Todd Howard had a nuanced take on the critical reaction to Starfield.
Todd was recently interviewed by Greg Miller on an episode of the Kinda Funny YouTube podcast. Greg brought up how the reviews on the game were mixed, but also how that felt like a disappointment given the huge marketing machine that was rolled out for Bethesda Game Studios’ first original title in years.
We’ve transcribed Todd’s response, so you can read it below this article, but we’ll summarize what we felt were the salient points here.
First, Todd revealed that before the reviews and fan feedback, Bethesda prioritizes the game’s stability and technical performance. After that, they take a look at the amount of players playing the game. Of course, in the past, that player number could be accounted for by the number of units the game sold, but with Game Pass, they have to look at different metrics, and Game Pass was a huge part of Starfield’s player numbers.
When it came to the reviews, Todd made it clear that he didn’t look at the metascores, he saw most reviews of the game hit the 90s, and he opined that that was clearly ‘a great place to be,’ especially with how loaded 2023 was with AAA hits.
In terms of what the fans said, Todd pinpointed one specific critique: fans saying that Starfield did not do things as well as Bethesda’s other games. Todd defended their choices, pointing out that Bethesda wants each title to be its own thing, and they made choices in service of making a science fiction game the way that the studio envisioned it.
Todd also shared the things they are changing and fixing, which includes the display options on Xbox Series X, as well as gameplay changes. Todd stated that these changes will take time, but he is committing to improving the game.
It was certainly easy to get caught up in the discourse over Starfield, which ran for a few months. But, it seems, only a few fans remembered that this was just how Bethesda is. There are always fans who don’t like the changes they make on a game to game basis, and they have always faced skeptics who just don’t like their games.
If you were expecting Todd to express something like regrets or sadness over that discourse, it isn’t there. It’s clear that Bethesda doesn’t see themselves in the same terms that other AAA game studios, or perhaps their fans, see them. Bethesda knows they made a good game, and that it has been a success. They weren’t gaslit into believing otherwise when they took a look at the bigger picture.
The important thing to Bethesda is that Starfield does hit the metrics of success that Microsoft Gaming laid out for their products. We can look forward to an improved Starfield in the future, but as things stand, Bethesda sees their newest title as a winner.
You can read Todd’s response, edited for clarity, below:
“Number one, that we’re always concerned with is how is the game holding up? What’s our bug level, what’s our crash rate?
So, first of all, we were over the moon with the actual data we’re getting back and how the game was performing on a technical level.That one is always most important on the dev side.
Number two, was the amount of players. We kind of set a record for how many players that we had in a game. Obviously, Game Pass is a part of that.
But to see the amount of people playing, and like, OK. We’ve had more players at launch than we’ve ever had in our careers, and the game is holding up really well. It’s a really joyous moment for us, particularly after how long the game took.
On the review side – and, we’ve been through this, so, it’s not new to us – what’s new is it’s a new IP, so you know that we’re going to be doing some things differently than we’ve done before. And obviously, we had people who love the game, and people who liked it less, both on the review side. I think the majority of our reviews were in the 90s.
Which, look, that’s great. I don’t want to ever be in a world where that is not a great place to be in terms of critical reception. Particularly in a year where there are so many amazing games out.
But obviously look, we see the feedback. We see a lot of players saying,
“This is what I want out of a Bethesda game, which is to explore the world in a certain way, and Starfield didn’t give me that. I prefer the way it’s done in Fallout or Elder Scrolls.”
Perfectly understandable, right? In terms of, hey, this is a different experience. And I do think, for us, particularly me, going into a science fiction game, I want to be able to land on all the planets. I want the game to say yes to us.
Knowing that that content is going to be different than you’ve seen from us in the past when you’re exploring a landscape. And that’s some of the trade-offs we’ll make, to do what we think makes a science fiction game like this, that’s based in this kind of fiction and reality, to make it what it should be.
You know, each of the franchises should be its own thing. Obviously, there are areas that, you know, the maps, or some other things, gameplay options, that we’re adding. Other display modes on console that people have asked for.
We want to do all that stuff. It will take some time, but we’re excited to get stuff out there.”
