The opening hours of Starfield don’t leave me with a great first impression

destructoid.com:

When Fallout 3 launched, my roommates and I all retreated to our separate rooms to play the intro. When we emerged, we all had different stories. One snuck by the overseer. The other talked to them. As is often the case with me, I shot first and apologized afterward.

Bethesda’s open-world games seem to swing between spectacular introductions or less inspired ones. Morrowind had you fill out paperwork before kicking you out into the world so you could watch a hapless mage plummet from the sky. Daggerfall drops you into a very beginner-unfriendly dungeon. Fallout 4 leaves you to witness the end of the world. Then there’s Starfield.

Starfield asks you to look at some rocks. Then it kicks you into one of the greyest vistas we’ve seen since the late aughts, just to prep you for more tutorials.

It could be better.

To be clear, I’m not down on Starfield. I typically like Bethesda open-world games, and while I’m not super jazzed about the “NASA-punk” aesthetic and planet-hopping, I’ll probably fall into the groove of it eventually.

I also don’t think a game needs to grab you in the first X amount of hours. It should do so before you have the chance to lose interest, but that varies between games. The only time you need to grab someone within minutes is when you’re pitching an idea to someone who has their wallet in hand.

The Starfield opening didn’t make me immediately hit the brakes, but I did roll my eyes a few times. So, I’m definitely not condemning the game, but I never pass up the chance for critical analysis.

As a warning, this article spoils a portion of the Starfield opening in detail. It’s all stuff that happens during the tutorial, but if you want to go in knowing nothing, play it first. You can circle back around