having started to play starfield right alongside my ongoing play through of baldurs gate 3 holy shit i feel so spoiled when it comes to rpg character design and story telling now. it’s wild how you play baldurs gate and all the characters are well developed people not just an archetype or trope slapped over an npc to help provide exposition like in starfield.
in bg3 characters that i started the game disliking i came around on once they were more vocal about themselves and their motivations. the plot itself is so strong and intriguing from the start of the game to at least mid way through act 2 where i am. it all has a really good sense of being a glimpse into a well made fictional world with characters that feel like they live in it. everything has actual stakes that change how the story works out in meaningful ways.
then you get to starfield it’s literally the most bland shit ever. the main plot as of 12 hours in is finding macguffin space artifacts that are coated in lsd for the first person who touches them and finding temples to gain space skyrim shouts. there’s really not a drive or motivation towards an end goal like in bg3 it’s more so “oooh what wacky sci-fantasy stuff will happen with this weird spinny artifact thing.” choosing the companion that follows you around is less about actually changing smaller story beats or how you tackle situations but more about finding the character with the least annoying quips when in combat.
like don’t get me wrong i’ve been enjoying starfield but there’s a lot of things going on that are mid at best. this is a game with a much larger dev team and money behind it than bgs3 yet it’s such an inferior rpg. it’s definitely a bethesda game lol