When some got their hands on Starfield on 6 September 2023, others had already finished the main story. Before the release of the game, players were excited about the scope. The team at Bethesda avoided talking about the main story and how long it would be. However, the popular opinion was that it would take at least 30 to 40 hours to complete the main story.
Well, I stumbled on a couple of Starfield videos on popular YouTube Channels including MKIceAndFire who completed the game’s main story in 20.5 hours. Before the official launch of the game, Pete Hines’ appeared on a podcast where he said that the game doesn’t get going until you hit 100 hours.
Now, it appears the reason is more about the time it’ll take gamers to learn the ropes than the actual length of the game. Ryan Clouse of Nerd Stash complained about how the game had “so many systems, details, and mechanics” across the vast open-universe sandbox that feels intimidating.
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Clouse mentioned that it took him “2 hours to learn the finer details of space combat and even then, some details still allude [him]”. Clouse also said that the details were poorly explained while the tutorial was vague and ambiguous which caused him a huge amount of frustration.
It is unlikely that Clouse is the only one on this boat. I have watched several Starfield tutorials from some of the veteran YouTubers whose channels are dedicated to game reviews and walkthroughs. Someone like TheRadbrad who has been in the niche for over 12 years struggled in his first video.
The early hours of Starfield would be spent on figuring things out
Before the release of Starfield, Charlie Intel reported that Todd Howard, the director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, said the game would be longer than Fallout 4. It can be recalled that the main story of Fallout 4 was around 27 hours.
One thing is clear, if you spend 100 hours on Starfield’s main story, it is not because the game has 100 hours of content. No! It is most likely because you spend more time in the early hours of the game trying to figure things out. or probably died a lot because you hadn’t mastered the gameplay mechanics.
In the real sense, the number of hours spent on Starfield will not mean a lot if you play the game with the intention to explore and lose yourself in space—and many will argue that that was the main reason why Bethesda created Starfield in the first place.
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Come to think of it, Starfield has over 1,000 explorable planets. It is highly unlikely that any player will be able to exhaustively explore all the planets in 20 hours. However, aimless explorations will soon become repetitive and boring if it is not driven by a compelling story.
Therefore, Starfield will always be judged by the length of its main story rather than by the size of the entire game. Charlie Intel also claimed that Starfield’s main story could be completed in 17 hours. However, I am yet to see a video that supports that claim.
Where the hours put into Starfield may count for something is for the completionists and trophy hunters who want to lay their hands on every available trophy in the game or touch every part of the map. Well, if you happen to be in this category, Starfield can be a pretty long game that may take over 200 hours to beat because it would mean exploring every single planet.
Starfield Metacritic score was positive but not spectacular
At the time of writing this post, Starfield had received 56 Critic Reviews on PC. Fifty-one of those reviews were positive while 5 were mixed. Nevertheless, the game was only able to garner a total of 87 Metascore. The score puts the game in 10th place in ranking compared to other games that have been released this year on PC.
Still topping the list of the best PC games that have been released in 2023 is Baldur’s Gate 3 which has a total of 96 Metascore. Coming second and third are Turbo Overkill and Street Fighter 6. Both were tied at 92 Metascores each. Resident Evil 4 and Dave the Driver complete the top 5 list with 91 and 90 Metascores respectively.
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Regardless of what the critics may think, Starfield is still a strong contender for The Game of the Year, which I think will be tough to pick a winner this year considering the huge number of great games we have already seen—with more lined up for Fall release.
Below is the video of the player that finished Starfield in 20 hours. By the way, do you think Starfield will be one of the contenders for the 2023 Game of the Year? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
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