NASA punk or space civilization in Starfield

What is the biggest advantage of Starfield? Fight? History? Characters? In my opinion, what distinguishes this production from others is, above all, exploration. And what makes it so enjoyable? Authenticity. This is how you live in a space civilization!

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Hello traveler! Dozens of light years of travel ahead of us! The distance from the Solar System to Alpha Centauri is just the beginning of our joint expedition. Due to the amount of material, I will divide the text about Starfield into at least three parts. Without further ado, I invite you to the first of them!

Space civilization

May 7, 2330, is the day the game begins, but to better understand the world presented, we need to go back a bit. According to the creators, man will land on Mars in 2050, and by 2100 humanity will basically be living among the stars. However, in 2156 we colonize the Alpha Centauri system.

You will be able to learn what, how and why from the game. But what is important for you is the information that here we have a civilization that has conquered space. Humans scattered across numerous star systems, colonizing whatever they could. For just over 150 years since reaching Alpha Centauri, humanity has had gravitron propulsion, and travel between systems has been quite comfortable.

Unfortunately, space is not a friendly place, and humanity had to adapt to difficult conditions. This entire lecture was needed to understand what the world created by the creators in Starfield looks like. Why? Because what we see in the game is dictated by the conquest of space… which has already taken place.

At least that’s my impression that we see humanity 150 years after the conquest of the galaxy. Traces of our cosmic civilization can be found on almost every planet. We grow stronger in a new environment. And although there are many divisions between us, we come from one place. This gives creators room to show off their diversity, but you have to keep your imagination in check so as not to fall into pastiche. And as far as I’ve played, I can admit that the creators succeeded in this difficult task.

NASA-punk comes into play

Bethesda designers approached the vision of the world with great realism. And it has pluses and minuses, more about the latter later. Absolutely everything we see in the game, regardless of whether we see everyday objects, buildings, ships, clothes or weapons, has a “realistic spine”.

The creators focused on futuristic realism and it is clear that they put a lot of effort into it. They themselves mention NASA punk in their promotional materials, which is supposed to reflect their vision. And there is actually something to it. This is best visible in exploration elements, ship interiors and suits.

The designers do not repeat the mistake of Normandy from the Mass Effect series, where we had lots of smooth walls. Here, the decks of spaceships are closer to the shots known from the ISS, but with the difference that we are further in development. But at the same time, the appearance of the interiors does not allow us to forget that we are still in space and that this is not a joke.

The doors to the ship are tight bulkheads, most of the items are attached in case of loss of gravity (and this may happen if we damage the system supporting them during combat!). After all, we are a space civilization descended from today’s NASA and other space companies. You can feel it! Way to go!

Cities are unequal

As I wrote earlier, as a civilization we have spread across star systems, which creates diversity, which I will write about in the next text regarding cities. But for now, I need to mention two things.

Cities in Starfield are areas, not sandboxes. So we move through several closed areas within each city. This is reminiscent of the exploration known from, for example, Mass Effect. Fortunately, the places I have visited so far (mainly Jemison and Mars) are not flat. In a geographical and structural sense.

Despite traveling within one planet, we can experience completely different feelings. After arriving at Jemison, we see a utopian metropolis full of irregularly shaped skyscrapers. When I look at them, I think of the most fanciful compositions by architects such as Zaha Hadid or Santiago Calatrava.

But when we take the elevator to the lower levels of the buildings, we will discover the face of New Atlantis from several dozen years ago. From the times when the first settlers had just arrived and started building a new city. It’s dark, damp and completely different. Plusik.

By the way, New Atlantis itself strongly refers to the architecture of the planet Thessia from the Mass Effect series with some of its buildings. Look especially at the skyscrapers with a bulging base and a soaring tower. Same idea. Fortunately, from what I have seen, it is completely different on other planets. It is this diversity that I will write about in the next entry.

But there were plenty of mistakes

As far as things about space exploration stand up and provide simply amazing immersion, especially for people interested in space conquest. However, there are elements of interiors and cities themselves that stand out negatively. Certainly, few will pay attention to it, but I haven’t seen such ergonomic mistakes for a long time.

For example, the lack of bathrooms in the Constellation Lodge. Here before us is the base of our organization, an organization that is supposed to solve the biggest exploration puzzles, and at the back of the members’ rooms, there is one toilet in the corridor and one in the basement. As if that wasn’t enough, the characters’ rooms don’t even have windows. From today’s perspective, this seems unlikely.

Full of trinkets referring to the history of exploration and beautiful wooden walls and floors. Such a classic interior strongly corresponds to the futuristic interiors of New Atlantis. And everything is great, but suddenly details such as this unfortunate bathroom or the lack of windows stand out. You’re in space, exploring, and suddenly you realize – yes, it’s just a game.

There are more such details. The sidewalks make no sense, with no sightlines. They wind just to wind and probably lengthen the road between point A and B. Or they are completely pointless, like the footbridge above. Let’s face it, no one would normally go this way, because the slope of this road is completely unergonomic for humans, and it leads to absolutely nowhere. Except it looks nice.

Starfield defends itself with the authenticity of space

In the history of sci-fi games set in space, we have already had many cool visions. In recent years, it is enough to mention Prey ( with a stylish vision of cosmic art-deco ), The Outer Worlds ( a strong dose of retro in a futuristic sauce ) or the Mass Effect series, which was somewhat criticized by me for its sterility and lack of consideration for the ergonomics of aliens in interiors. .

Despite the comments and this interruption of immersion, when we sit at the controls of ships and set off into the unknown – we can feel the thrill of a space traveler. And that was the point. This is what we wanted to feel. This authentic cosmic realism defends the entire vision.

On the other hand, the focus on NASA-realism somewhat limited the creators, because they could not give free rein to fantasy and come up with truly crazy visions, such as the space station in Prey. Nevertheless. This is a matter of debate. Some consider it an advantage, others a disadvantage.

And I will talk about the diversity, spaces and nothingness of space next time.

See you soon, space cowboys and cowgirls…

I received Starfield for testing from Bethesda!
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