Starfield’s Missed GOTY Nomination Proves It’s Not Skyrim In Space

Although Starfield is an ambitious game with an impressive sense of scale, its missing nomination for Game of the Year at The Game Awards for 2023 shows that Bethesda’s open-world formula might not be improving enough to keep up with the competition. A highly anticipated new IP from Bethesda, Starfield takes the open-world RPG gameplay of the studio’s previous games, like Skyrim and Fallout 4, and adapts it to a new, space-faring setting. However, while games like Skyrim were influential at the time they came out, Starfield has seemingly failed to make as much of an impact on the industry as its predecessors.

Despite being one of 2023’s most anticipated releases, Starfield has failed to make the list of nominees for the most prominent gaming award show of the year, TGA 2023, with other games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, and Resident Evil 4 making the cut instead. In fact, out of every category, Starfield only appears as a nominee in “Best RPG,” where it faces off against Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XVI, Lies of P, and Sea of Stars. And while the various releases of 2023 make for strong competition, failing almost entirely to be nominated for any award might indicate that Starfield can’t quite recreate the impact of past Bethesda RPGs.

Starfield Can’t Replicate The Critical Reception Of Skyrim

On paper, Starfield has the makings of a GOTY nominee – the game has the same immense scale as previous RPGs from the same studio, with a matching number of quests, locales, factions, and characters to fill out its massive world. However, in many ways, the game also hasn’t advanced enough past the formula set by Skyrim all the way back in 2011 – and besides the fact that a smaller Starfield could have been a better game, other games have caught up to, and even started to outpace Bethesda RPGs in exploration, storytelling, and gameplay.

Starfield’s Gameplay Hasn’t Improved Enough From Past Bethesda Games

Although Starfield largely follows the same formula as games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, it hasn’t been able to replicate the same impact – and, in some areas, can even be said to have regressed from Bethesda’s past work. While the game’s scale is ambitious, its gameplay, only slightly improved from the traversal and combat systems of Skyrim, has started to show its age, especially in comparison to open world games that have more refined and compelling gameplay loops, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Tears of the Kingdom. The moment-to-moment gameplay of Starfield hasn’t advanced enough from previous games, making it potentially tedious to actually play at many points.

Additionally, the game’s scale, while impressive, can be a problem on its own – despite the thousands of explorable planets in Starfield, the game holds only four major cities, and most of the other areas that can be visited are indistinct from one another. In many cases, even, touching down on a planet to explore creates a randomly generated map, so the game’s massive scale ends up feeling somewhat fake, as the same bandit hideouts or abandoned buildings can be present even on planets that should in theory be vastly different to explore.

Quest design and roleplaying is another shortcoming of Starfield, as although the game does have a huge number of quests, in many cases, player choice doesn’t affect the outcome as much as it arguably should in an RPG, with the majority of quest-related decisions only slightly affecting the story outcome, or whichever minor rewards the player might gain. In many quests, seemingly different decisions will lead to similar outcomes anyway. These factors combine to make up a game that has a lot of varied content, but none that particularly stands out among its competitors.

Starfield Doesn’t Stand Out Against Other Games From 2023

It’s important to note, however, that in a year with a less stacked release schedule, Starfield would still stand a good chance of being nominated. Much of the game’s failure to make the nominee list is due not only to its own shortcomings but also the standout features of the other games released in 2023. Where Starfield can’t be said to stand out in any specific areas except maybe for sheer size and the ship-building mechanics, games like Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Alan Wake 2 have areas where they particularly shine, gaining them more attention.

Tears of the Kingdom, for example, outdoes Starfield in the interactivity of its open world – despite reusing much of the same map from Breath of the Wild, TOTK‘s Ultrahand mechanics and cohesive world physics combine to form a game where creativity and exploration are encouraged and well-rewarded, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the notoriously low-powered Switch. Traversal in the open world of TOTK, getting from one location to the other, is a major part of the game’s design and appeal in a way that Starfield can’t quite match, with its heavy focus on fast-travel and rudimentary on-foot movement.

In a similar vein, despite being a very different experience from Starfield at its core, Baldur’s Gate 3 stands out in key areas. In comparison to the relatively similar outcomes and locales of Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a particular emphasis on reacting to player choices in a way that makes the story and quest outcomes feel more dynamic and distinct. As an RPG, BG3 allows for much more detailed character-building and roleplay – while it might not match Starfield in other areas, its focus on reactivity and player choice makes the game stand out comparatively.

Despite improvements to the open-world formula that Bethesda games follow, a new setting, and new gameplay features like ship-building, Starfield can’t quite replicate the impact that Skyrim had in 2011 – in part because the game hasn’t evolved or improved enough from Skyrim. Whereas other games have advanced forward, the Bethesda formula has, seemingly, become stagnant, with even the lengthy development of Starfield not being enough to truly make the game stand out, either from Bethesda’s past successes or the other highly-rated releases of 2023. While it might’ve been a contender in other years, Starfield can’t quite hold up to the best of the best.