by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
When it stops fighting you and making you engage with its jaw-droppingly bad UI, there’s a pretty compelling adventure here.
It’s fair to say that Starfield has taken its sweet bloody time arriving on PS5 consoles. Originally released in September of 2023 on XBOX and PC only, Starfield represented the first brand new IP from Bethesda – creators of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series – in 25 years. The fact that it wasn’t available on Playstation was a bitter pill to swallow for those gamers who played Skyrim and Fallout obsessively over the decades. Then the reactions started coming in, which became memes like “Midfield” and the like, and the general consensus was that while Starfield had its charms, it certainly wasn’t the second coming of video gaming that Bethesda boss Todd Howard was spruiking. Now, in 2026, when XBOX is in a bit of a rough state, Starfield has finally arrived on the PS5, replete with brand new DLC, numerous quality-of-life improvements and some much requested additions. So, after all this time, how is it?
It’s, you know, fine. It’s fine.
Set in the year 2330, Starfield tells the epic story of a user-generated protagonist who begins his journey as a humble space miner for Argos Extractions. However, when you come across a strange artifact and experience otherworldly visions, you catch the attention of Constellation – a mysterious organisation of explorers who believe this artifact, and many like it, are the key to some mind-blowing interstellar secret that will change the very nature of humankind. Almost before you’ve got time to pop your trousers on, you’re given a ship, a companion and are thrust into an adventure across the Settled Systems on a NASA punk yarn that at times feels like a Temu version of The Expanse.
There’s a lot to like about Starfield. It’s a solid set up for a story, and when you’re actually on a planet and engaging with quests, the gameplay is compelling and familiar in a pleasingly Bethesda-y sort of way. There’s plenty of delving into caves and bases, abandoned ships and mysterious underground bunkers. The combat is surprisingly solid with tight, responsive shooting and there’s a decent loot game with plenty of different weapons and armour to find and mod along the way. The problem is everything that sits around that solid core. Travelling from planet to planet never stops feeling like a chore, a bizarrely byzantine process that involves clunky menus, endless load screens and far too much piss farting about for a modern game. Admittedly, the latest updates allow you to fly your ship around a bit more, exploring things along the way, but you’ll still be entering more loading screens if and when you want to actually land, and the exploring itself is often repetitive.
Starfield also looks okay for a Bethesda game but compared to its competition – the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – it’s an absolute minger. Yeah, the background and environments aren’t too bad, but the character models, the NPCs that you’re meant to be emoting with, continue to look like stiff, unnatural animatronics with cheap deli ham for skin. Worse still, on Playstation at least, performance seems to absolutely tank the longer you play. This is a problem that has plagued a lot of Bethesda games and while one might be nostalgic for the feeling that those earlier titles evoked, did we really want this crap to continue? It’s absurd that in 2026, a game from such a lauded and moneyed studio should run this badly, not to mention the fact that they’ve had three years to iron out the bugs!
Still and all, none of this is to say that Starfield is a (space) dog. When it stops fighting you and making you engage with its jaw-droppingly bad UI, there’s a pretty compelling adventure here. Yeah, the main quest is a bit of a McGuffin hunt, but some of the side missions and companion quests are really solid. And, as always, there’s something truly engaging about getting lost in Bethesda’s big, sprawling, silly, detail-rich worlds. One just wishes they’d stop putting so many damn hurdles in the way of enjoyment.
