Starfield Doesn’t Let You Fly Seamlessly from Space to Planet: ‘That’s Just Not that Important’

People might be making No Man's Sky comparisons, but here's a big difference.

[Christopher]

I mean, it is what it is, but let's not act like there aren't Indie developers with way less funding who have done it and have very similar gameplay elements in those arenas. Perhaps the issue is loading in heavy NPC/script-heavy type regions and faction elements on the fly versus doing it from a loading screen?

No biggie, but surprised.

[porkChop]

Yeah he mentions the engineering involved not being worth it for something a lot of players probably don't care about. I guess it makes sense. It would have been cool to me, but I could see a lot of players preferring to use fast travel or auto landing anyway.

[porkChop]

What do you mean? You can space travel. You just can't fly from space directly into atmosphere and land on your own. Landing on planets will be a cutscene. You can still travel through space though.

[senorfartcushion]

It was impressive when it was shown during the No Man’s Sky debut but after actually playing the concept, it gets old pretty fast.

[RaiderNation]

I certainly care about it. Taking off and landing from planet to planet is one of my favorite things to do in No Man's Sky. It's so satisfying, feeling the shaking and rumbling of the Dualsense as a planet's atmosphere grabs you as you're hurling towards it's surface!

[dumahim]

Right. If I'm playing and I'm going from planet to planet a lot, do I really want to take the time to fly myself to orbit every time? It's not like launching your ship into orbit is going to be an awe inspiring event like a shuttle launch or something. Even then, it'd get old after a while. I mean, the public was pretty bored with launches by the time of Apollo 13.

[Adrian_v01]

If planets have varying gravities it would have been cool. Like in elite dangerous where landing on a high g planet is a feat not everyone can acomplish. If all planets are the same I guess it doesn't matter

[DigitallyAfflicted]

That could mean that you can not do low level flight over the the plant surface, shame if true. But we all have to wait to see...

[BLow]

You mean like when Rare decided not to render the actual body of the Kraken because it would be a waste of resources on a game that take place on the water lol. So they thought no one would jump in the water to explore so why waste the resource right?. Is it needed? No. But at the end of the day, it just shows how much passion and attention to detail your developers have and the love for their work to put out a quality product. Yes we can have pretty games but it's the attention to the little details that put them over the top. You may not care but there are plenty of gamers that do and I'm not going to sit here and make accuses for this company when a much small developer has done it.

Don't get me started on how the game looked, ran, and was missing basic details like footprints that robot didn't made when exiting the ship. No dust whatsoever from the footsteps. Nothing. That entire "demo" was heavily scripted and cut up. You can tell from the position of some objects, enemies, and even looking at the bullet count on his gun at times. Bullet trails not lining up to where he was firing. It was pretty clever but I bet most of you won't go back and really pay attention and will just let this slide on this 12 tflop console.

No disagree for me as you're entitled to your opinion. Happy gaming

[porkChop]

@BLow
1) I tried to make it clear I would have preferred the option. I do think it would have been better to have auto landing in addition to letting players land themselves.

2) Not modelling the kraken's body really isn't comparable to the engineering and asset streaming needed for orbit-to-surface landing and vice versa. The kraken could have been modelled easily, just like the megalodons were. That was a really dumb decision on Rare's part.

[Jin_Sakai]

It’s more time consuming than anything. It’s nice but I’m fine without it.

[Christopher]

No Man's Sky was developed by a small team over 3 years and had ongoing development by the same small team since then. That's since 2016.

Starfield started development in 2015.

I 100% get this decision, but let's not sweep it under the rug as if they aren't one of the development studios who could do it. We should expect more from studios like Bethesda, not less. Bethesda 100% could do fast travel and planet landing, they just designed around not doing it.

[SyntheticForm]

I agree with both you and Christopher. I guess I'm just old and not bothered as much, though I totally understand those who want and expect more.

I see that the gameplay looks as stiff as Fallout 4, which kind of sucks, but I'm still down for an open-world Bethesda adventure, and it looks interesting and engaging enough.

