Starfield IGN India First Impressions: Overwhelming Yet Mesmerizing

Editor’s Note: e-xpress provided IGN India with a copy of Starfield Premium Edition for Early Access on behalf of Bethesda Softworks.

Starfield, one of the most awaited games of the year that every RPG fan has long been waiting for is finally here. Eager fans with access have already geared up with Starfield-inspired accessories to get the full experience of the game. For the early impressions of the game, I played the title on PC and managed to get in around 9 hours of gameplay.

The initial 9 hours playing Starfield were really something as I have never felt such an extent of freedom in any other game. As with the primary promise of the game, where you can fly off to any planet you want and follow the story or journey the way you want it to go.

While a lot has already been said and debated about this freedom and the technical aspects of the game, I think the technicalities of how Bethesda offers you this freedom should not be the focus of the game. I know that I have not even scratched the surface of the main questline, but I still want to share my initial thoughts about the game.

If you are still making up your mind to purchase (either the Xbox Game Pass subscription or the title) Starfield to get started with your cosmic journey, here are my initial thoughts.

Starfield Early Hours

The game starts off in an underground mineral mine where you have just started work to make a living. Your boss asks you to complete a task and you end up experiencing something supernatural during this task. Due to this experience, you are picked up by “The Constellation”, a team of space explorers to unravel this mystery. This journey leads you down the part of a space explorer. While all this commotion takes place, the game also provides you with a basic understanding of how the movement and combat systems work in Starfield.

From the very start, there are a whole bunch of dialogues and conversations you can make with your boss Lin or Constellation member Barret, but none of those conversations will affect your path. In the beginning, the game feels like a massive mystery as there are too many gaps to fill and information to learn.

During this stage, Game feels very confusing, the hints and tutorials could have been more informative, and the tools and inventory system could have been much simpler. Many players would need proper guides for the game to have an enjoyable experience or they would just feel lost.

Starfield’s Graphics and Performance

The graphics of the game are not what you would expect from a title that came out in 2023. Moreover, I faced a lot of small glitches and bugs while playing the game on my PC with AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (8 Cores, 16 Threads) and AMD Radeon RX 6700XT (12GB VRAM). Hopefully, they will be patched soon. These bugs include the player glitching or disappearing when encountering corners or NPCs.

Whenever I was sprinting the player character weirdly always kept looking towards the left. Furthermore, the framerate drops are noticeable when you change the graphics preset to high and even more significant when set on ultra. The game also crashed for me once during this playthrough. Though, it is interesting to note that another member in my team did not face as many bugs, frame drops and any crashes on their PC with AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16 Cores, 32 Threads) CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU (12GB VRAM).

There are no options to customise your framerate or display resolution in the game either. Depending on the setting, different game elements have 3 to 4 quality levels including Low, Medium, High and Ultra. Overall, the game has 5 different graphics presets including Low, Medium, High, Ultra, and Custom.

Starfield will Overwhelm New Players

The game is complicated and not everyone’s cup of tea. It is extremely easy to stray away from the main objective and invest hours in the various activities, side quests and other things you can do in this universe. This does add to the charm of the game and is very Bethesda-like.

However, players who haven’t played titles such as Fallout or Skyrim beforehand will have a tough time figuring out how everything works. One needs to understand that they really must sink their teeth in to love this game because it is that engrossing. This including a lot to do including collecting items, crafting resources, building outposts, and upgrading weapons.

Bethesda has provided players with a diverse customisation system that helps you modify weapons, dismantle, and assemble spaceships and create full-fledged outposts to your choosing.

Regardless of all the things to do, the scale of the game is mesmerising. It is surprising to see how so many vast planets and star systems are fit in this game, most with their distinct gravitational pulls, flora and fauna, NPCs, weather and so much more.

Staring at the vastness of space really makes you feel how much there is left to uncover in this undeniably vast universe. Early hours of the game will have you jumping from one planet to another, either by doing a grav jump or fast travelling to the location, which also provides you with a basic understanding of how travelling in space works and how planets can vary from each other. Some can have very slight differences, and others are worlds apart, literally.

Furthermore, nothing is locked in the game, right from the get-go if you have the guts and willingness to do something, then you are free to do it. Like if you want to explore a completely unchartered star system and take on a pirate HQ without the proper resources or learning the ropes of the game, you can do that.

Considering the slow pace of the game, you will be fully ready and inching for action to take down a gang of bandits. However, you also need to brace for the eventual slowness weather it is the conversations with NPCs or your walking speed.

Exploration Takes Center Focus

As I said, it is very easy to stray away from the objective and in my playthrough, before doing anything major in the main story, I had already applied for 3 jobs, become a news source, helped people get jobs at a mining facility and earned a bunch of money from multiple favours.

The “Missions” tab is helpful in directing you to your objective, as when you select a mission, you get a direct waypoint to your destination. But, the mission tab gets filled in no time, as you keep on getting new quests every step of the way. Also, I had done barely any main missions in the first few hours but already felt that I was spreading my roots in every direction.

Another thing is that Starfield does not automatically highlight the loot, items, and resources for you. Luckily, the trusty scanner highlights all of them so that you do not miss anything important. But, without constantly switching between the scanner and the regular view, it will be easy to miss important loot and resources.

As highlighted above, the game gives you freedom in exploration but not in the way you were expecting. Yes, you can fly the spaceship in space, either manually or through fast travel. But fast travel is necessary as it is a form of invisible loading screen to load your destination. Even while walking, you cannot keep on walking all over the planet. Luckily, you are allowed to land anywhere on the planet to explore that specific area. Again, as noted above, this is a minor aspect, likely rooted in technical creation of Starfield.

Coming to the main story and side quests, I haven’t had much time playing the main story, but from what I have seen, there are some interesting things to come. You have become a member of The Constellation and are investigating an artefact with unknown origins along with a pack of enthusiastic explorers.

That is all we know for now. But what adds to the game is the writing. Even though the NPCs might appear bland with their uninspired character models, the writing is supreme which will keep you interested in conversations all the way.

More Starfield to Come

There is so much to explore in the Starfield and that is why this is not a full review. Regardless, the early hours of the game paint a very promising picture if you like these types of games. If you are new to these kinds of titles, then it can feel a bit overwhelming.

We at IGN India have just embarked on this journey through the starfield. Stay tuned for our full review as we explore the deepest and darkest corners of Starfield.