660°

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.

Christopher717d ago

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.

porkChop717d ago

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.

717d ago
porkChop717d ago

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.

senorfartcushion717d ago

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.

RaiderNation716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

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!

dumahim716d ago

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_v01716d ago

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

DigitallyAfflicted716d ago

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...

BLow716d ago

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

porkChop716d ago

@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.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 716d ago
Jin_Sakai717d ago

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

Christopher717d ago

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.

SyntheticForm717d ago

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.

garos82717d ago

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

RosweeSon716d ago

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

Jin_Sakai716d ago

“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.

MontyeKristo716d ago

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_Sakai716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

@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.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 716d ago
lelo2play717d ago

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_717d ago

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

RedDevils717d ago

You poor man No Man Sky? Interesting.

Christopher717d ago

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.

SullysCigar716d ago

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.

garos82716d ago

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

kikicub716d ago

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

brewin716d ago

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.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 716d ago
717d ago
Profchaos717d ago

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

alb1899716d ago

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_D3TH716d ago

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.

Atom666716d ago

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.

brewin716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

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.

thorstein716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

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...?

CaptainHenry916716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

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

mostarr716d ago

Empyrion comes to mind. Quite suprised too.

fr0sty716d ago

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

badz149716d ago

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!

+ Show (11) more repliesLast reply 716d ago
XiNatsuDragnel717d ago

That sucks to be real with you in my opinion

Shane Kim717d ago

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.

Snookies12717d ago (Edited 717d ago )

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?

RaidenBlack717d ago (Edited 717d ago )

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_717d ago

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.

EvertonFC717d ago

You clearly haven't played NMS

RaidenBlack717d ago

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

garos82716d ago

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.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 716d ago
senorfartcushion717d ago

You’re not understanding the quote

gamer9716d ago

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.

nmbr1esq717d ago

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_717d ago

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?

Deathdeliverer717d ago

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.

Eonjay717d ago

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?

VenomCarnage89716d ago

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_dam717d ago

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

porkChop717d ago

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.

Kaze88717d ago

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.

porkChop717d ago

"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.

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210°

Days Gone Director Says Bend's Project Costs Over $250M; Says PS Co-CEO Doesn't Want 2 Zombies Games

Days Gone director claims Sony has already poured in at least a $250M in Bend's project; says Days Gone sold more than Death Stranding.

shinoff218317h ago

Well that sucks. Seems they want more online trash. I'd rather of had the sequel if it was single player

MrNinosan3h ago

What online trash games did PS Studios release last 10 years?

Notellin1h ago

The past has nothing to do with the future. This is such a terrible argument. Everyone knows about their current live service push.

_SilverHawk_0m ago

It's so tragic what happened to days gone. It is such an amazing game but bandwagoners trashed it and it underperformed in it's launch year. Days gone is the best open world zombie game released in the past five years. I was recently playing it on pc and I'm still amazed by it.

Games are very expensive to make and it seems like it's normal for a AAA game to cost over a quarter billion to make so if a quality game like days gone greatly underperforms then people shouldn't be upset when they see a lot of GAAS. I still remember a lot of bandwagoners calling days gone trash but years later it's now amazing when it's considered a failure by sony.

If a game isn't the best thing seen since hats with pockets then a lot of gamers who haven't played it automatically calls it rubbish and whoever made it should be incarcerated

-Foxtrot17h ago

It would be a shame if it was true that Hermen never gave the franchise a chance simply because he didn't like it and they already had a "Zombie" game with TLOU.

NaughtyDog are most likely moving onto a new IP next so it would have been the perfect time to do it.

ThinkThink9h ago

Here's where xbox steps in and releases state of decay 3 day and date on ps5.

Grilla2h ago

Days gone 2 was canceled before Herman was in charge. That happened like 4 years ago.

vfl5232h ago

4 years ago he was head of Playstation Studios. He would've probably had a hand in the cancelation.

Notellin1h ago

Man two seconds of research could have saved you from this comment. Amazing work Grilla you fit in with the uniformed N4G community who speaks before verifying anything that they say.

excaliburps3h ago

Yep. Kind of weird since it wasn't a sales flop, no?

I know we have to take what Ross says with a grain of salt since we're hearing just one side of the story, but even so, the game wasn't bad at all. Heck, it's my brother's favorite last-gen game from what I recall.

The amount of zombies on screen, imagine that with the PS5 and SSD? That would be insanely fun!

Grilla2h ago

Most copies were sold on sale. Not enough ppl bought it at full price. I paid 20$ for it 6 -7 months after release.

Notellin1h ago(Edited 1h ago)

Yeah we should never believe the creators side until we hear the corporate/big business side as history has shown we should always believe billion dollar corporations.

What a bootlicker statement.

P_Bomb3h ago

Well I don’t want 10 live service games, but they have no problem doing that lol. Ugh.

CrimsonWing692h ago(Edited 2h ago)

Oh great so we only get what the big wigs want… y’know, the people that really have their fingers on the pulse of what their consumers want. Faaaaantastic!

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60°

Greetings from the newly minted CEO - Shams Jorjani

Operating under the username BigKahuna_AGS, Jorjani created a lengthy thread on the Helldivers subreddit to introduce himself to the community following his appointment as CEO in early May.

50°

Frostpunk 2 Dev Talks Creative Risks, Supply and Demand, and More

Game Rant speaks with Frostpunk 2 co-game director and design director Jakub Stokalski about everything 11 bit poured into the sequel.

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