Starfield Is More Like A Sci-Fi Theme Park Than An Open World Adventure

Starfield, after waiting five long years for its release is now here! I’m roughly 23 hours in, so I still have many galaxies ahead of me, but read Game Informer’sStarfield is a review that gives you a more in-depth look at what the game has to offer. As many Bethesda Game Studios enthusiasts, I let my imagination go wild when it came to what this open world RPG might be. Now that I’ve played a decent chunk of it, it’s quite different from the studios’ Elder Scrolls and Fallout series in some ways. Starfield has a significantly smaller open-world than those two series. Starfield is more of a sci-fi park, with lots to do and see than a massive open-world adventure. Players looking to recreate a space-based Fallout adventure or Elder Scrolls might be disappointed.

From the jump, Starfield’s brand of sci-fi reminds me a lot of golden age Disney, both the overall company and its first two theme parks, Disneyland and Disney World. Walt Disney’s team of Imagineers envisioned space as an expansive, vast, and beautiful frontier, ready for human exploration, while avoiding the perils lurking beyond. Disney’s goal is to create an entertaining experience. So, aside from the short-lived, somewhat frightening Alien ride, their take on space was extremely optimistic. It had that bright-eyed, joyful feeling which sells tickets at theme parks. It’s this same kind of optimism for space exploration and humankind’s place in it at the heart of Starfield. 

Space: The Final Frontier

The music is a large, orchestral piece that makes you feel like a hero. There are beautiful planets for you to explore and no aliens in sight. Jumping from planet to planet is exciting (save for the various but quick load screens you’ll encounter each time), and when you land, it feels like you’re about to explore something brand new. The music swells and your companions comment on a beautiful place. What lies in front of you is a mystery. The vibes in Starfield are most definitely top-notch. Starfield is an action RPG, after all, meaning it doesn’t take long before you’re taking out other humans with various guns, killing space creatures, stealing to your heart’s content, and taking out space pirates in dogfights. At every new place, for just a brief moment, I’m a kid again, ready to try out a ride at the theme park. 

I wonder what I’ll see, what the music will be like, where the camera will flash (or, in this instance, where I’ll stop to utilize the game’s photo mode), what I can buy or pick up afterward at the gift shop (see: trading outpost or city merchant), and more. I love this approach to galaxy-spanning travel, but I admittedly had to learn to love it because it wasn’t what I wanted or expected out of Starfield. 

I expected an open world adventure, but I quickly realized that Starfield isn’t interested in the slow ambient moments that color my experiences in, say, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Fallout 4. There are many points of interest in those games, such as a city made out of a baseball diamond or Whiterun, the vast expanse of Tamriel. But between these places, there are also open fields, forests and mountains. Part of the experience is exploring to your heart’s content between stops from Whiterun to the next city and discovering something you had no idea about. 

Starfield, for the most part is still missing out on those experiences. It’s intentional, though. Starfield allows you to travel across hundreds of worlds in entire galaxies. And while I wish I were manually flying to and from planets a la No Man’s Sky, that’s not what Bethesda’s doing with this game. Instead, your spaceship’s cockpit becomes a detailed GPS where you pick where you want to go and fast travel there (which is why you’ll see a lot of loading screens in Starfield). 

Because of this, you won’t find any of those slow, ambient moments exploring the path between, say, megacity New Atlantis and a nearby outpost. If this were Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, you’d walk to each point of interest and likely discover enemies, loot, dungeons, and more along the way. In Starfield, you’re fast-traveling from New Atlantis to that outpost on the same planet.

It’s in that way Starfield feels less like an open world adventure like Skyrim or Fallout 4 and more like a theme park. The game’s not interested in those moments of exploration between points of interest or “rides” or “attractions.” Instead, it’s interested in fast-passing me to the next Disney World ride of a city, outpost, or cavernous dungeon. It gets me to those points of interest almost immediately, and while I’m sometimes thankful I don’t have to walk from ride or ride or outpost to outpost, in Starfield’s terms, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it. 

The excitement of a new place can only be as exciting and mysterious if there are moments between. To enhance the excitement of an adventure, it is important to have lows or quieter times. My level of excitement stays high in Starfield, but if it’s constantly high, how will I feel when all is said and done? 

At times, it feels like what I imagine is the difference between Disney’s Animal Kingdom Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction and a real safari expedition. Sure, the former has real animals in realistic locations and they’re living as they might in the wild, but they’re placed where Disney wants them to be for me to see to maximize excitement, every time I ride.

In a real safari, there are usually stakes involved, as well as non-manufactured excitement and moments. Perhaps a lion appears and sits on top of my jeep like I’ve seen on YouTube. No lion may appear but I might see a bunch of elephants sharpening the tusks in trees. The point is, you don’t know what you’re in store for when the safari starts. Disney’s attraction, however, is scripted, meant to pull out specific feelings from me with a 99% hit rate. It’s still great – it’s just not the real thing. 

Tomorrow is going to be a beautiful, wonderful, and big day!

Starfield is full of incredible locations and scenes that are exciting but feel scripted. The moments in Starfield are great, but I wonder how they would be if more of them were organic.

Twenty-three hours in, I’m having a great time inhaling Starfield’s theme park fumes, but is it possible to do so for another few dozen? I’m not quite sure yet, but the narrative and mechanical pulls are there for now, and I look forward to finding out. 

Check out our Starfield Tips Guide to learn more. Game Informer’sStarfield review Starfield PC requirements: If you plan to play Starfield on PC, these are the specs that it needs to be able to run. 

Starfield is a great place to play today! Tell us in the comments!