Bethesda’s RPGs have always been shallow in the choice you have with dialogue and altering the story, but deep with the detail, world-building, and mechanics of gameplay. Arena is almost no different in the gameplay loop as Starfield. They went through various phases of how to use rules and complexity of certain systems, but have since settled in a formula established first by Morrowind and refined with Oblivion and further with Skyrim.
They are not about the story. The story is just kinda there to drive some motivation and give context to your own thing. They excel at immersing you in the world and allowing you to just play however you want without restrictions (such as being a god in everything without having to start over and build specific characters to do specific things). They have a pretty good track record of doing good environmental story telling and adding in all those little stories in notes and terminals that aren’t even tied to quests.
But when it comes to stories and dialogue? They had ONE game that was a masterpiece, Morrowind, and the rest have ranged from absolute shit to pretty good. And not one of them, not even Morrowind, actually have the same kind of choice and sweeping changes affected through dialogue get in a story-focused RPG like Baldur’s Gate. Bethesda will likely never have a game as well written as Morrowind again, because that isn’t what they are about.
They are very much about the action over the words. Despite the jank as fuck AI, the combat is still fun somehow (and imagine how much more fun it could be if the AI didn’t suck!), it’s incredibly easy to lose yourself in the world because of how detailed it is, and there are plenty of shenanigans to pull once you begin to dive in and see how everything works. Like, I can’t wait to completely fill one of the huge craters near my base with watermelons and then dive in.
And this is why I didn’t buy Starfield. I loved Morrowind and was disappointed with Skyrim, and I think it’s because I prefer a tighter, more linear story and don’t like “messing around” as much. I watched a gameplay video, and the things that player got excited about (all the side content) really didn’t grab my attention, and the story itself seemed a bit flat.
I probably would’ve loved it as a kid, but that’s not what I’m looking for these days.
So for me, BG3 is the better game. But younger me would’ve preferred Starfield. They’re both great games, just for very different audiences. And I could totally see someone having exactly the opposite opinion as me, which just shows how great both are.
It’s really weird reading an article that so precisely nails so many of my experiences with both games.
Sam Coe: “Y’know, captain, I’ve been thinking, I’ve been talking about myself for a long time, but I’ve never really asked you about yourself. It seems to me that you’re a mute of some kind, and everyone just talks AT you, rather than TO you. So I’ve got to ask you, how does a Chef like yourself end up working for a mining company on Narion?”
[Camera turns 180° degrees to face the player like in BG3]
• My name’s FuntyMcCraiger and I used to run a restaurant before we ran into hard times.
You know, mining is a lot like cooking. I like mining rocks.
• That’s none of your business. After being mute for 80 hours, I’ve decided to have good dialogue and good writing because they paid their writers a living wage.
• Shut the fuck up, Sam Coe.
• Can you smell what the FuntyMcCraiger is cooking?
• Show Item [Opens Inventory]
• Flip Sam The Bird.
choose any option
“Woah captain, that’s crazy. Anyways, I found another settlement - I’ll mark it here on your map.”
In comparison to BG3, the dialogue and stories are incredibly bland in Starfield.
If you don’t compare it to BG3 though, then the dialogue and stories are still incredibly bland.
I swear every Bethesda game does this. For example, when you get three dialogue options, they all say basically the same thing, and they all set up the player to be dunked on by the NPCs response…
Or the only options are:
“wow! Incredible! I love kittens, good on ya kid!”
Or
“You don’t wanna mess with me, I’ll kill you.”
BG3 has very bad writing as well.
Can you elaborate more on this a tad more?
Very short responses.
Very little dialog depth.
Pretty bad story.
It’s very clear of the rewrites after Chris A. was ejected.
“You found a piece of metal. Take my spaceship and I’ll take your miserable mining job” wait what?
Not something that happens in the game.
it’s the very start of the game homie
BG3 is critically acclaimed and on path to win every GOTY award this year. Taking this into consideration any game compared against BG3 may look lackluster, not just Starfield.
I didn’t play these games yet but I did play The Outer Worlds and it was acceptable to me. If Starfield is a game along the same lines then I am OK with that.
Hogwarts Legacy was a very solid title with very memorable characters, story and wow what a detailed fun world. Have not played BG3 yet so cannot compare, but Hogwarts is my GOTY so far.
Well, one is a linear, turn-based, 3rd person party cRPG.
The other is open world, real-time, 1st person with optional followers, sandbox action-RPG with space shooter elements.
Utterly different animals and any comparison is as invalid as comparing BG3 to Elite, DCS or RaceRoom. I’ve no interest at all in BG3 because turn-based party RPG-s are not really my jam. And I’ve never cared much about story-telling, either. I like good worldbuilding, sandboxing, looting, crafting, trying different builds, doing whatever the hell I like at any moment while completely forgetting that something called “main quest” exists, getting technical and modding the crap out of a game and this is where Bethesda shines.
Starfield has good worldbuilding? “Pick your flavour of capitalist”, such worldbuild much wow.
Does the c in crpg even matter? Arent all video game action rpgs crpgs?
Generally the term cRPG is used for specifically tabletop RPG-s adapted to digital realm. Action RPG-s take those classical RPG concepts and adapt them to a first- or third-person action game—basically Doom with leveling systems.
Doesn’t BG3 have that “throw the dice” -gimmick? At least we can avoid that horrible joke of a game mechanic in Starfield.
