this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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I think it's the inherent tension between a game that promises an immersive, open, and explorable world with a powerful character creator, and AAA studio's overwhelming compulsion to create a cinematic main quest line.
The two goals are directly at odds. And it leads to a situation where no matter what kind of character you create, you are still the same predefined character. Because the developers need a common touchpoint to write a story around.
It's an issue with a lot of games. In Skyrim, no matter what character you make, you are still the Dragonborn, you can roll a Khajiit and still be able to waltz into every city, even as the other Khajiit are restricted to outside the walls. Similarly in Mass Effect, you will always be Shepard. My excitement for Cyberpunk evaporated when I saw that it was leaning into a cinematic experience rather than a cyberpunk one.
It's actually not an issue in Starfield, people just don't have a clue about the game. Everyone that touches one of the artifacts for the first time gets the vision and can get the temple power. There's an entire quest where you go to a temple with Barrett and get him a power as well. When you talk to the Emissary and the Hunter, it's revealed that you die in quite a lot of the other universes. You're not the chosen one in any capacity, you're just a random person, there's nothing special about you.
The main quest also gives you literally zero urgency to complete it. The fate of the universe isn't at stake, no great threat is looming that requires you to collect them (at least not until way later and even then not really), they're just a mystery that a group of scientists and explorers is investigating.
Ehh, pretty sure the Hunter tells you that they've never seen "you" take up the power and make it that far.