Starfield

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About

Starfield is an action role-playing video game set in a space-themed world developed and published by Bethesda. The game has been billed by Bethesda director Todd Howard as "Skyrim in space." Starfield was announced at E3 2018 and was released in early September 2023.

History

On June 10th, 2018, at Bethesda Softworks' E3 presentation, the company presented Starfield, an action role-playing game set in space and its first new intellectual property in over 25 years.^[1] On June 13th at the E3 2021 conference, the official teaser trailer for the game was released, with the planned release date set for November 2022 (shown below).^[2]

On May 12th, 2022, Bethesda announced^[3] that the release date for Starfield has been pushed back to the first half of 2023. On June 12th, 2022, at the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase 2022, Bethesda revealed 15 minutes of Starfield gameplay,^[4] including exploration, combat, character creation process, ship customization and ship piloting demonstration.

On June 11th, 2023, a 45-minute-long Starfield Direct presentation took place as a part of the Xbox Games Showcase. The presentation (shown below) received over 800,000 views in less than 24 hours.

On the same day, Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard confirmed that the game will run at 30 FPS on Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.

On September 1st, 2023, Starfield was released for those who bought a premium edition of the game. The game was fully released on September 5th, 2023.^[8]

Reception

Starfield received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic,^[5] the PC version of the game had an 87 average critic rating based on 57 reviews and a user score of 5.4 based on 2,900 ratings as of September 8th, 2023. On OpenCritic,^[9] the game had an 88 average critic rating. On Steam,^[10] the game had an 81% approval rating with 27,600 user reviews as of September 8th.

IGN's^[6] Dan Stapleton rated gave the game a 7 out of 8, writing, "Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist." PC Gamer's^[7] Christopher Livingston rated the game 75/100, summarizing, "Starfield shares plenty of DNA with Skyrim and Fallout 4, but ultimately falls short of both."

Online Presence

Announcement

The announcement, teaser trailer and gameplay demonstration all drew interest from players, inspiring discussions and memes on social media from 2018 to 2022. Many of the initial memes about the game referenced existing memes relating to other Bethesda games and the company itself (examples shown below).

The game being exclusive to Xbox consoles and Windows PCs also inspired memes mocking PlayStation players. Todd Howard's promise that the game will have over 1,000 explorable planets also spawned memes doubting the ambition of the claim. Some similarities in the base premise of Starfield and the 2016 game No Man's Sky, namely the large number of explorable planets, led to the games being compared in memes (examples seen below).

The release of the Starfield Direct presentation in June 2023 was followed by viral reactions online. Most notably, the presence of the character Adoring Fan, also present in the 2006 Bethesda game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and a recognized meme, became a subject of viral posts on Twitter and other social media (examples shown below).

Early Release

Upon the early release of the game, multiple posts about it went viral on social media, including X, Reddit and other sites. Early reactions primarily included users reacting to the critic reviews of the game (example shown below, left), it's player count (shown below, center) and various bugs found in the game (shown below, right).

Full Release

Following the full release of the game on September 5th, Starfield became a viral subject of discussions in video game communities online, with the popular topics of discussion including the game's performance, bugs, gameplay and writing. On social media, the game has been compared against Baldur's Gate 3, a universally acclaimed RPG game released one month prior.

The Menu Controversy":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/starfield-menu-controversy_ refers to online criticism aimed at the minimalist design of the leaked main menu screen for Starfield, which some people saw as a sign of rushed development, poor working conditions and lazy game design. The menu screen leaked online on August 17th and sparked criticism over the following days, also inspiring people to come to the game's defense and create parody redesigns of the menu screen that strip it of its minimalism.

"Invisible Walls" Controversy

The ""Invisible Walls" Controversy":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/starfield-invisible-walls-controversy/edit, refers to a viral debate and backlash about a supposed discovery that Starfield employed invisible boundaries blocking players from exploring a fully open world. While the veracity of the information is not confirmed and stems from a leak, some players took this as a sign that Bethesda had lied to players about the game being fully open-world and voiced their anger with the perceived sleight.

Pronoun Options Controversy

Pronoun Options Controversy is a gaming controversy stemming from various streamers, YouTubers and social media users protesting against Starfield. In early September 2023 just before release, YouTuber HeelVsBabyface posted a video raging against the option to choose your character's pronouns in the game, while streamer Dr DisRespect commented on the head of publishing for Bethesda having pronouns in their social media bio. YouTuber NinaInfinity also notably complained about the option given to choose one's pronouns, saying that they considered returning their game.