We’ve published reviews. We’ve created guides. But we’ve never done this. Welcome to My Starfield Diary. Over the course of however many days/weeks it takes for me to finish the game, I will be returning to this article to detail my thoughts and opinions and share some tips and tricks. Because this will be getting updated as time goes on, feel free to leave any questions (or remarks) down in the comments and I will address them as I go. There will be miner spoilers (ha) ahead but I will do my best to keep those at a minimum. With that said, I give you all permission to proceed and read my diary.
Inspired by Bethesda | September 1, 2023
The first full day with Starfield has come to an end and despite some speedbumps, I am very happy with the game. I meant to stop playing the game an hour ago, but in true Bethesda fashion, one distress call later, I am leading a group of spaceships into battle against some Spacers. The great thing about this is that because I went with the “Wanted” trait at the start of the game, I kept getting jumped by these fucking bounty hunters and because I suck at space combat, they keep kicking my ass. Things were different this time. It was a four versus two and they got swept. Felt very satisfying.
Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the top. My big takeaway from Starfield at this time is that it feels very Bethesda. No duh, it’s a Bethesda game, I know. But more so, it feels like a game inspired by a Bethesda game. A game made by people who grew up playing Bethesda games. I mean this game not only has the “oh you’re awake” style opening of Skyrim but it also manages to include the “opening of the Vault doors” moment from Fallout. Todd Howard and his team have seemingly picked out the things that have become staples of their other heavy-hitting RPGs in the past and they packed it into this new one. As a Bethesda fan, I am happy.
And as a Bethesda fan, I went in expecting the usual thoroughfare of bugs. As Pete Hines said, they “embrace chaos” after all. But to my surprise, there isn’t much of that in this game. I mean there’s chaos when two bounty hunters keep hunting you down cause you were a cocky idiot and picked “Wanted” as a trait, but not too many bugs. There were a few times the camera would go through a rock or something on takeoff and some occasional frame jitters when playing on the Xbox Series S, but by and large this is pretty good. I liken it to the experience of playing Cyberpunk 2077 last year. I did have one possible issue where the game keeps freezing, but I’m gonna give it another go today and report back to see if it’s still an issue.
Before I head back to the blackest sea, for those wondering about my character, his name is Vikram, he has a Cyber Runner background with Introvert, Neon Street Rat, and Wanted as traits. I am more or less continuing the same character I played in Cyberpunk 2077 and it’s been very fun. This is a sort of game that I feel encourages role-playing so every decision I make is based on my character’s skewed moral compass. I’ve also been checking in with Nick, who is also playing Starfield, as I play and it’s been cool to see how we both started at the same time but have gone on such totally different journeys.
Flashing Lights | September 2, 2023
After last night’s detour, I started the day by collecting two more [REDACTED] to progress the main quest line. Then, getting a bit tired of space travel, I realized for someone with a Cyber Runner background and Neon Street Rat trait, I hadn’t actually been to Neon. And that brings me to the theme of today’s diary entry: distractions.
Almost as soon as I landed in the city, my Street Kid roots dug into me and I spent the next two and a half hours lost in the seedy, wet underbelly of Neon. One second, I was helping out a poor guy who caught my attention, and the next, I was applying for a part-time job on a production line. The crazy thing is that there are even more missions I picked up while eavesdropping around the city that are still sitting in my mission log. If I wanted to, I could easily keep working the streets (not like that), getting more money, doing more favors, and buying off traits. (Yes, I was a coward, and for 5,000 credits I got the ‘Wanted’ trait permanently removed.)
I was so perfectly content roaming this one area, never getting bored as I explored its narrow streets in search of weird rabbit holes to fall into. Even more than that, I felt that I was developing my character the entire time. There are a lot of distractions in Starfield and they tend to pile up fast in the Activities tab in your Mission Log, but I enjoy the freedom of choice they provide. Bethesda has once again delivered that immersive (if quirky) RPG experience that I love, and even fifteen hours in, I’m learning more about my own character. Like the fact that he’s currently got his sights on the Astral Lounge Penthouse.
