear that the same criticisms that I and many others have are shared by at least one of the developers behind this game.
If you want to go back to Bethesda’s galaxy and add a little spice, be sure to check out the best Starfield mods. Or, if you want to get lost in wild stories, check out our list of the best story games.
If you’ve spent hours with Starfield, let us know what you’d change and what you liked about it on the Discord server.
