Bethesda Games Studios’ Starfield is shaping up to be a behemoth and it’s surely one of the most anticipated Xbox games of all time ahead of the Starfield release date. However, is Starfield really going to be one of the best Xbox RPG games out there when it launches? Or, better still, is it going to be regarded as one of the best games of all time? Well, I just don’t know for sure – and there is talk of some sort of anti-Xbox conspiracy coming. So, I asked an AI – and it’s good news.
Speaking to Google Bard, a conversational AI that seems to know quite a bit about all the latest upcoming Xbox games, I asked it a simple question: “What review score do you think Starfield will get?”
Showing some caution with its response, Bard shared that it thinks “Starfield has a good chance of scoring in the high 80s or low 90s on Metacritic” – even if “there are a few pitfalls that could prevent it from reaching its full potential”. When asked to give something a little more specific, it said that it thinks Starfield will score “around 88 or 89” online. I don’t know about you, but after Redfall and The Lord of the Rings Gollum, that’s very good news.
However, should we really believe everything the AI is telling us? Well, of course not – but, Bard does make quite a good argument for this bold prediction.
Bard seems to believe that Starfield’s “massive scope and variety of content”, coupled with “the freedom and flexibility that players will have to explore the game world”, should help it score high. Starfield’s supposed “strong emphasis on storytelling and character development” is going to help a bit too.
I know we all want Starfield to let us pimp-out our spaceship before we set off into the stars with the extensive customization options we’ve already seen, but it’s certainly hard to tell just how good the story is going to be yet. And, there are theories out there claiming that we won’t be able to freely fly between planets like No Man’s Sky. So, Bard might be barking up the wrong tree.
But, it did raise some concerns beyond that – so, it might be smarter than we think. If Starfield fails to innovate, because it’s “not the first game to offer a massive open world with a focus on exploration or roleplaying”, it could suffer when it comes to reviews. Similarly, technical issues and poorly-acted characters could have a negative impact. Other Bethesda games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim aren’t exactly known for exceptionally-acted NPCs, so we could find that our high expectations of Starfield catch us out when the game arrives.
Although, I did also ask Google’s Bard if Starfield was going to be better than Skyrim – something that I thought was a pretty good benchmark test for a Bethesda game. It said that it was “too early to say for sure if Starfield will be better than Skyrim” – which is quite political. However, it really could be torn between the two. Bard said it preferred “medieval settings” over “space settings”, but also that it would prefer to be an astronaut over a Dragonborn.
I hate to agree with an AI, but it’s a tough call. Starfield could be fantastic, and I have serious FOMO that needs curing, but Skyrim is something of a timeless classic. With over 1,000 Starfield planets to explore, I am worried that this game might be a little too big. However, only time will tell – and when I asked Bard “what will be the best game of 2023”, Starfield was top of the list. If you want to chat with it yourself, you can find Google Bard right here.