[garos82]

get the hell out of here with that damage control. the whole point of space exploration is the ability to get in a ship and fly around and "consume time" staring at the cosmos and deciding where to go next. No man sky had many problems but the flying around aimlessly was easily one of the best part

[RosweeSon]

Time consuming, they not doing it for charity they get paid.

[Jin_Sakai]

“but let's not sweep it under the rug as if they aren't one of the development studios who could do it.“

Of course they could do it. It’s just that they chose not to.

[MontyeKristo]

Christopher: Does he not mean more time consuming to actually fly into orbit to land? I don't know, that's how I read it. I don't think it's a huge deal, nor a huge loss. Cool effects, perhaps, but I'm not totally disappointed.

[Jin_Sakai]

@MontyeKristo

“Christopher: Does he not mean more time consuming to actually fly into orbit to land? I don't know, that's how I read it. I don't think it's a huge deal, nor a huge loss. Cool effects, perhaps, but I'm not totally disappointed.“

This is exactly what I was saying. It’s cool flying into orbit and landing on a planet but after you do it many times over it becomes pretty time consuming and I’d be fine without it.

[lelo2play]

People started complaining that Starfield played like No Man's Sky.
Now people are complaining that Starfield doesn't play like No Man's Sky.

Gamers really are whiny jerks.

[Extermin8or3_]

I mean having watched the gameplay it definitely plays like bo man's sky just apparently with les gameplay options.

[RedDevils]

You poor man No Man Sky? Interesting.

[Christopher]

I don't think most are upset it is more like No Man's Sky so much as what their games are known for wasn't shown off and leaves people wondering if this is more No Man's Sky than RPG.

[SullysCigar]

From what we've seen or been told so far, No Man's Sky is far more in depth from a gameplay standpoint and is indisputably a bigger game.

Even the interaction and personality in Starfield will be stifled by the fact there's no voicing for your character.

I'm glad it's been pushed back. It might give them a chance to reflect on the feedback and hopefully make the game we actually expected.

[garos82]

what are you on about? You happy with a space exploration without the flying to space element?

Gamers are entitled to whine about whatever the hell displeases them, as they are spending their hard earn cash on this products

[kikicub]

It is called "need rage" and it's hilarious

[brewin]

For real. I'm so glad it isn't a clone of NMS. It's a massive Bethesda RPG with some planet hopping. It's more about the planets and the story than just traveling in space aimlessly fitting between planets with boring random content. I'll take crafted moment's and story over randomly generated stuff any day.

[Profchaos]

Yeah given the targets next generation consoles and PC's it's not far-fetched to utilise ssd in your hardware targets.

However starfeild being the last creation engine game before they switch to a new engine for es6 possibly doesn't support rapid asset loading.

So maybe this is more of a pr spin on a it would have been nice but our engine is held together by duct tape and dreams so we can't

[alb1899]

It doesn't matter who did it. It is just a decision made because they want the focus on other things...plus...is not the same graphical ditails and art to be compare with NMS.

[FPS_D3TH]

Yeah I think it’s more to do with where they want to focus their time. Do we want to actually play Starfield how they’d imagine it or do we want some 10 year development time never to be finished Star Citizen? It really doesn’t matter other than perhaps full piloting immersion. Managed just fine not having it in Freelancer and that games still incredible to this day.

[Atom666]

It's time consuming for players. We'd all mess around with it a few times, then revert back to fast travel. BGS knows this. We know this.

So yeah, no surprise.

[brewin]

It's just shows that this is not No Man's Sky, but a real full Bethesda RPG with some elements of NMS. I'm liking what I'm hearing about it. I think it looks great and I'm happy theyre not changing everything about their games just to follow trends. I'd much rather have a fully crafted story than a straight up randomly generated game. I was not a fan of NMS, very boring totally random game. This is classic Bethesda in space with some space combat and planet hopping. I'm actually more hyped now knowing it's not all randomly generated content.

