It’s been almost six months sinceBethesdareleasedStarfieldon the gaming world, and while its launch was met with a considerably mediocre critical response for all its publisher hyped it up to be, it seems like player numbers are finally starting to dwindle out. When that happens, there’s no better way to bring your player count back up than to release new content, andBethesda promised us just thatway back in December, with probably the most interesting news of the 2024 roadmap being that we’d get more ways to travel around the galaxy.
But we’re nearly a sixth of the way through 2024, and so far, there’s been radio silence from Bethesda on just what these new methods of travel will be. While Starfield’s not the hot topic it once was, for the faithful who arestill fast-travellingtheir way across the Settled Systems and schlepping between each planet’s lengthily spread-out points of interest, the possibility ofjust what these new travel methods will beis still keeping a slow burn in the backs of a lot of minds.
If we’re lucky, these new methods of travel won’t just be some tacked-on content, but tools that will help us to clear up these two issues, which frankly, are some of the game’s biggest.
I Turned Starfield’s Red Mile Into The Naked Mile
Think The Red Mile is so easy? Try running it in the buff.
An Entire Galaxy Of Loading Screens
Let’s get the big one out of the way first: fast-travel may be the most hated part of Starfield. I get that. I’ve made comparisons between Starfield andNo Man’s Skybefore, but traveling between planets and star systems is a mechanic that I think the older game did a whole lot better than the newer.
In No Man’s Sky, you could travel between planets in the same solar system in a few seconds to a few minutes with the press of a button by activating a special drive on your ship. You’d need to power it with a special fuel source, but you could easily pick up plenty of that by harvesting any space rocks you come across, so there was never really any danger of running out, and you were in control of your ship the entire time.
In Starfield, you get a short animation of the exterior of your ship, and then a loading screen.
If you want to discover a new star system in No Man’s Sky, you do have a little legwork to do, as you’ve got to find or craft a one-use-only Warp Core for your fighter or capital ship, and once you activate it, you’re treated to an animation of your ship blasting off through the space dust in excess of light speed before popping up in the undiscovered system. After that, you may travel to any system you’ve already discovered by stepping through a warp gate at any space station or one you craft at one of your bases.
In Starfield, you get a short animation of your ship grav jumping, and then a loading screen.
I’m not saying either system is perfect, but Starfield still seems like a step backwards. I know Bethesda wants the technology to be a little more believable, but if we were able to craft a jump drive at all, why not show us what’s happening between the exit and entry, or give us similar tech for flying between planets in the same system? Besides, it’s not like players haven’t already proven that you can fly between planets without a loading screen in Starfield — it’ll just take you about seven hours.
The Quiet Joy Of Being A Humble Resource Farmer In Starfield
More like Farmfield am I right? Starfarm? Anybody?
I Need A Fast Car, Is It Fast Enough To Get To A POI?
The other major problem Bethesda could address is the vast amount of walking, running, and low-G leaping you have to do just to get to the various points of interest spread across each procedurally generated region of all1,000-or-so planets and moons(although, to be fair, that last one can be pretty fun when you’re on the right planet). The solution to this one is pretty obvious, especially if you live somewhere that buses and subways aren’t around every corner — you drive.
I hate to go back to the No Man’s Sky well again, but that game let you build your skill tree to unlock all sorts of rovers and submersibles to speed your way along each planet’s surface or cruise around under its liquid depths. And what’s more, there’s not even any lore that’s stopping Bethesda from doing this. Starfield wants to be a more realistic representation of space exploration, only drawing from technology that already exists or could feasibly be built with the knowledge that we, the present-day 21st century earthlings, could fathom. So, what, nobody remembered what a Ford F-150 was?
Even if, in all our hubris, the last refugees from Earth decided that spaceships were the only transportation option we’d ever need again and forgot about short-distance travel, there’s always the ECS Constant, the massive colony ship that left Earth hundreds of years prior to everybody else and got to Paradiso only to find out that it was already a high-class vacation resort. There’s a classroom on that ship where the kids just watch old-Earth TV shows and learn about its culture and nothing else, because they’ve been encapsulated for generations and have no idea what’s been going on in the rest of the galaxy. No one there retained the knowledge to build an internal combustion engine and slap a few axles and wheels on it? That’s something I just can’t buy.
Light No Fire Could Give Me Everything Starfield Lacked
It’s certainly lit a fire in me!
Yippee Kay Yay, Space Cowboy
You know what, fine. I’ve leaned into No Man’s Sky so strongly at this point that, yeah, I’ve got another idea that Starfield could borrow from it to make travel more fun.
Shor’s bones, Akila City even has a petting zoo, so don’t tell me alien wildlife can’t be tamed.
In my Reddit doomscrolling, I’ve even run across people talking about whether Starfield could include horses. Now, I’m gonna stamp out that idea immediately, because if you’ve been toThe Brown Horse Tavern on Marsand learned about its history, you’ll already know that horses went extinct as Earth was abandoned, because that’s something else we just kind of forgot to bring with us. Sigh. It’s like theynever even watched Firefly.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other tameable creatures spread across most planets with some sort of atmosphere. We couldn’t learn to ride them around? One of thesolutions to the Terrormoph menaceis to release an even more deadly (but not to humans) predator to gobble them up, and squads of soldiers will even wander around the surface of planets with them as they hunt down the nasty beasts. I’m sure you could build a hab on your ship to house and feed one of those, right? Shor’s bones, Akila City even has a petting zoo, so don’t tell me alien wildlife can’t be tamed.
I don’t know what’s still coming in Starfield, and despite its flaws, I’m still enjoying jumping into it from time to time. But even as one of the faithful few still left, even I have to admit that all of these fixes would make travel more enjoyable, and I hope Bethesda’s thinking the same thing.
