So, Starfield was a disappointment (in my opinion). The story isn't interesting. The lore and world-building do not make sense. The game mechanics do not mesh together. (And it doesn't run well on the Steam Deck.)

But the promise of Starfield? The big space game? The big space RPG where you can play as Captain Reynolds type character? That's something I can get behind. I want to traverse space, visit different planets, get lost, meet interesting characters, solve their problems, and shoot some stuff. Two games come to my mind when I think of this:

No Man's Sky
Mass Effect

I've only played a few hours of No Man's Sky, but I think it does space traversal well. To put it bluntly, flying from planet to planet without interruption is better than fast travel. But the gameplay loop did not

Mass Effect nails the space adventure side of things. You visit multiple interesting places, you meet different people with curious problems, and you solve these problems (mainly by shooting). But it's a typical Bioware game: The places you visit are small and confined, and there are (comparatively) few of them. The space traversal is done by clicking a few buttons in a menu.

My question is: Are there any “big space games”? Are there any games that deliver on the promise of Starfield? What are your favourite sci-fi RPGs?

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[–] frezik@midwest.social 9 points 1 day ago

Lots, but only a few that are worth a damn. I've come to call them "Han Solo Simulators".

Its a genre that seems to attract a lot of half baked game designers. Make a big universe sandbox where you fly a spaceship to space stations and planets and moons and trade stuff and do pirate shit or anti-pirate shit. Lots of people have this idea, only a few make anything good out of it. Doesn't seem like it can go wrong, and yet . . .

Battlecruiser 3000 AD is a particularly infamous case of 90s Internet lore. By all accounts, it did eventually patch the game up enough to be decent, but it took years to get there. At release, the game's installer would crash for most people. However good it might have ended up, the Internet drama was better than the game ever could be. Look up "Derek Smart" if you're interested.

The X series is one I want to like, but it's been really buggy for me. Like rage quit when it destroys my progress kind of buggy. I haven't played X4, though.

No Man's Sky was an infamous mess at launch. Unlike Battlecruiser 3000 AD, it did eventually change its reputation, but it was a long, hard road. I played it a few years ago and found it uninteresting, but basically playable.

And then there's Star Citizen. I'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, the Elite series is probably the most successful for single player or smaller multiplayer, and Eve: Online for massively multiplayer.