[thorstein]

I think it is a biggie. One of the things with NMS is the ability to quickly get up to orbit and pulse to the other side of a planet. If every landing and take off is a loading screen, how will the game know where on the planet I am aiming for? It's a legitimate question.

Perhaps I have base far from whatever city exists on a planet... how can I quickly go there. Or I see an ocean or an island etc...?

[CaptainHenry916]

Indie developers? I'm thinking about the No Man Sky developers 😃

[mostarr]

Empyrion comes to mind. Quite suprised too.

[fr0sty]

If they'd only put a faster SSD in...

[badz149]

I thought this was already clearly shown during the reveal...? Space and planets will be 2 different levels from what has been shown. believe me, If they have nailed the NMS style transition from space to the planets and vice versa, they would have shown it!

[XiNatsuDragnel]

That sucks to be real with you in my opinion

[Shane Kim]

It's not the end of the world, but I think it should be implemented more. Really cool to fly from planet to planet in real time as no mans sky.

[Snookies12]

Makes game about space. Actually flying to planets isn't important. What??

I was on board until hearing this bit of info. That's really going to take away from immersion, if that's the case. No Man's Sky has infinitely more planets than Starfield, and somehow manages to pull it off... Why can't these long-time industry veterans figure it out?

[RaidenBlack]

No Man's Sky doesn't have the near interactivity and density as Starfield.
No Man's Sky is absolutely by no means a story game. There are few mission routes like Artemis and that's it.
100% optional and very simple and no voice acting.
The comparison you can make here is with Star Citizen, which tries to do everything the authentic, immersive way and you can very well see how ambitious that project's turning out to be ... not even finished yet.

[Extermin8or3_]

You arr kidding yourself if you think starfield will have more than a couple of locations on a handful of planets eith the density and story focus you refer to.

[EvertonFC]

You clearly haven't played NMS

[RaidenBlack]

@Evertonian,
so you've played NMS more and are stating the mission routes are more pivotal?

[garos82]

and you know this how? have you seen no man sky lately? it has a hell of a lot of interactivity and pretty dense for a procedurally generated game.

[senorfartcushion]

You’re not understanding the quote

[gamer9]

Heard of Destiny? You point and click a planet and you get a flying cutscene lol.

Does no mans sky have more handcrafted areas than any previous Bethesda game, and 200,000 lines of dialogue? Starfield does. You're comparing apples to oranges.

[nmbr1esq]

Totally fine with this, just hope there's other ways to traverse the planets after you land, besides walking/sprinting/boost. Like a speeder or crawler or smaller aircraft. Because if you're not controlling your ship and picking the local on the planet you want to land at, then it could take a ridiculous amount of time to explore even a small to mid size planet making exploration tedious, IMHO. Prior to Todd stating this I had presumed you could control/fly the ship above the surface of the planet in the planet's atmosphere and pick a spot to land. This does not appear to be the case unfortunately.

[Extermin8or3_]

He literally said "you can land anywhere on the planet" so I think you can't fly between planers but you can descend from orbit?

[Deathdeliverer]

I think what he means is you’ll see a globe and click on where you want to land. Then your character and ship will just load there with a nice looking landing sequence to look at.

[Eonjay]

Maybe as you approach the planet it has a loading screen and then you are flying above the planet surface and can descend from the sky?

[VenomCarnage89]

Every suggestion here sounds like pure crap compared to the obviously best option: no cutscenes for stupid crap like this, just let us control the landings and takeoffs so it's seamless

[got_dam]

Makes me wonder what limitations the old cobbled together engine imposed on the design of this game.

[porkChop]

I mean it's hard to know how much of Gamebryo is even left at this point. They completely overhauled GameBryo to create the Creation Engine for Skyrim, and continually updated it with each new game. And Bethesda again completely reworked it to make the Creation Engine 2 so Starfield could take full advantage of new graphics tech, SSDs, new consoles, etc.

It's like the COD engine. It was technically built on id Tech 3 from '99. But hardly any id Tech 3 code was even left before they Switched to IW's new in-house engine for MW 2019.

