Starfieldwas the big game for bothBethesdaandMicrosoftlast year. It’s easy to say that it was a golden boon forGame Pass, with all the shiny promises that a next-gen Bethesda RPG could make. There’s one promise I personally remember, and it was the early heads-up that not every planet would sustain life.I was excited when I heard thisbecause wild enemies always countered any enjoyment I ever had in resource-gathering games.
I can’t hide that Starfield’s fan response has been divisive, maybe even polarizing, but in terms of offering me a resource-gathering and farming experience, Starfield quite honestly gave meeverythingI was hoping for. It’s a model I think is so stress-free that it’s hard to even consider most other resource-heavy games anymore.
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In Space, No One Can Hear You Farm
As I said, a major hold-up I’ve had with resource farming/harvesting games is their demand to have enemies around every corner. It’s hard to enjoy Minecraft when I have to keep one eye open for Creepers; it adds so much unneeded stress to what is already a strong game mechanic on its own. I assumed Starfield would skirt this issue with the barren planets, yet I noticed early on that even on the life-sustaining planets, animals didn’t care if I was hanging around.
Big monsters like the Hunting Cagebrain of Piazzi IV-c seemed like massive pains in the neck the moment I laid eyes on one, but it took around that same amount of time to notice it was harmless unless I bothered it first. My radar gave it a red dot like you’d expect a threat or enemy to have, and their name wasHuntingCagebrain, yet the Cagebrain recognized I was its new neighbor, setting up an outpost to harvest some Nickel and water without any interest in starting a fight.
I felt like these creatures were my friends, in a way, just peacefully letting me set up shop to build a farm as I respected their boundaries. It’d only be a matter of time before we’d plan a dinner party and see if our kids wanted to play together.
And oh boy, was it easy to set up shop like this! By scanning planets, I’d get a great sense if I was wasting my time or not well before I even left the ship. Not to rag on Minecraft too harshly, but it’s hard to enjoy jumping down into the mine shafts to look for gold and diamonds when I know full well that RNG could spawn whatever it feels like. At least with my scanner, I knew my beloved Piazzi IV-c was loaded with Nickel, instead of needing to use my imagination and setting my hopes far too high, whichalwayshappens with Minecraft. I’d assume I’d be coming up on diamonds when it was really a pool of lava full of spiders.
There’s a comfort in knowingexactlywhat you’ll be harvesting. Now sure, a full boots-on-ground investigation is needed to see every single thing yourself, but the massive heads-up still means a guarantee. No matter what else I would or would not find, there was Nickel on Piazzi IV-c, so a Nickel harvesting operation it was. The reassurance is, dare I say it, fun! And it even extends to the moments where I didn’t mine the resources myself.
Let’s Go Shopping
Those of you with sharp eyes will notice this isn’t a picture of Starfield; it’sDisney Dreamlight Valley. Good job. This stall my character was shopping at belongs to Kristoff from the movie Frozen, and he will sell you a handful of supplies. He always sells wood and coal, but everything else is subject to the winds of daily change. A literal day — the 24-hour, real-life clock. Not, say, an in-game clock like Starfield runs on, where in-game you’re able to just fall asleep until the shop is selling what you wanted. Or I guess you could do a quest, which might make real-life you fall asleep.
As you can also see in the picture, Kristoff can run out of supplies when you buy the full stock. This stock tends to be about 10, but I’ve seen 20 on some occasions. One whole day, and you can only buy 10 bricks off the guy. Oh, and he’ll sometimes just sell snow even though the snow biome is just across from his stall! I’ve put a lot more time into Dreamlight Valley. I like the story more and doubt that’s controversial, but boy, did Starfield take an idea I liked from Dreamlight Valley and show me how to properly do it.
And that’s because it’s built off of Bethesda’s bread and butter. Remember the shops in Skyrim and Fallout? Go to a doctor’s shop for health potions or stimpaks, and you’re able to’t help but notice this doctor is also selling butter dishes and dead rats. Those lived-in worlds always added miscellaneous items for the shopkeepers, and now that a Bethesda game has a dedicated system for resources, those miscellaneous items earn their placement even more.
Yes,Fallout 4had a crafting and camp system, and a system through which you could buy the needed materials, but Starfield took even that and amplified it to a level in which you’re able to do all your resource gathering with money.
Go shopping for new spacesuits, and what do you know? The helium-3 I need to power my generator is in the same shop! That saves me so much time that I just might go hop to a few more stores while I’m here, maybe warp to another nearby system and see how much helium they have to sell me.
I’ve heard a lot about Starfield since its release, both negative and positive, yet I barely heard a peep about the resource management. It appears my hunch was right, as we recently dug into the achievement tracking and discovered howrare the resource achievements are. Yes, Starfield players haven’t had the epiphany I had, that for whatever you feel Starfield does or does not accomplish as a Bethesda RPG, it smooths outallthe wrinkles in the genre of resource-gathering/farming games.
Starfield is where I can sit back and let my harvesters do their thing. Starfield is where I don’t have to worry about random monsters eating me alive just because I dared to go exploring in an exploration-heavy game. And Starfield is the game where if I’m literallyandfiguratively out of energy, I can just open my player character’s wallet, no matter what I’m looking for. This went from a genre that stressed me out, to one where I can breathe deep and calmly. That deserves a lot of my praise.
