Summary
- Bethesda addresses criticisms of Starfield by adding a free land vehicle patch to improve on-foot traversal.
- Land vehicles alone may not fix the underlying exploration issues in Starfield's repetitive procedural generation.
- The Shattered Space DLC for Starfield could make or break the impact of adding land vehicles, offering the potential for transformative gameplay.
For as heavily marketed and hyped up as it was, it feels like Starfield hasn't left quite the impression that the gaming community assumed it would. This doesn't mean that the game is bad, but it's certainly not the genre-defining achievement that Skyrim or Fallout 3 were, and this underwhelming performance has made some of its more significant issues stand out. This is evidenced by the fact that Bethesda is addressing many of Starfield's most common criticisms in updates ahead of the Shattered Space DLC this fall.
Among these common critiques is the matter of land traversal. Players will regularly be tasked with traveling across vast, empty landscapes, and it is not uncommon to spend several minutes running from one point of interest to another, with virtually nothing of value to be found in between. Many have questioned why Bethesda didn't attempt to remedy this issue by implementing some sort of land vehicle, as this would make planetary exploration both more efficient and less tedious. Luckily for those unhappy with Starfield's on-foot traversal, Bethesda has announced a land vehicle patch, which will be released for free later this year.
How Starfield Remains a Success Story In The Face of Failure
Expectations for Starfield were sky-high, and while many felt it fell short of them, raw sales and other statistics tell a different tale.
Starfield's Land Vehicles Won't Be a Miracle Cure
Land Vehicles Won't Fix the Root of Starfield's Exploration Problems
As Starfield prepares to integrate land vehicles, it's not unreasonable to be optimistic. After all, a lot of the monotony of the game's planetary exploration boils down to the slow and repetitive process of actually moving through these virtual environments. However, Starfield's open world suffers from far bigger issues.
Though it can be detailed, engaging, and alluring at many points, Starfield can also feel flat and dull, and nowhere is this more apparent than in its various explorable planets. Sadly, the game suffers from the same issues faced by early builds of No Man's Sky, with its roster of over 1,000 planets necessitating a reliance on procedural generation.
This means that poking around random planets can get old remarkably fast, as these locations lack the bespoke intrigue that is the backbone of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. After a certain point, Starfield's exploration can feel like a repetitive resource and gear grind, and adding vehicles could simply make this grind marginally more expedient, not more fun.
There's also the issue of how the vehicles will actually control: Bethesda Game Studios has never designed driving mechanics, and Starfield wasn't built with land vehicles in mind, so this is uncharted territory.
Shattered Space May Determine the Ultimate Worth of Land Vehicles
Very little is known about Starfield's Shattered Space DLC, but it could play a major role in how land vehicles are implemented in the game. The fact of the matter is that while some players might be encouraged to pick up Starfield for the first time once the vehicle update is released, most of the game's target audience has already experienced much of what it has to offer. For this majority group, the introduction of land vehicles will probably feel like an afterthought: not completely useless, but not transformative enough to warrant investing many more hours in the game's world.
But if Shattered Space were to offer content that synergized with the newly added land vehicles, that would change things. While Shattered Space probably won't revolutionize Starfield, it could introduce races, traversal challenges, or even environments and missions that are specifically designed around land vehicle traversal.
In this way, land vehicles would feel less like a feature tacked on because of player feedback and more like an organic, natural extension of Starfield's RPG systems and overall gameplay loop. They could be a holistic, extensive upgrade rather than a band-aid fix designed to stanch criticism.
Starfield
- Released
- September 6, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery.
The year is 2330. Humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people. From humble beginnings as a space miner, you will join Constellation – the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy – and navigate the vast expanse of the Settled Systems in Bethesda Game Studios’ biggest and most ambitious game.
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- How Long To Beat
- 20 Hours
- File Size Xbox Series
- 101 GB (September 2023)
- Metascore
- 86