[Kaze88]

Let's not kid ourselves that making an overhaul to an engine always means new and better. Every engine and overhaul is different than the other. They have never made the best looking or bug free game in their life, specially the ones made on creation engine has always been jank and buggy. At this point I do not even expect it really taking full advantage of the new consoles, specially after seeing the gameplay they showed. Why you ask, well it was an ok looking game, but we have seen better even currently on open world games. Loads of dropped frames, npc's walking with their heads turned 180 degrees looking backwards, enemies freezing mid air after being shot. All this on well controlled and edited compilation of gameplay, still they could not hide the bugs. Skyrim was a good game at its time, but currently without modding, fan made graphic upgrades and fan made patches...that game would have died ages ago.

[porkChop]

"Every engine and overhaul is different than the other. They have never made the best looking or bug free game in their life"

At no point did I say the game would be free of bugs, nor did I say it would have the best visuals. I said it's hard to know how much of Gamebryo is left. It's also hard to know how much has changed from Creation Engine 1 to 2. And that's true considering Starfield is the first game using Creation Engine 2. It could be largely the same engine. It could have all the same limitations, or maybe some of those limitations are gone.

[Zodiac]

It would be fun the first 5 times you fly. Whether or not it “should” be there to be in line with the type of game it is or that some other studio did it doesn’t matter. They made a value decision.

[Eonjay]

Im pretty sure a seamless transition would add immersion and therefore value.
.

[senorfartcushion]

Loading times are quicker on new consoles, so it probably won’t break immersion.

[SullysCigar]

^ then it should be able to load the planet as you depend in real time, no?

You know, like No Man's Sky managed about 5 years ago on a 1.7tb PS4 with an HDD?

Or how about Megaton Rainfall, a game that can do that very same thing, with the very same hardware constraints IN VR?

However they compromise with space to planet (and back) traversal in Starfield, it WILL break immersion. Whether that's a black screen and a spinning wheel - even if only a few seconds - or a menu screen to select planet/location, in can't fail to break immersion compared to real time control, like in No Man's Sky.

That sucks, given the hardware, people, money and time at their disposal.

[gold_drake]

"thats just not that important"

a where u can visit 1k of planets and seemless traveling aint important?
mkay lol.

[MrBaskerville]

Cool, that might mean that everything is handcrafted, now i'm very excited!

[MrBaskerville]

From the downvotes i take it that people desire endless worlds of random generated content? Think about it, would you enjoy Skyrim if it had the worlds from No man's sky with endless amounts of samey nothingness?

Only really works in NMS because it'n entirely different type of game.

[garos82]

at least i can fly in no mans sky

[SullysCigar]

You can't seriously believe each of the claimed 1,000 planets has been painstakingly handcrafted to the degree Skyrim was? Of course there is procedural generation!

Did you see the gameplay?

[MrBaskerville]

@Sullyscigar
Then why limit your abilites to land? It must mean that each planet consists of small explorable zones, no?

One planet could be the size og a dungeon, another the size og a city and a third the size of a bigger area. How many cities and dungeons are there in Skyrim?

[MrBaskerville]

Also don't see how it would work if you could explore ecery square inch of every planet and yet only land in one spot. Are you just gonna walk to the opposite side of the planet each time? Seems quite obvious that you can't explore the entire planet, and frankly, I think that's a good thing.

[garos82]

i seriously doubt there are" over 1000 planets" handcrafted

[BrainSyphoned]

Start cutting the corners.
Yesterday everyone was trying to defend the silent protagonist.
Today we get cheap space travel
Wonder what tomorrow will bring and the excuses we get to hear.

At least Star Citizen strives for gameplay elements, fake or not.

[porkChop]

How is a silent protagonist cutting corners? Fallout 4 had voice acting for the main character and people complained about it. Bethesda listened to their audience. There are certainly reasons to criticize the game and Bethesda, like this planet landing stuff. But it's as if you guys are just looking for any possible reason to start bitching.

