I am playing on PC and I love it. Starfield is a Bethesda game through and through:
- There are loading screens when you enter and exit buildings. (Just like Skyrim and Fallout) although on my PC it take no more then 5 sec to load.
- There are plenty of side quests and original content.
- There are many factions, each with their own unique story and quests.
- The main story is mediocre, But so is skyrim's main story and fallout's main story. Bethesda games shine when it comes to side content, faction quests and exploration.
So let's talk about exploration:
I feel like this is where a lot of people will be dissapointed. IF THEY GO INTO IT WITH THE WRONG IDEA.
1. You can visit almost any planet and land anywhere on the planet.
2. You can NOT go from one end of the planet to the other. You can however hop in your ship and land on another place on the planet.
3. The spots that you land, that isint points of interests, are proceduraly generated based on the planet characteristics, such as weather, terain, etc. So if you pick a desert to land on then the map it generated will be a desert, if you pick a mountain then the terain will be more rocky etc. But you cannot walk from the desert to the mountains so to speak.
This is not a bad thing though. The Points of interest and the hand placed locations are filled to the brim with side quests, loot, interesting characters and the usual bethesda flair. I see baing able to land on a remote area of any planet as a bonus, it is what you will expect , if I would really land on mars on a random spot I would probably just be greeted by a large empty open area with rocks, sand etc, and thats what you get in starfield. If you land on a remote corner of a planet its pretty empty and thats ok.
I don't really want to run around an empty planet in any case. A lot of people compare starfield to No Mans sky. No Man Sky has perfected ship to space to planet transition. I can climb in my ship fly out of the atmosphere and down to another planet seamlessly and thats really cool. However when im on a planet its pretty much empty, there are no cities, no characters with side quests etc. The planets might look different and every now and again you get some interested enviromental elements but thats about it.
So with starfield I might have traded the seamless transition from planet to space for a loading screen but atleast when I reach that POI or that city im greeted with a full world with interesting and fun things to do and not just an empty planet with different color trees and some interesting creatures.
I like playing NMS just as much as the next person but I enjoy starfield as well. I don't thing you can compare them each has their pros and their cons.
Starfield is a fun game to play another brilliant bathesda game that Im enjoying alot.