REACTION - Starfield isn’t beholden to the success or failure of other games

Keeping things in perspective.

By Jonathan Garrett
02/05/23

It has been hot take central on social media after Redfall launched to an extremely mixed and often quite negative reception. Even though there’s plenty of folks out there enjoying it for what it is (a wonky but well meaning co-op shooter), the criticism over bugs, performance issues, and janky AI remain valid and are definitely areas that Arkane needs to address if it has any chance of rewriting Redfall’s legacy.

That being said, the notion that Starfield now represents some kind of “last chance” for the Xbox brand as a whole is hyperbolic at best, and plain stupid at worst. The frustration directed at the state of Redfall is justifiable, and I’m certainly someone who was hoping for it to be in a better state. But despite sharing a publisher, Starfield is going to be a completely different experience, being made by a wholly separate studio with different expectations of scale and longevity.

This idea that Redfall not meeting expectations is somehow indicative of Xbox’s death knell is absurd. After a barren 2022, things were certainly on the up with HiFi Rush getting shadow dropped, Goldeneye finally making an appearance, Age of Empires ticking boxes, Minecraft Legends continuing the spin off train, and Ghostwire: Tokyo breaking free of its previous exclusivity.

The momentum was there, and although Redfall has certainly derailed it, Starfield shouldn’t be pre-judged on the failure of Redfall to meet broader expectations. Reasonable questions around Microsoft’s ability to manage its own first party output (cough 343 Industries cough) can and should be asked, whilst also remembering that Starfield can and should exist independently of this recent disappointment.