And then you bring up the biggest scam in gaming. Star Citizen strives to siphon money from the pockets of the gullible. The devs are constantly pushing everything on the roadmap back while announcing new ships and more features to get people coughing up more cash. It's less of a game and more of a scheme.

[JeffGUNZ]

I agree with you. I feel like a lot of people are looking for any reason to hate on this game and sadly I think it is because it isn't coming to Sony. I love anything space related, so this is day one PC for me. If you wanna complain about something, that's fine, but at least make sure it is really something of importance. I am sure if they added this feature, I would enjoy it a handful of times but then auto land or if that is not possible, get frustrated having to do it time and time again. This is a RPG, not a space sim. The thing I am concerned about is the frame rate. It did not look good in that gameplay reveal and I am very surprised they played that with it in that state. I am hoping that is part of the reason this game was ultimately delayed to optimize it, but that should be the concern for a lot of people.

I have played no mans sky. Its a good game, but lets not pretend it has to level of character development, story telling, and world building this game is going to have.

[crazyCoconuts]

Agreed we shouldn't compare anything to star citizen lol. And if you compare Starfield to NMS, Starfield is going to come up short. I'm really hoping Starfield focuses on a story heavy space RPG like mass effect vs. trying to beat NMS at it's own game

[Saaleh]

This wouldn't be an issue if they were investing their time on the i/o and ssd tech.

[EvertonFC]

"People have asked, ‘Can you fly the ship straight down to the planet?’ No. We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you’re in space it’s another reality."

Can't pretend I'm NOT hugely disappointed tbh.

[Eonjay]

Another...reality?
Can't even blame Microsoft for this.
Todd has to own this. This is his passion project.

[LoveSpuds]

As someone who put a thousand hours+ into Elite Frontier, I can categorically say that landing on planets manually never got old as far as emersion goes. Personally, I think this is quite a disappointing development.

[EvertonFC]

Did the same with elite, so satisfying

[Bathyj]

Saying not worth it is pure damage control.
It's totally something most people would love to do.
I can't remember a Microsoft show where Uncle Phil didn't say more immersive world's. Leaving this out seem pretty immersion breaking to me.

SO space and the surface are separate realities? I take it if you can't land on a planet that means you can't take off from one either? That's not worth it? Surely taking of and flying into space is the first thing most gamers would want to do.

So basically space and planets are separate levels and they need to be separated by something like what, an elevator ride to hide loading?

[Deathdeliverer]

Yep. That takeoff/landing sequence is when the loading happens.

[generic-user-name]

Honestly the biggest wow moment for me in NMS was going up into space from one planet and landing on another, seamlessly. It's a shame it won't be there; not a deal breaker however.

[Deathdeliverer]

Mark it if you want, but I’m telling you what’s going to happen.
1) Anything main quest related will send you to caves, planets, and areas of planets that will be hand crafted with scripted moments like any other game. Sid quest missions will be hand crafted too for major side quest with a storyline or Getting some kind of hard to get part. Stuff like that.
2) EVERYTHING ELSE will be randomly generated wastelands with random encounters, random loot (rarity drop % might be based on how far from the main areas you are)
3) the planets will have a “theme pack” to be built from to make them seem unique… until you hit planet 45 that uses the same pack or combination of packs. “Oh… this is machine planet mixed with industrial planet…. It’s similar to robot planet…. But the mix with vegetation planet really set it apart…

This game is going to be mid at BEST. Disappointing as hell is where I have my money though. Bring on Elderscrolls and Fallout. Put this back in the oven. Once it comes out and it’s bad, it’s bad forever.

If this is all they could do in all that time Scam Citizen looks justified as hell…. Can’t believe it but this game just might justify and force us to to put respect on its name. Didn’t think that was possible. I mean… go back and look at some of the things that are possible in it. Geez…

[Stanjara]

You forgot that there will be at least 30% planets where you can't land. Atmosfere too thick, temp +700 degrees, gas giant, water planet etc.

