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The game is pointless to return to. Base building has not point. There is no reason why anyone should even build a base. And the ship builder is cool, but it’s like a Lego, you can’t fly it.
This IP isn’t going to last a long time without that stuff.
Doesn't matter because Bethesda still got their money.
I played and beat the main quest for both Skyrim and Starfield, and I thoroughly enjoyed both games. And while I agree that Starfield has things to complain about, I enjoyed the plot much more in Starfield. I'm a big sci-fi nut, so that helps, but once I finished the main quest in Skyrim, I didn't feel the pull to go any further.
In Starfield, I'm still loving all the side quests, and NG+. And although the ship builder is clunky, I love modding my ships.
I'm glad Bethesda finally came up with a new IP. I really don't get all the backlash.
I actually went back and replayed Vanilla Skyrim this year because I found myself enjoying Starfield more than Skyrim, and I'll back you up. Starfield's quest design is more complex, more apt for roleplaying (multiple options for each major questline so you don't have to be a psychopath to play both Companions and Dark Brotherhood), and general RPG design, but the world design is more lacking than Skyrim.
Playing Starfield, and actually enjoying a good part of it, like the faction quests, side quests, radiant quests even, and the increased roleplaying potential, then seeing a huge backlash against it, made me replay Skyrim, Vanilla, in 2024. The results may shock you!
The TL;DR is that Skyirm only beats Starfield in world interactivity like NPC schedules, and the percentage of gameplay you interact with that's hand-crafted vs procedural.
Comparing the faction quests of, say, the Dark Brotherhood and Crimson Fleet, you must play the Dark Brotherhood as a psycho assassin, while for the CF, you can be a fed, a brutal pirate, or someone walking that line, with your own background added for flavor.
The quest design in Starfield also gives more options, as well!
This overall means that, IMO, Bethesda game design itself is kind of shit without mods.
World interactivity is one of the most important things in open world games. Starfield is just completely empty
And because many of the sites you find on a planet are just RNG, there's not much visual story-telling, either. Which is one the things they've always done pretty well until now. It's just a place to find loot with no actual context or story behind it, which makes the exploration little more than "oh hey, there's something here."
It lost me after 20-something hours sometime during the week after release. What a pile of shit
How does that look for other singleplayer games that take some 50-100 hours to beat?