Starfield
Metacritic
We are, of course, an industry by which you live and die Metacritic, through thick and thin. It’s not just fan fuel, it’s something that could mean big rewards and more investment, or on the flip side, the closure of the studio, depending on how the game is received.
This year we’ve seen two standout games, Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate 3, with Baldur now the highest-scoring PC release…ever on Metacritic. There’s been a lot of speculation about where Bethesda’s Starfield will land (a lot of speculation), and now, two weeks after early launch, the result is astonishing. It slipped a little.
When the review embargo was first dropped, Starfield was sitting somewhere like 88 on Xbox and 89 on PC. Not 90+ the way I think Bethesda was hoping, but still very good.
But this is a year of very good games, in a generation of very good games. Over time, Starfield’s score has declined, specifically on Xbox. It holds the 87th spot on PC, but Starfield is now 84th on Xbox Series
There have been some Hot Discussions about the findings of the Starfield Review, some of which were contributed to this slide. There’s a 7/10 from IGN which is all anyone can talk about when the embargo falls. And more recently there was The Jimquisition’s 4/10, which I think may have sunk the score by a full point on its own the day it dropped.
Starfield
Bethesda
84 is still ‘good’, but 85 was the cut-off mark to see if the game had gained enough ‘prestige’ according to bosses. And over 90 games are generally what end up as top GOTY contenders. In the case of Starfield, the 84 means it’s now the 47th most-reviewed Xbox game of this generation, and it’s not actually anywhere near the top. It’s not even up to the level of many other Xbox exclusives. There are different standards for games with different expectations, whether they are fair or not.
You can probably guess the top games in the Series Elden Ring, Persona 5 Royal, Hades. In terms of Xbox exclusives, we have Forza Horizon 5 in 92, Microsoft Flight Simulator in 90, Psychonauts 2 in 87, Hi-Fi Rush in 87 and even Halo Infinite in 87.
Then, you can compare it to similar Bethesda games in the past on Xbox:
Oblivion – 94 Skyrim – 96 Fallout 3 – 93 New Vegas – 84 Fallout 4 – 88 Fallout 76 – 49
Unlike Fallout 76’s deviation, this is minimally associated with something that isn’t actually Bethesda’s flagship game, New Vegas, and I think most people think the result devalues what could have been a better game in hindsight.
I’m not trying to roast Starfield here. I gave it a 9.5 and stuck with that after 150 hours of play. But in general this does not seem to have arrived in the least Decisive Exactly what Bethesda and Microsoft were hoping for, even though they never said so publicly and were celebrating all the 9.5s and 10s the game got. It’s actually quite divisive, with a huge divide between some people who honestly say it’s one of their favorite games of all time, and others who fail to muster anything more than a simple “meh.” We will see how history deals with it.
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I’ve been writing about video games, TV, and movies for Forbes for over 10 years, and you may have seen my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I cover all types of console and PC gaming, but if it’s looting or shooting, I’m definitely there. If I’m watching something, it’s usually sci-fi, horror, or superhero. I’m also a regular on IGN’s Fireteam Chat podcast and have published five science fiction novels.
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