Uff make that +40%

[gamer9]

And? 600 planets isn’t enough? I’m confused what is desired here? 20 planets? 2000 planets? Or do you just want clarification on how many planets will have handcrafted content? Is 15 planets with handcrafted content okay? Who said otherwise?

[anast]

This is spot on.

[gamer9]

Did I miss the part where Todd Howard said “1000 handcrafted planets full of things to do?”

I’d imagine the main quest is 10-15 planets. With at least the same level of handcrafted content as previous Bethesda games.

Where is this entire chat getting their info from? I’m assuming the majority of these “1000 planets” are empty, used for mining.

[Stanjara]

Oh, you are really popping off. You are a fan, day one, deluxe edition, I had no bugs, battle pass and all ...and that's fine. (Oh Gamepass I forget, even better it's gonna be free)

But not everyone is having a Tod Howard wallpaper on their phone.

[Omegasyde]

Look at what Todd Howard stated hyping Fallout 76 a few years prior.

History might be repeating itself.

[gamer9]

Stanjara it was a genuine question see my comment above. What is a good number of handcrafted content planets you are looking for? And then how do you know we aren’t getting that? We simply don’t have a clue how many of those 1000 planets are empty or full. Wasn’t fanboying at all I was asking where this chat is getting their info from because there’s quite a bit of jumping to conclusions going on.

I personally feel it was stupid to say “1000 planets”. But I’ll wait to see how that breaks down

[Futureshark]

So if it's a cutscene when you pick landing co-ordinates on a planet, I'm assuming then that you won't be able to fly around the planet in your ship at all?
So if I want to see the other side of the planet, click 'take-off' (cut scene) go to planet map, pick co-ordinate on other side of planet and click 'land' (cut scene).

Sounds a bit old school to me, not sort of gameplay I'd expect from the new gen. I'd rather fly around the planet and see what emergent gameplay happens in between. I could be wrong though...

[anast]

I heard Bethesda will have seamless travel by next gen...

[Rimeskeem]

Is there an actual reason or are they just lazy?

Imo, gaming is meant to be immersive and the more loading screens just take away from that. Now if this was happening every once in a while I get it, but the idea there are literally 1000 planets make me think this wont be a couple dozen times or less.

[Seafort]

Bethesda games are always put across as having this amazing tech with flashy graphics and stunning vista. And then you play their games...

The reason Bethesda games have a long shelf life is due to the modding community, especially on PC.

I'm looking forward to the game but their games are never what it says it's going to be on the tin. Fallout 76 for instance.

No Man's Sky was an astonishing feat of programming from a small dev company that wanted to push the boundaries regardless of the money gained.

Bethesda is a AAA company with the only aim to make as much money from their customers as possible by feeding us a fairy tale of possibilities and then we find out it was all a smoke screen.

[PhillyDillyDee]

As an elite: dangerous player, this is fine. While i dont really mind the tedious aspects of E:D like planetary approaches, its not for everyone. Skipping a 5 minute surface approach and getting to more engaging gameplay quicker makes sense for the majority of players. If people really want a spaceship sim, E:D is there for you.

[JeffGUNZ]

IDK why you are being downvoted. You nailed it. This is an RPG, not a space sim.

[RauLeCreuset]

Flying seamlessly from space to planets does not make a game a sim any more than driving seamlessly around San Andreas makes GTA a driving sim.

[JeffGUNZ]

@ Raulecreuset

That's not an accurate comparison. The entire world in GTA is that one city. What Todd said is space is one world and the planets are others. We have to see more down the road to know how immersive flying around in space is and how much freedom/exploration of each planet. Is there ways to traverse the planets other then walking. Can I drive or fly around the planet once transitioned from space to planetside (via cutscene I'd imagine). They weighed transitioning from one world aspect of space to the other being a planet as a playable feature or a loading instance. Their stance is it wasn't worth the sacrifice to what they want to achieve vs. the time to engineer that transition as a playable experience.

