Starfield enters 2024 with 'Mostly Negative' recent reviews on Steam

pcgamer.com:

Starfield isn't having the happiest of new years. Bethesda's landmark RPG (one designed to be played for a long time) has «Mostly Negative» recent Steam reviews at the time of writing, with only 29% of reviews scored positive in the last 30 days. Its overall rating is still «Mixed», with 64% positive reviews.

There's a few things to keep in mind before we continue. First off, Steam reviews come from the community—and while they're helpful, they're also more a sign of sentiment over quality. Secondly, they're binary. You either approve of a game or disapprove of it—meaning middling games suffer in the long-term. 'Mostly Negative' is far more dramatic than '75%', which is the score we gave it in our Starfield review.

Converting thumbs down to thumbs up is so important that a recent industry trend has emerged—with developers trying to flip reviews via direct responses. Starfield is no exception, even catching flak due to how copy-pasted its developer responses were.

Still, this is Bethesda we're talking about—Fallout 76 had a similarly rough entry, but that could be brushed off as an experiment. This is a mainline Bethesda RPG. Games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 left a significant mark on the gaming landscape. In contrast, Starfield just hasn't captured the public's imagination in the same way. Why is that?

If you ask the community back in November when the game's overall reviews dipped to Mixed, there's an essential «magic» that's missing. Some players think freedom of choice has been hamstrung by a deluge of unkillable NPCs and goody two-shoes companions. The studio's typically great exploration is also MIA, replaced by loading screens and barren worlds. When the game failed to land more than one nomination at the Game