No Man’s Sky Update Surpasses Starfield, Making It Obsolete
Starfield is an RPG that has always deserved better. Despite having launched nearly 2 years ago, it has gotten so few updates that one would be forgiven for believing it had been abandoned by Bethesda. That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not entirely, but it is easy to think that it is no longer a priority for the developer. This is despite the fact that poor ratings on sites like Steam continue to bring it and its reputation down – the base game sits on Mixed reviews while its DLC has a Mostly Negative rating.
Of course, this has led many to look for other comparable experiences – ideally, better ones – to fill the void Starfield left behind. So far, several games have surpassed Starfield in almost every conceivable way, save one area that has consistently remained unique to Bethesda’s ill-fated RPG. However, that is no longer the case, as one of the most controversial games of all time has finally received an update that has more or less killed Starfield, making it the weakest option in a sea – or, more aptly, space – of incredible sci-fi RPGs.
No Man’s Sky’s New Update Beats Starfield
It Robs It Of The One Thing That Made It Unique
No Man’s Sky’s plethora of updates has always been impressive to say the least, introducing a flurry of new features that greatly add to the core experience while simultaneously adhering to the original experience’s foundations and altering it for the better. The most recent and massive NMS update is perhaps one of its best to date, as it finally introduces customizable interiors for a new ship type, as well as a slew of other nifty features like multiplayer crews.
However, it is the inclusion of larger, customizable ships that is especially relevant, as they were the final feature that made Starfield even remotely unique when it comes to the best sci-fi RPGs of all time. Of course, the likes of Star Citizen and many before it have had this feature, but thanks to the endless comparisons between No Man’s Sky and Starfield, it felt like something the latter held over the former for a long time. Now that NMS has customizable interiors, Starfield is left feeling completely lackluster.
If you want seamless space travel, customizable ships, RPG elements, first-person shooting, a somewhat loose narrative structure, and randomly generated planets, you’re simply not going to Starfield anymore. NMS has beaten Starfield once and for all by offering the complete package in a way it never could. Starfield’s procedural generation is worse, its planets more limited, its base building less enthralling, and its vehicle selection underwhelming. Simply put, even if Starfield gets its rumored updates, it can never beat No Man’s Sky.
NMS’s Customizable Ships Complete The Experience
They Make It The Ultimate Space Sim
It is seriously impressive how far No Man’s Sky has come since launch. The staggering differences between its current iteration and the original 2016 version are utterly mind-blowing and something undeniably worthy of praise. Had you told me back in 2016 that No Man’s Sky would be as good as it is today, I’d never have believed you. This new update doesn’t feel like a simple little addition that Hello Games has done for fun, but rather a set of completely transformative features that drastically alter how players approach the NMS experience.
It is that level of dedication that Bethesda is seemingly lacking with Starfield, a game that has undergone little transformation since it launched, despite being in desperate need of major fixes. Hello Game’s eternal dedication to No Man’s Sky is no accident, of course. What may have been done out of necessity has become an incredibly lucrative endeavor, one that has saved the project’s name and reputation while also ushering in endless new waves of fans and seeing players return to it years later.
It isn’t hard to see why Hello Games has remained so dogmatically dedicated to No Man’s Sky, even despite a new project being in the works. There is certainly an argument to be made for Bethesda to take a similar approach, rather than merely accepting defeat and moving on. A newfound affection for the game via updates and new DLC would certainly help endear players to the rumored PS5 version of Starfield and thus generate even more money. However, I’m not convinced a handful of updates, even those as big as NMS’s, can fix Starfield.
Starfield Was Over Before It Began
Bethesda Should Have Updated It Sooner
In many respects, Starfield had failed long before it was ever released. The push towards procedural generation by a studio that had never really dabbled in it, at least to the scale they were hoping to achieve with Starfield, killed the project. It was simultaneously overambitious and underbaked, rarely adhering to what made Bethesda’s brand of RPGs great in the first place and thus alienating fans, while not doing enough to encourage newcomers to try it out.
While it undeniably has its fans, Starfield remains at such low scores from fans on sites like Steam because it never quite managed to capture the magic everyone had hoped it would. It is a game with plenty of potential that absolutely squanders it at every conceivable opportunity. However, Bethesda’s promises to update Starfield don’t really feel like enough at this point. One may argue that No Man’s Sky felt irredeemable at first and later became a triumphant success, but its foundations were not nearly as rotten or narrative-dependent as Starfield’s.
Starfield’s biggest issue is that its narrative simply isn’t worth slogging through endless barren planets or dealing with the same POI over and over again. No Man’s Sky never had that, thanks to its focus on survival crafting mechanics. If Bethesda wants to fix Starfield, they’d need to strip out major components, and they simply can’t and shouldn’t do that. As a result, No Man’s Sky will forever remain the champion, and hopefully serve as a lesson for how Bethesda should approach its next title after Starfield.
No Man’s Sky
- Released
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August 9, 2016
- ESRB
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T for Teen: Fantasy Violence, Animated Blood
- Engine
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Proprietary
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
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PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Verified