And since I have progressed in the main quest line a bit today, I just want to say that as someone who went in knowing very little about the game, I am surprised and intrigued at where the story is going. I am not sure if it’s just because I was unspoiled or if this was intentionally left out of the trailers, but the surprise is a pleasant one. I mentioned yesterday that the game has elements of Skyrim and I have gotten to a point that is even more Elder Scrolls than before. Granted with its own sci-fi twist. I will leave it at that.
Hear Me Out | September 3, 2023
To keep it balanced, I want to talk about one thing I was expecting to like and have not quite enjoyed (yet) and another that I wasn’t expecting much from but I am enjoying quite a bit. As someone who’s played Skyrim multiple times across three or four different systems, the stealth assassin build is my comfort character. Some people like to eat a certain food to feel relaxed, for me, it’s a Skyrim character that stands in near plain sight without being spotted by the only other person in the room who I just shot with an arrow.
Stealth is my go-to for characters in RPGs and it’s one of the reasons I went with the Cyber Runnner background. It comes with the Stealth perk unlocked out of the gate. Unfortunately, stealth is very hit-or-miss in Starfield. The only way to upgrade the stealth perk is to get ten sneak attacks and it’s impossible to do that with blades because enemies always seem to hear you coming. I get spotted immediately from out of nowhere. These hawk-eyed Spacers seem to spot me through an inch-wide gap in the railing.
Using the Equinox, which has become my main weapon in Starfield, I was able to get sneak attacks from a distance, and after upgrading it, it seems to give me better indicators for being quiet. I am hoping that as I keep upgrading it, I can start blending into the shadows more. But, for now, I find the stealth mechanics to not be quite rewarding or fun.
Another perk I’ve been investing skill points into is Persuasion. I wasn’t expecting much from this but Starfield has a cool dialogue mechanic when you have to persuade someone. Each character has a number of slots that need to be filled in a certain number of turns to successfully be convinced of something. If it’s a long shot, there are more slots. If it’s easy, fewer slots. As you pick the dialogue you want, they either fill the slots successfully or fail. The fun is in deciding what way to approach a given situation. (To threaten or to sympathize.) And even when chances seem low, like when you’re trying to convince a Neon City businessman to forget about some owed money that requires seven slots to be filled, you can get a critical success, which auto-fills the slots.
I don’t know if this sort of dialogue mechanic is new to the industry but it is new for me and I find it way more engaging than just one dialogue that either works or doesn’t based on your character stats. And speaking to the perks, I like that they give you challenges to complete before you can upgrade them. This ensures you’re actually using the benefits of the perks as you play and, for me, it’s meant that I only upgrade the perks that I actually use.
Warning Label | September 4, 2023
Hold on there! Before we go any further, you should know that I am a Freestar Ranger. It’s my duty to make sure space is safe and so I take it upon myself to talk to you about bugs. Look, it’s a Bethesda game, and I know that bugs are part of the charm, but that doesn’t mean we should not talk about them. Especially because the ones I’ve encountered have always required a restart.
I want to preface all this by saying that I am playing through Starfield on an Xbox Series S and as I’m sure you might have seen in one of the numerous Starfield tech tests out there, the game is surprisingly smooth. The most common issue I experience is frame drops when entering certain cities. Not every city. Just a few like Akila.
There are two main issues I have come across every few hours. The first happens when landing on a planet. It happens randomly and despite my attempts, I haven’t been able to recreate it wantedly. Essentially, as your ship lands, it plays a glitched landing animation that leaves you high in the air. You’ll get the UI that you landed on the ship and gives you options to get up or exit the ship. If you get up, you just stay frozen in that void above the ground. If you select Exit Ship, it goes into a loading screen that never actually loads.
This brings me to my second issue: loading screens that never actually load. This first happened in that damned Akila City. I won’t say the specifics, but I had to enter. a character’s house to speak to someone and every time I entered (three times), the game would cut to a black loading screen with the music playing for the first few minutes and the loading bar spinning on the bottom and then the music would stop and the animation would freeze. I gave up on that mission for a bit and came back a few hours later to get inside. This has also happened. a few times randomly and I was not able to recreate this either.
