Starfield's No Man's Sky Comparison is Only Going to Become More Apt With Time

When Starfield launched last year it was often compared to No Man's Sky, and those comparisons are only going to grow stronger with time.

[VincentVanBro]

Doubt it

[Markdn]

Yep I agree, NMS wasn't awesome at the start either, but even then it provided freedom to explore and travel. Starfield is and never will be anything more than an segmented game, it's definitely not an open world exploration game. It will always be a mistake to compare these two games as they have nothing in common.

[Leeroyw]

Agreed. Only modders will make this happen. I play nms in VR and it is a completely different and amazing experience from launch.

[jznrpg]

Squares will never be planets

[phoenixwing]

The sad thing is that no man's sky is just better in terms of technical achievements. Starfield is loading zones galore and no amount of mods will fix it

[Obscure_Observer]

"The sad thing is that no man's sky is just better in terms of technical achievements."

The only "sad thing" here is you disingenuously comparing "technical achievements" for a game that has 8 years worth of a no number of patches, updates, fixes, mods, DLC and Expansions vs a 10 *months* old game.

"Starfield is loading zones galore and no amount of mods will fix it"

And yet it has more active players on STEAM than NMS, which is nothing but proof that most gamers don´t give a damn about loading screens.

[mkis007]

OO
How many devs and how many dollars did each have? Hello games is an indie studio with 35 devs at its peak 4 to start. Spent probably under 10 million to this point on NMS (conservative guess). Bethesda had 500 devs+ working on the game and spent 200 million. Did they deliver something suitably impressive ( in 2023 terms not 2011 terms)?

You are lying to yourself if you think what they have achieved is equal. Starfield needs proper space travel to be in the conversation of technically impressive. The only impressive thing continues to be the basic ES Fallout rpg script system...but even that hasn't evolved since skyrim.

It's sad you think bethesda should need any time to make a modern game with their resources. Let's see how long their support for the game lasts. Still haven't made the improvements people are asking for, too focused on their damn paid dlc instead of making the game up to today's standards.

[Leeroyw]

I just come here for the Obscure Observer seal clapping at this point.

[phoenixwing]

@obscure
I love that you go on about active users which might as well be shots fired in a game for all the statistic is worth. The truth hurt didn't it? Coping because your game is square zones when no man's sky is limitless.

[Obscure_Observer]

@mkis007

"How many devs and how many dollars did each have? Hello games is an indie studio with 35 devs at its peak 4 to start. Spent probably under 10 million to this point on NMS (conservative guess). Bethesda had 500 devs+ working on the game and spent 200 million."

What I know for a fact is that Sean Murray charged atrocious full 60 dollars for that crap of game on release which to this very day, is one if not the biggest scam in the gaming history!

"Did they deliver something suitably impressive ( in 2023 terms not 2011 terms)?"

Don´t ask me. Ask Digital Foundry.

"It's sad you think bethesda should need any time to make a modern game with their resources."

Sure thing bro. Wake me up when you have something remotely better than Bethesda´s Open World RPGs to play.

"Let's see how long their support for the game lasts."

It´s a BETHESDA game. It will certainly last for more than 98% of post launch support that ANY RPG publisher would give to a RPG game. The only one that comes to mind right now is CDPR.

Besides, Todd Howard already confirmed that he and his team will deliver annual expansions for Starfield, Shattered Space will be released this fall and a new expansion for 2025 is already in development. So mark my words and get used to see Starfield hitting the headlines for a long time.

@phoenixwing

"The truth hurt didn't it? Coping because your game is square zones when no man's sky is limitless."

The only "truth" is that there´s more players playing in "square zones" of Starfield than your "limitless zones" in NMS.

You can´t bend the truth or spin facts.

[Hofstaderman]

@obscure I didnt even bother to read your tirade of text.

[neutralgamer1992]

Obscure

NMS launch was bad to say the least but did you know their studio got flooded before launch and they lost a lot of progress. Now compare that with MS money and resources towards Bethesda and starfield. Starfield had more game testers than any other Bethesda game ever

How come we have to go through the same steps to fix games every time. Why couldn't Bethesda look at NMS situation and learn from it to make sure not to make the same mistakes. 10 million budget and a team of 15 people s 200 million and team of 500 people. You can make all the excuses you want but as someone who bought a XSX for this game and when MS bought Bethesda and the game didn't live up to any hype or expectations. People criticizing want a better game and provide feedback but you seem to think that's hate and bring up steam users. NMS at launch sucked no one can deny that but looking at the circumstances and availability of resources Bethesda made a bigger blunder especially given all the talk of new IP and new ideas.

[AndrewM]

Not when skyrim is still getting new mods, and as to another article out right now, they are canceling mod ideas like that tamriel mod, because nobody wants to play starfield.

[Zenzuu]

Let it go. It had it's chance and blew it.

[Armaggedon]

Comparison is the method of interpretation of the blind

[repsahj]

Starfield is dead, NMS is still kicking. XD

[SaltDaddy]

Exactly

[Armaggedon]

Doesnt even make sense. Its a single player game

[Sonic1881]

I enjoyed NMS a lot more than I did Starfield

[Hofstaderman]

*Sniggers*....

[IanTH]

I also doubt it. Every update that has come out for NMS to this point has been free. I think Hello Games could get away with selling expansions now, but they still aren't. Meanwhile, Starfield has Shattered Space and Todd is talking about another large expansion that is likely set for next year. If they want to give them away, that could start to make the NMS comparison more apt. But outside that, even if they keep giving small QoL improvements for free, I think it would - at least personally - be hard to put them in the same conversation.