Summary
- Despite its commercial success and favorable reception, Starfield still has some quality-of-life features that players feel are lacking.
- The community has shared feedback and suggestions for improvement, particularly regarding space exploration, the area map, inventory, ship builder, and ground vehicles.
- Bethesda may have the opportunity to officially revise these features through post-launch content, and mods are expected to address some of the requests on the list, focusing on armor upgrades, weapon variety, and UI improvements.
While Starfield has seen a mostly favorable reception, the latest Bethesda title isn't without its faults, and one player from its community outlined a list of all the quality-of-life features still missing from the game. Starfield keeps breaking player count milestones, and though some of its design choices have been controversial at launch, it cannot be denied that Bethesda Game Studios has another commercial hit on its hands. Despite being a new franchise, Starfield has plenty of parallels to previous Bethesda titles, and its fan-given nickname of "Skyrim in space" isn't an invalid take.
However, much like Skyrim during its release, there are certain features in Starfield that some players feel aren't living up to their full potential. A good example seems to be Starfield's space travel, which has received criticism for being little more than a loading screen lobby. Despite this, the wide array of random events that can occur when flying around in a starship proves that the feature has plenty of depth. Similarly, the area map in Starfield is widely disliked by the community for its lack of clarity, but the scanner being able to calibrate a path to a player's preferred destination is a brilliant evolution of Skyrim's Clairvoyance spell.
To that end, directorford assembled a list of feedback that covers all the game's most popular shortcomings in a neat, easy-to-read way. It was shared on the official Starfield subreddit, where not only did it gain support from other players, but also sparked a useful discussion on how these features could be feasibly reworked. As expected, the first two features concern the game's space exploration and area map, but other notable items on the list hope for an overhaul of the game's inventory, the inclusion of a habitat layout in the ship builder, and the addition of ground vehicles similar to Mass Effect's Mako.
While Starfield's mods will undoubtedly cover most of the requests on this list at one point or the other, Bethesda should still be given an opportunity to officially revise some of Starfield's features through post-launch content. After all, Skyrim addressed customizable player housing through Hearthfire, and Starfield's upcoming DLCs may well offer the immersive space travel that Starfield players yearn for.
Ultimately, the release of the Creation Kit will bring about a swift tide of game fixes and unofficial patches, and players who are annoyed by some of the features in Starfield today could feel different about them a year from now. Starfield mods will likely focus on expanding the game's armor upgrades, providing more melee weapon variety, and polishing up the game's UI. Though it remains to be seen how Bethesda will tackle Starfield's post-launch content, the game's release is certainly closer to a Fallout 4 than a Fallout 76.
Starfield is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.