We will know if this was a good call or not when the game is finally released. I am indifferent on the matter myself, It would be a cool feature but depending on how long the landing phase would take I could see myself being bored if I was doing it a lot. I kinda look at this game as the way Mass Effect was. You didn't traverse from space to planet manually and it didn't ruin or impact the game negatively for me. Since this is heavily based RPG I don't think it will ruin that experience for a lot of people. If this were a true space exploration sim, then this would be crazy not to add something like that.

AT this point, just hope they fix the damn frames per second, because it looked rough in some spots.

[PhillyDillyDee]

Who knows lol. Fortunately i dont base my self-worth off of how many upvotes i get on this site.

If E:D isnt a spaceship sim, i’m not sure what the qualifications are tbh. But you know people will argue literally anything on here.

[RauLeCreuset]

@JeffGUNZ

"That's not an accurate comparison."

You missed the point of the comparison.

You seem confused about why anyone would disagree with Philly's comment. Philly implied inclusion of the omitted feature would make it a sim. It would not. That was the point of the comparison. However Todd treats space is irrelevant to the validity of the comparison.

[RauLeCreuset]

@Philly

"If E:D isnt a spaceship sim, i’m not sure what the qualifications are tbh. But you know people will argue literally anything on here."

You're the one who brought ED into it. I'm not arguing whether ED is a sim. I'm saying people could rightly disagree with your implication that Starfield would have been if it allowed seamless flight from space to planet.

I do agree with your attitude toward down votes. It's not that deep.

[JeffGUNZ]

@ Raulecreuset

I took his comment more as the fact it is not a sim makes omissions of things like this not that end of the world. I am not saying ONLY sims can have this feature, but it is less of a deal to many people because they are not expecting a sim like experience where a missing feature like this would be more appalling.

[RauLeCreuset]

@JeffGUNZ

Fair enough, but Philly did say, "If people really want a spaceship sim, E:D is there for you." Intentional or not, it's a strawman argument that dismisses criticism by jumping to the extreme example of a space sim, as if the crux of the criticism is that Starfield isn't a sim.

[anast]

They could actually make a game out of different ascent and decent conditions and such conditions do not necessarily mandate deving a sim.

[PhillyDillyDee]

Honestly not a bad idea. Basically a minigame yah?

[jznrpg]

The more you find out the less appealing this game is, it got put as the next great game without knowing anything about it

[Destiny1080]

being able to fly around is not very important, having your character voiced is not very important, having 60fps is not very important, having variety on every planet is not very important

[boing1]

That's a big part of the fantasy of flying a spaceship to a different planet IMHO.

[rlow1]

So I read the article and how are people saying you can’t fly in atmosphere? He said, space and in atmosphere are two distinct environments from one another. He doesn’t say anything about not controlling the ship in atmosphere.

In the video they showed, it clearly states you can fly your own ship.

[SullysCigar]

You can fly your own ship in space, but not to planet surface, or from surface back to space.

[rlow1]

Where is that info? From everything that they shared, I have not heard them specifically state that. Please clarify where they have said that. Mahalo

[GamingSinceForever]

With 1,000 planets that would grow stale fast so I can’t blame them.

However they felt constructing your own ship is important so why not allow you to have the full flying experience.

[anast]

They love to cut corners. The dude will sell a cardboard box with a mansion price tag.

[ikarodemon]

As a Star Citizen fan who has followed every development diary of the game since the beginning I know how expensive it is to create this kind of interaction between space and planets. Bethesda made the right decision.

[SullysCigar]

And yet Hello Games seemed to cope with a team of 5 and a shoestring budget. Weird..

[ecchiless]

dont forget their building got flooded too.... guess ppl need to protect the big companies from the evil players....

[CrimsonWing69]

I wanted to be wow’d by this game from the gameplay reveal… and it kind of looked boring. I think it’s a game that’s better to play rather than watch.

[RaiderNation]

That's too bad. Taking off and landing from planet to planet is one of my absolute favorite things to do in No Man's Sky. There's just something so satisfying about flying into a planet and having it's atmosphere "grab" you as you accelerate towards it's surface! Especially on PS5 with the way the Dualsense reacts to your ship rumbling and vibrating!