The solution to both of these is restarting the game and assuming you’ve been saving frequently (or you just traveled because that usually autosaves), you won’t lose much progress. I also had two individual freezes and one abrupt crash. The typical Bethesda stuff, like rag-dolling ridiculously after death or an NPC running into a character as you’re talking to them, is all still there for your amusement too, but these are the not-so-fun bugs that I hope will get patched soon.
As for general thoughts thus far. I have put roughly twenty-five hours into the game thanks to the long weekend, and Vikram is a Level 22 Freestar Ranger. I am very much so infatuated with Starfield at the moment and it’s still going to take me a few days to come down from the excitement of release. Anyway, as of now, I love both where the main story is going (I’ve already gotten a few twists) and the variety of the side missions. I really don’t want to give much away, at least until the game’s fully out, but I have experienced things in this game that have had me smiling like an idiot and that’s always a win in my book.
My Story, Not Yours | September 6, 2023
I was going to skip the entry for today but instead, I am going to rave about the game’s side missions some more. So, there I was, having just finished a cool task for Walter Stroud and I was debating progressing the main story. I am quite intrigued as to where it’s going with only a handful of missions left to finish it off. Then I saw the Groundpounder side mission about answering a distress call. After a few seconds of hesitation, I said fuck it, let’s see what happens. I had a new Assassin’s Calibrated Pacifier to test out too. Anyway, spoilers ahead.
For the next hour, I was strapped in. It started with me spraining my leg almost immediately after landing at Research Outpost U3-09. I first took out my Justifier, given to me for becoming a Freestar Ranger, and from a distance, stealth attacked some Spacers. (Oh yes, after much experimenting and upgrading, I finally got the hang of stealth in Starfield.) After clearing the field, I slowly entered the building, nerfed by my ankle. I looked through my inventory out of frustration only to find no items that cured sprains.
I pushed on, rescuing the first person (another member of the Freestar Collective) who told me that their group got attacked by Spacers. The twist is that seeing the Spacers were attacking, and despite it being a Freestar outpost, a United Colonies team came to the rescue. Turns out they’re stuck in a different part of the building and need help too. So the action continues. I’m limping through the floor, annoyed at my status. To my luck, the last Spacer I found on the floor had an Immobilizer on him.
Now I’m skipping a few steps here but with my sprain healed, and everyone amazed that two people cleared out three floors of bad guys, I was informed that the Spacers have ships full of reinforcements at the ready. I hop into the Star Eagle and head to space to take out their ships, boarding the last one for good measure. While on board, and thinking I had finished the mission, I get a call from the outpost saying the Spacers rattled and doing one big final attack.
This is the beginning of the end, I rush back to the outpost to defend it. We successfully cleared one wave when a ship landed to drop off more. We clear them off too when another ship lands. Taking matters into my own hands, I rushed to the ship as it opened its doors, and used my artifact power to force push them back inside and throw a frag inside. That seemed to do the trick and the Spacers packed up to leave.
So why did I bring all this up? Well, Groundpounder is just one example of the diversity of side quests in Starfield. You can start any one of the numerous missions waiting for you in your log and never know where it’ll go. I mean, I may not have described it all well because I’m not writing a novel here, but I hope you get the jist of it. The great thing is that I am not alone in getting lost in these side missions. In fact, right before I sat down to write this, I opened Twitter to find this tweet from @Shinobi602 that shares a similar sentiment. This is one of the big reasons that I added the tip of taking your time with the game in my Starfield guide. If you missed it, click here to check it out. Now that Starfield is out, I hope everyone’s liking the game.
Incredible True Story | September 8, 2023
Heading into the second weekend with the game and I am very excited. When I play RPGs like Starfield or Cyberpunk 2077, I like to pace the game to be as cinematic as possible. (I have to use my film degree for something after all.) I have been really enjoying the organic storytelling moments in the game. For example, I was jumping to a far-out system and came across a random ship that hailed me down. It was the UC soldiers who helped that Freestar research outpost that I talked about in my last entry. They gave me some nice parting words.
