By “Starfield” wasn’t the Xbox’s ‘hail mary’ pass that it needed last year, but it at least avoided the embarrassment of the disastrous “Redfall” earlier in 2023.
That said, nearly a year on the game is looked back on as something of a disappointment. Bethesda’s games like “Skyrim” and “Fallout” are famous for their player retention years later but “Starfield” saw its player base dwindling quickly following the muted reception at launch.
Combined with underwhelming critical scores, lack of game awards nominations and strong competition last year – especially in the RPG genre – many have already moved on even with multiple patches added post-launch.
More recently though it has started making headlines again, and not in a good way. An update has added the controversial ‘Creations’ (aka Creation Club) element – effectively fan-made paid mods – to the game. This includes a single mission that costs $7 in real-world money to play.
Since that update, a flood of negative reviews has been added to Steam to make the overall sentiment towards the game now ‘mostly negative’.
It has gotten to a point that Bethesda Game Studios chief Todd Howard has responded to the backlash, telling YouTube channel MrMattyPlays (via IGN) they will look at its pricing model for Creations content:
“I do think we are going to take a look at that and how we deliver content like that, and whether we’re changing pricing or breaking it up or what we should do there. So, great feedback from the community.
As it comes to, particularly the creators out there, look, our view is, a lot of them have gone from hobbyists to professionals. And it’s part of our job to make sure they can do that and they do get paid and they see the monetary rewards if they make awesome content.”
The comments come ahead of the game’s first story expansion ‘Shattered Space’ releasing later this year and a second story expansion on the way.
The post Bethesda Responds To “Starfield” Backlash appeared first on Dark Horizons.