[ChasterMies]

So after you finish the story in “Starfield”, you go back to playing “No Man’s Sky”.

[Abnor_Mal]

Imagine if Flight Simulator said that take offs and landings are not that important so that part will be handled by a cut scene.

[MrChow666]

Is starfield a simulator?
It looked bland anyway, I was not impressed at all.

[frostypants]

This is pretty weak and comes off as making excuses for their development shortcomings. If this wasn't a big deal they wouldn't be trying to get ahead of it and smooth it over like this.

[Abear21]

Only one game lets you do this and we all know what game that is

[darkrider]

Cutting corners after so many yearsmaking the game

[andydalum]

I've played quite a bit of NMS and honestly this feature is probably one of the least impactful. Now if you can't fly your ship around the planet once your on it that would suck. To me the content once your actually in space is way more important and obviously the content on the planets.

Ship customization is huge to me
Colony building is huge to me (Not a huge fan of NMS building)
A actual story driven game is important

To me these games are laughable to compare. One is a online game that is just a massive sandbox and no real direction. The other is a single player story driven game that seems to be more in depth.

[attilayavuzer]

Honestly happy about this. After a couple hundred hours in NMS, takeoff/landing is one of the more tedious aspects of gameplay. Landing zones are spotty at best.

[mastershredder]

For all you touting No mans sky took 3 years. That IS absolute Buuuuullshi7! It’s been cooking way longer than that and it was not finished before release (still not really). May want to add closer to 10 years. The team is not that “. “tiny”, maybe displaced but not tiny.

[darkrider]

It's not tiny? Compared to the size of the team working on starfield? The amount of excuses is crazy. Let's not even talk of the amount of glitches found on the trailer made for the show. It's crazy. They are already on social media. Youtube got some funny with the Granades, and bullets, and enemies running,..

[DnBSkillZ]

We don’t get to complain the game is on gamepass day one we get what we pay for so i wonder when will people see gamepass for what it truly is not long till it will be full of mediocre games and the excuse will be “ but it’s on gamepass” you can’t honestly believe we will get Sony Quality games for $120 a year right?

[Orchard]

Space flight is sort of important in a game about... space exploration. Plus, there are games with much smaller teams and far less budget who have managed to implement this.

[Wrex369]

Lol do you guys know how long landing, atmosphere entry, and take off take to develop, not to mention their tech already being ancient? It was the right choice for their situation, specifically, especially given how much MORE they hand craft than not vs other space games.

[Muigi]

That’s what Star Citizen is for right.

[RosweeSon]

No I mean who cares about immersion 😑🤷🏻‍♂️ 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️

[S2Killinit]

So its like Destiny then. Which is fine, but it could have been done and it would have been great if you could see the travel even if it was warp speed options.

[TheEroica]

They are 100% correct. It is not Important.

[Wrex369]

It's really not lol

[vTuro24]

"That’s Just Not that Important"
Sure, keep believing that.

[SimpleSlave]

That’s cool and all, but can the NPCs finally go up ladders? This is all I need to know. Thanks.

[Yusi-D-Jordan]

But.. That's the fun part.

[Harryvok]

I don't think flying down from space to planet is all that important. I'd be more worried about '1000 planets' with only 4 major cities, meaning the majority of planets could be empty and pointless. Also the rumour this game only has a 30fps mode on console.

[sourOG]

That first reveal of no man’s sky blew me away. I was thoroughly impressed. Entering the atmosphere didn’t have that same effect any time after that reveal. It’s still impressive, but after seeing it once the wow factor was gone. It kinda sucks but I can agree the priority is low for me personally.

[WelkinCole]

Will see how it pans out but so far I am intersted. Don't mind another RPG that would keep me occupy for sometime.

[darkrider]

Of course it is. Very cool. That's why we see that on so many movies.

Here they are already losing to NMS. There no spin possible.