The Xbox and Bethesda Showcase is easily the best non-E3 E3 showcase we have seen this year and we can see how Microsoft thought that showing off Starfield was a good idea. But, as an event-ender, Starfield’s first gameplay footage failed to live up to the hype. There is little in the Starfield demo that makes it worth delaying The Elder Scrolls VI for and it’s not a huge step-up from what we saw before. Length aside, the gameplay reveal of Starfield at the Xbox Bethesda Showcase showed off a game that we could have easily mistaken as Mass Effect Andromeda, which isn’t a comparison that Bethesda would find flattering. Make no mistake, Starfield looks the part of an expansive (and also expensive) game - it’s just not what we expected. From the 15-minute gameplay trailer, we saw Bethesda’s Todd Howard walk us through the game’s combat system, the NPCs, the character creation system as well as everything from the skill system, and much more. We even got a tease of the sci-fi setting where Starfield tasks gamers to search the thousands of planets across the in-game universe for artifacts, as well as companions, among others. All throughout, it’s hard to fight the sense that Bethesda is forcing a lot into Starfield, as if cramming two decades’ worth of development into a single game. The best way that we can put it is that Starfield wants to be Avengers: Endgame, but it just lacks all the prior buildup. There’s a fear that Starfield could end up being like 2017’s Justice League. Starfield probably won’t be a bad game, and we’re sure it will sell very well. However, it probably won’t be the next Elder Scrolls for Bethesda. If nothing else, we’re grateful that Bethesda graced us with Starfield over the weekend. Hopefully, Bethesda can use future trailers to help the audience understand what it is the award-winning studio is trying to accomplish. We’re not denying the scope and ambitions that Bethesda has for Starfield, but it needs to do and be more if it is to outpace No Man’s Sky and Elite Dangerous in the space race.
