Cyberpunk 2077 Dev Calls Out Starfield Comparisons: "How Times Have Changed"

One of the developers of Cyberpunk 2077 finds the comparisons between it and Starfield to be pretty unhelpful. It's hard for a major new video game to be released and not have some kind of "discourse", when games of a certain scale release, there is bound for at least one group of people to find something to be upset about. Starfield has been a bit of a target for its level of polish and quality, especially given it's Xbox's big 2023 exclusive and has been one of the most anticipated games of the last generation. Of course, it's also a Bethesda game so it has a pretty notable degree of jank and quite a bit of bugs, but for some, that's part of the game's charm.

However, some are using this as a way to show why Starfield feels dated and isn't able to compete with other RPGs. There has been a viral comparison video going around the past couple of days showing the differences between Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077's mechanics and systems. Although Cyberpunk 2077 may come across as more detailed in some areas, a quest designer for the CD Projekt Red RPG, Patrick K. Mills, took to Twitter to note how these kinds of videos aren't helpful and deems as them as "actively harmful". "... "This fake criticism is actively harmful to the way the audience interacts with the medium and I hate it, but it's very funny to see after how many hundreds of these were made to ridicule [Cyberpunk 2077]." Mills went to note how these videos don't actually offer any kind of criticism/commentary and instead just highlight differences without having anything to say. "There's no commentary, just a handful of features being compared. What's the meaning of this comparison? How does this relate to how I should feel about or experience these games? Useless criticism."

How times have changed

(Tbc this fake criticism is actively harmful to the way the audience interacts with the medium and I hate it, but it's very funny to see after how many hundreds of these were made to ridicule cp2077) https://t.co/lvtAGDawfv

— Patrick K. Mills (@PKernaghan) September 5, 2023

Starfield is preparing to release for everyone who owns the standard edition and Xbox Game Pass users later tonight. Later this month, CD Projekt Red will also release the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. It will bring a host of new changes with the free Update 2.0, which will radically improve and overhaul key systems of the game.

How Buggy is Starfield?

Starfield is notably far less buggy than previous Bethesda titles and is doing a lot more by comparison. There is a high degree of object permanence across the game despite having 1,000 different planets for players to explore and do things on. You can interact with almost every object in the game. There are a variety of dynamic events going on at any given moment from wildlife/NPCs roaming around and interacting with each other to ships descending from the sky and landing to drop people off. It's quite impressive how stable the game actually is for its scope. Bethesda has also noted that some of the bugs are somewhat intentional.

Starfield Review

ComicBook gave Starfield a 4 out of 5 and noted that despite its flaws, it still makes for a solid Bethesda RPG. Whether or not it is the game that Xbox needed is to be decided, but it sure seems like the partnership between Bethesda and Xbox has paid off for the game itself.