Starfield’s Random Planet & Moon Locations Don’t Make Sense

15.09.2023 - 12:39 / screenrant.com

Finding random locations in is often a major highlight of exploration, but these discoveries all too frequently bring obvious gaps in logic with them. The new RPG from Bethesda Game Studios features a mix of procedurally generated environments and bespoke content, striking a balance between curated design and over a thousand planets to explore. Having more places to go can often be nice just for tooling around, but sometimes the seams in a universe placed in algorithmic hands become a little too apparent.

One tactic that uses to fill out its world lies in speckling points of interest across locations. Some major points of interest are specific to certain locations and feature more obviously curated designs, while others fall into a variety of generic categories and could be found on many different planets or moons. Although the latter can still provide interesting encounters or contain helpful resources and loot, they frequently fail to reach the heights of immersion or integration that Bethesda has achieved both in past titles and elsewhere in This problem is accentuated by the fact that points of interest can sometimes feel out of place entirely.

Related: 5 Best Planets To Start An Outpost In Starfield

doesn't appear to feature some necessary hard rules as to where random locations can appear, making various points of interest completely disconnected from their surroundings. An area found on a frozen moon with no atmosphere might feature dead trees and plants, immediately breaking even a general suspension of disbelief regarding its function within that environment. Abandoned campsites or soccer fields can appear in similarly unlikely habitats. Not only do misplaced points of interest make some moons and planets unrealistic in , they also cast a shadow on other points of interest in the game, bringing the artificiality of the system to the forefront.

Even points of interest that do make sense in can still fail to inspire, mostly thanks to a focus on quantity. Abandoned posts once belonging to the United Colonies faction can be justified as left-over facilities from past wars, but lore justifications for their general homogeneity do nothing to make them more exciting to discover. Many games before have featured locations that can start to feel repetitive, from the enemy outposts that litter many open-world experiences to the procedural generation that Bethesda itself previously employed in the earliest games. It isn't a new problem, but that doesn't make it any more welcome.

Points of interest aren't universally broken, as it's still possible to stumble upon exciting discoveries and great quests in across the course of any journey. Even more engaging are the truly handmade locations and events,