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Starfield: Shattered Space looks like a wise return to Bethesda basicsAssuming you take “basics” to mean “massive complicated things”
Assuming you take “basics” to mean “massive complicated things”
Image credit:Bethesda Softworks
Image credit:Bethesda Softworks
Image credit:Bethesda Softworks
Still, this could be another change for the better. I maintain that Starfield’s gunplay can be pretty good fun(play), provided you get aggressive and mobile with the jetpack. There’s a dynamism to it that, say,Fallout 4could scarcely dream of. Hungrier foes, more inclined to get up close and force the use of jetpacking and quick-footed repositioning, should therefore be a good fit.
Image credit:Bethesda Softworks
Shattered Space’s general upping of the weirdness factor also looks like a re-emphasising of Starfield’s quirkier aspects, which it was far too quick to forget about previously. I am begging, for instance, for those massive gravity anomalies to host morezero-G gunfights. And even if it took a NG+ run to reveal the full extent of Starfield’s take on a multiverse, the fact remains that it’s one of precious few pieces of media to actually do something interesting with the concept; something to justify it beyond “like with Marvel”. The Vortex, assuming there’s more to it than belching out enemy spawns, promises more possibilities there as well.
Basically, Shattered Space isn’t intriguing because of a surprise shift into horror, but because it hints that Bethesda are correcting course. Fewer bland planets, more sci-fi spectacle. Less shooting gallery tedium, more desperate, three-dimensional blaster duels. And most importantly, abandoning the fleeting convenience of algorithm-shaped dustbowls to return to – again, hopefully – a denser, more carefully mapped-out world we can truly get lost in.
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