Starfield has one small immersion-breaking detail in the first few hours of the game. With the dust finally beginning to settle from Starfield’s hugely successful launch, the rose-tinted glasses are wearing off, and players are finding more and more inconsistencies and issues with the game. The big problems were the first to be noticed, like an over-reliance on fast travel that negatively affected exploration. Now, the tiny errors are getting more of the spotlight, revealing how much a minor detail can impact player experience.
It must be stated that Starfield is still an anomaly among Bethesda titles. It launched with relatively few bugs and an impressive level of polish. However, there are some tiny cracks in the finish that end up affecting the feel and immersion of Starfield’s massive world. One of these can be found pretty early in the game, though it may take players quite a while to realize just how odd it is: the New Atlantis Transit system, or the NAT.
Starfield’s NAT System Is Weird
The NAT system in Starfield is pretty weird upon closer inspection. Players ride the train car early in the game to reach the Lodge for the first time, and it’s easy to be so enamored by the grandeur of New Atlantis to miss the peculiarities of the NAT. The train is inexplicably always at the location closest to the player, seemingly waiting for them to board. It would make much more sense if players had to wait even just a few seconds for it to pull into the station, as it would give the impression that the city’s residents use it.
However, no one else in New Atlantis ever uses the NAT. Seeing a few other citizens on the train would go a long way to adding immersion value to what is supposed to be the biggest city that Bethesda has ever created. The city is undoubtedly massive, but details like this make it feel infinitely smaller than it should.
Bethesda Might Need To Try Something New After Starfield
The most unfortunate thing about this issue and the rest of the problems with Starfield is that it shows Bethesda may be due for a change of approach. Admittedly, Starfield’s NAT system oddness doesn’t entirely break the game, but it is another small piece of evidence showing the downside of forced fast travel. The studio altered the course of open-world games with Skyrim, featuring a breathtaking sense of exploration and immersion, but it feels like Bethesda took the wrong conclusions and applied them to Starfield, making the game feel somewhat outdated.
So many RPGs are available now that excel in the areas that Starfield is lacking. Cyberpunk 2077‘s Phantom Liberty expansion was released just a few weeks after Starfield, and those who played both may have picked up on a stark contrast in the experiences. The comparison may be a bit unfair since each game undoubtedly has different goals, but there is no denying that modern RPGs have a set of expectations that Starfield doesn’t seem too concerned with, which is to the game’s detriment.
Starfield
- Platform(s):
- PC, Xbox Series X/S
- Released:
- 2023-09-06
- Developer(s):
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s):
- Bethesda Softworks
- Genre(s):
- Open-World, RPG, Sci-Fi
- ESRB:
- M
- Summary:
- Bethesda Game Studios presents Starfield – the first original IP from the studio in twenty-five-plus years. Set in the year 2310, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective are observing a shaky truce after a war set 20 years prior. The player will customize their character as a member of a space exploration team called Constellation while navigating The Settled Systems and the conflicts between the warring factions. According to Bethesda, players can explore over 100 systems and 1000 planets to find resources and build their ships, living out their own sci-fi journeys.