I’m not gonna reiterate everything I did today, but I want to share how I ended my night. As I got ready to do the last few missions, I realized that I needed a specific type of ship. The problem is that I am not skilled enough to pilot that ship yet. I can upgrade the skill, but I need to destroy 11 more spaceships. So I did something I’ve done a few times now in Starfield.
Let me first state that I absolutely love the score for Starfield from Inon Zur, it manages to exude a sense of awe and adventure. Combining the spirit of Skyrim and Interstellar. But, sometimes, when I have to spend a lot of time flying through space, I turn the score down and play my own music. Today was a special one. I listened to one my favorites, The Incredible True Story by Logic, an album that tells the story of two people in interstellar travel. I was taking out Crimson Fleet ships and listening to the album when it came to a scene, a track between the songs where they progress the narrative of the album. They had an interview where someone mentioned the planet Paradise.
This suddenly reminded me of a moment from earlier in my Starfield journey: Paradiso. I was once again jumping to a random system when I came across a unique ship in orbit above a beautiful planet. I don’t think it’s the same type of place they talk about in the album but Paradiso has a great side quest called First Contact that I really liked. As I listened to the album and came to the pleasant coincidence, I blasted through 11 ships and ended the night by upgrading the skill. If all goes well, tomorrow will mark the end of the game.
The End | September 9, 2023
Like all good things, Starfield has come to an end. At least for me. (Don’t worry there will be no detailed spoilers.) After roughly 45 hours, I have rolled credits on Starfield and gotten a little taste of its clever post-game content too. Now, I could have gotten a bit more runtime out of it, I mean Nick is over 50 hours in and he’s maybe a third of the way done with the main story, but in the last five to seven hours, the game was very much so acting up. From bugged landings to odd freezes, the game seemed to be unraveling as I neared the end, so instead of having it taint my otherwise great experience, I pushed forward and did what had to be done.
I really enjoyed the Starfield campaign. I had watched some of the trailers and even watched their long 40-minute deep dive, but whether from my own ignorance or selective marketing, the game had plenty of surprises for me. Understanding the mystery of the artifacts is just the start down the rabbit hole as the game builds a fascinating and rewarding timeline of events for those who have been paying attention.
That being said, the thing that makes Starfield special in my opinion is how it empowers the player to find their own story. Everyone will have their own memories from the game, ones that are unique in their own way to that player. It could be a cool location you visited or a personal character moment, they all add up to a really great game that’s more than just the sum of its parts.
And on a quick side note, as much as I love indie games, it’s also cool seeing tentpole releases like this. Games that are so big that they sort of become part of the gaming zeitgeist. Games that Bethesda has been making for decades now.
If you follow the Starfield talk online, you might have seen people talking about how the post-game in Starfield is cool and I have to agree. You can possibly see where it’s going about halfway to two-thirds of the way through, but it doesn’t make it any less cool. Not only that, but I think the visuals of the last few minutes of the game are absolutely beautiful.
Over three thousand five hundred words later, my Starfield diary comes to an end too. Thank you to everyone who kept up with all the entries over the nine days. If you couldn’t tell already, I really liked Starfield. The game has its problems, from irritating bugs and the Bethesda signature encumberment, but Vikram’s story was an awesome one and one of my favorites of the year. I will return to Starfield just to explore more of the universe, but it’s also review season so a lot of games are on the horizon. Next year, I plan to do a new walkthrough of the game with a totally new character. If I do, I will stream it to Twitch so follow over there to not miss out. And make sure to check out our other Starfield content too, like my beginner’s guide to surviving the vastness of space.
Before I leave you, here are some recommended reads if you still haven’t gotten your Starfield fix. The first is a Todd Howard interview with Esquire that makes the claim that he’s the Christopher Nolan of the games industry and after reading it, I can’t help but agree. The other is also a Todd Howard interview, this one by Gene Park over at The Washington Post. Both are really good reads.
