„Space in inherently boring.” Bethesda veteran talks about Starfield’s biggest problem

Starfield isn’t quite like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout, but a long-time Bethesda employee thinks it would have been more positively received if one specific issue hadn’t existed.

Okay, so everyone’s talking about whether Starfield made its money back yet. Honestly, it’s not a huge win for Bethesda, at least not right now. The Steam reviews are kinda mixed, which is a bit of a bummer. They’re still working on it and it’s coming to other platforms, but I don’t see it becoming the next Skyrim, even though that’s what they were hoping for. It’s just not hitting that same level of hype, you know?

Despite its flaws, the game still has a dedicated following, and at least one person who worked on it thinks it’s genuinely good – though not quite as impressive as Bethesda’s other big role-playing games.

Boring space and unexciting planets

Bruce Nesmith, who left the studio in 2021, has discussed Starfield previously. He’s talked about the possibility of future sequels, but also shared some critiques of Bethesda, including ideas for how the game’s content could have been improved.

In a recent interview with FRVR, Michael Nesmith explained why he feels Starfield doesn’t quite capture the same feeling as older Bethesda games. He suggested it’s not about the game lacking space exploration, but rather its heavy reliance on automatically created content instead of carefully designed worlds. He’d previously expressed similar concerns.

He’s an amateur astronomer who doesn’t find space inherently exciting. Because of this, he doesn’t think criticisms about the lack of instant space travel in Starfield are a big deal.

Nesmith argues that planets created by algorithms often fall flat, similar to how the idea of aliens as opponents in games hasn’t really been fully explored or made compelling.

I’m a huge space enthusiast and amateur astronomer, so I was heavily involved with the astronomical data for Starfield. However, I believe space itself is fundamentally uninteresting. It’s literally defined by emptiness, and just traveling through that isn’t what makes it exciting, at least to me.

The game loses its appeal when the planets all feel too similar and lack a sense of wonder. I was also let down by the limited number of challenging enemies – you mostly fight humans. While there are interesting alien creatures, they just feel like background elements, similar to the wolves in Skyrim. They don’t really add to the gameplay or provide the diverse, engaging encounters that drive the story forward.

Based on discussions in the Starfield subreddit, many players share this feeling. While the game offers a lot of choices, repeatedly finding the same labs or unremarkable locations quickly became tedious and ruined the joy of discovery. Plus, a lot of travel involves either loading screens or flying through vast, empty planets. Unlike Skyrim, where journeys were filled with interesting things to see, players often feel like they’re just going from one destination to another without much happening along the way.

Bethesda might take this feedback to heart and make future Starfield adventures more engaging to explore. Right now, players are eagerly awaiting the next story expansion, which hasn’t been announced yet.

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2025-10-23 12:34