I mean, we never got more than half a minute of gameplay before they jumped to something totally different. Nothing to gauge what the actual gameplay loop is like and how all those systems feed into each other. The bigger previews are all kept under closed doors and hush-hush.
I am not saying it is end of the world, I will still buy the game Day 1 since it is Bethesda, but it is kind of unheard of to have no actual gameplay showcased so close to the release in modern gaming era. It definitely do not radiates confidence in the game from MS. It is supposed to be their big game, yet they just show bits here and there
Fallout 4 biggest issue was that it was just Skyrim with guns. And releasing 4 years after Skyrim, most people already felt the Skyrim fatigue by that time, me included. Starfield has at least that advantage it is not looking like carbon copy of Fallout/Skyrim formula, after all, it is a space game foremost and that can pour some new life into bethesda game design.
I’m a bit confused by that take. Fallout 4’s character progression works differently than Skyrim, the weapon and armor modification is completely different due to the gathering and breakdown of materials, and the way those populate the world dramatically changes the gameplay loop, the world itself was totally different, there was settlement construction, voiced protagonist, I mean shit, even the pure fact that the main combat gameplay was “finally enjoyable” gunplay makes the moment to moment gameplay fundamentally different from magic, arrows, and swords.
You can extremely whittle that down to “Skyrim with guns” but aside from being open world power fantasies with certain bethesda trappings like Radiant quests and AI schedules it’s absolutely not just a skin of paint on Skyrim, those games scratch a different itch.
If anything Starfield is absolutely taking a lot from those Fallout 4 specific innovations such as settlement construction expanding to ship construction and weapon and armor modification through materials coming along.