Is ‘Starfield’ Going To Have Skyrim’s Lifespan? Right Now, It Seems Unlikely

There is a very, very wide range of opinions on Starfield, Bethesda’s new mega-release and the reason Elder Scrolls VI will arrive probably 15 years after Skyrim, at minimum. But a reason for that is also Skyrim itself, the massively successful open world game that has been released and re-released and modded to hell and back in order to give it a lengthy lifespan.

I know that Bethesda is hoping that Starfield is going to perform the same way. They sunk an incredible amount of time and money into a brand new IP, trying to break away from Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and they hope it lives forever.

Will it? I’m not so sure. Right now, even this early on, I’m not sure how well it will stand the test of time and keep people endlessly engaged with new playthroughs, Skyirm-style.

Why? A few reasons.

New Game Plus Is Not A Solution To New Save Files – The entire game is structured around a New Game Plus loop which erases all your progress but keeps your level and skill points intact, while making those skills and your origin traits unchangeable. This feels like it was meant to be an alternative to starting a new character and save file, as most players do with Bethesda games, but it misses many key aspects. It’s not fully new, given that you can’t change some core aspects of your character, and you cannot “go a different build” with all your skill points intact and un-removable. And there are barely any meaningful changes that make even a story-driven NG+ run worth it.

There Are Not That Many Builds, Period – The way Bethesda’s skill tree is set up makes it so there are not all that many builds you can actually make, and eventually they all sort of just merge together. You can go stealth, but there are only a small handful of skills that really play into that, and most level design is not super conductive to it. Both assault skills and ship skills seem almost necessary to progress. You can’t be just a pilot without struggling in on the ground missions and you can’t be just a soldier without ship combat being almost impossible with zero upgrades. Then, separate from all of it is being a “researcher,” building bases and printing materials, but that does not really mesh with any of the actual missions of the game. Nor does a “charisma” based character when you can really just save scum to get past any dialogue check in the game. So even starting from scratch, it doesn’t feel like there are all that many alternate builds to consider on new save files.

Exploration Has Its Limits – I have indeed enjoyed the time I’ve spend roaming around to random planets and finding cool things. That does have its limits eventually, however. You discover all the fun little hidden quests like Operation Starseed and the Alien ship and the Batmantis. You may discover many outposts variants on random planets, but eventually you’ll be so overpowered on the New Game Plus loop there’s barely a reason to keep fighting in t hem. It’s fun to discover cool vistas and wild animals, but these are not random, they are set locations that do not change, so with 100 planets with life, you can indeed visit them all and that aspect of the game kind of ends. And if you NG+, there’s no difference when you return to these places.

It All Depends On Modders – We know that Bethesda is making at least one expansion for Starfield, which will no doubt inject some life into the game six months from now, or whenever it will be. But the real test will come when modders are fully unleashed with Bethesda-based tools. Modding is a lot of the reasons Skyrim survived as long as it did, and if Bethesda can form a robust modding scene, which has already begun with the removal of ship limitations and things like that, it will give the game many more years of relevance. But whether that scene becomes as big as Skyrim’s is an open question.

Can you sink 100 hours into Starfield? Easily. But I think there’s a difference between that and the sheer immortality we’ve seen from Skyrim, which is clearly what Starfield was aiming for with its 1,000 planets and central NG+ loop. While I very much enjoyed the base game and my first run, I’m not sure it’s build for long-term success in the same way Skyrim was, which also felt a lot more revolutionary than Starfield did at launch. But time will tell.

Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.