Of all the Bethesda things to complain about, this really isn’t one of them. Starfield has seen its starting screen leaked online a few weeks before its highly anticipated release, and it’s causing a TON of outrage and discourse online for something that really is a minor factor.
I really don’t get the hate for Starfield’s starting screen.
Despite being something of a tradition for ALL Bethesda games, the minimal starting screen for Starfield has been getting a lot of fan attention and hate online for it being…well, too minimal. And, even though I get what they’re saying, this really isn’t an issue at all for me.
So, as I wrote just a second ago, I really don’t understand why Bethesda is getting so much hate for their Starfield starting screen.
I know the extremely intricate, complex, and highly detailed screens, such as the one from The Witcher 3, The Last of Us, The Legend of Zelda games, Super Mario games, the old Total War games (ex: Medieval 2, Rome 1, Napoleon), some Resident Evil games, etc., are really fun and get you hyped for the game you’re about to play, yet that’s never been a tool Bethesda has used in the past.
Just go and look at all of their classic titles, such as Doom, Morrowind, Fallout 3 (which is probably the most detailed of the bunch), and Skyrim, and you’ll see that the vast majority of them just have the logo and a little bit of a dynamic background (aka: shapes shifting back and forth, “fog” moving up and down the screen, or colors slowly contrasting with one another).
It’s a very simple, grounding title screen that really does help your grasp the scope and complexity of their titles.
In fact, I’d even argue that the minimal starting screens are small factors into the greatness of the past Bethesda games as they really do prepare you for an epic journey into brand new landscapes and worlds with new characters, creatures, monsters, weapons, gods, stories, hopes, dreams, etc. And Starfield’s starting screen is not different.
As of this moment, Starfield’s starting screen has the background of a dark, lightless planet partially illuminated by the brightness of a sun/star just in the distance behind it. And, on front of the planet is the title, “Starfield”, with the Bethesda logo in the bottom left corner, an options menu on the lefthand side, and a small message at the top right of the screen thanking people for playing and wishing them a great time in Starfield.
Not too detailed, yet not too barren.
To be honest, it’s actually one of the most detailed starting screens Bethesda has ever released, and yet it’s getting a lot of unnecessary (by understandable…to a point) hate from fans and gamers online.
(Bethesda Softworks/Microsoft-Starfield-Official Teaser Trailer)
And I think a large part of the hate for this starting screen as it’s: A. being used to cast aspersions and predications on Starfield’s success and development when there’s just not any evidence for such opinions, and B. fans and gamers are so conditioned to believe “minimal” design means “low effort” given how poorly game studios and developers have treated us fans in and their titles in the past.
There’s been so many games in the last 8 or so years that have been utterly dogshit and have bitterly disappointed fans and gamers with how low quality, low effort, and half-assed they actually ended up being. Such as Fallout 76, Redfall, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and every other crap gaming title with the Bethesda label stamped on it to have come out these last few years.
So, as I said, it’s perfectly understandable to criticize Bethesda for being a shell of the developer and publisher it was in the past, but attacking Starfield, a game that really is going to determine how bright the future of Bethesda is (or how dark), for its starting screen is WAY TOO HASTY.
We’ll see September 6th how great…or horrible…this game ends up being.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Bethesda Softworks/Microsoft) (Reddit – https://i.redd.it/03suoxrvdqib1.jpg)
In Text Image 1: (Bethesda Softworks/Microsoft) (Starfield: Official Teaser Trailer – YouTube)
