Starfield Needs To Make Sci-Fi Games Good Again

thegamer.com:

“Any planet is 'Earth' to those that live on it,” wrote Isaac Asimov in 1950. The seminal science fiction writer’s first novel saw a 62-year-old tailor from 1949 transported into the future, a future where humanity was so poor that people are executed when they turn 60 unless they have provided a meaningful contribution to society. This obviously presents a problem for our protagonist Joseph Schwartz, but the story doesn’t just follow his plight 50,000 years in the future.

Over its 200-or-so pages, Pebble in the Sky discusses religious fundamentalism, the nuclear threat, and people coming together to rise against the universe’s oppressive regime that sees Earth as a problem. It’s a product of its time, the nervousness of the post-war years distilled into a far-future tale. This novel would be the start of Asimov’s Foundation series, which is widely regarded to be some of the most influential science fiction ever written.

Related: Starfield's Marketing Is Making Space Skyrim Sound Boring

The video game equivalent of the Foundation series is probably Mass Effect. But it’s been five years since the last instalment of BioWare’s RPG, and it’s fair to say Andromeda was divisive. If you’re so petty that you don’t count Andromeda, which took place in a different galaxy, it’s been a decade since the last main series Mass Effect game. They’re working on a new one, but who knows when that will arrive. And no, the Legendary Edition doesn’t count as a new game. But other than that, what major science fiction games are there?

Outer Wilds was great, nailing the unknown space mysteries and exploration aspects of the big old universe, but it has been criminally overlooked and is ultimately a very contained experience. That’s not