Starfield is a bit of a contentious game, launching to not nearly the same amount of universal praise that Bethesda is used to for its big open world RPGs. That's led to quite a lot of negative reviews on platforms such as Steam, which recently dropped to a Mixed rating almost three months after launch.

It's possible that this low rating may have prompted a couple of people at Bethesda to try and do something about the game's slowly faltering reputation. Over the past month, it seems as though two Starfield developers have been responding to negative reviews on Steam, explaining to the people leaving the reviews that the game is actually pretty good, and asking them to take into account the effort that went into development behind the scenes.

These responses were first spotted by Twitter user JuiceHead, who shares responses from November 2, November 9, and November 27. The first two responses appear to have been posted by a Bethesda developer under the name Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka, while the latest was posted by Bethesda_Kraken, both likely to work in customer support and both of which have been tagged as official developers by Steam.

A common complaint among these negative reviews is that Starfield can get boring, calling the game a "repeating, soulless chore" with characters as "exciting as the bread isle in a grocery store". It's this particular point that both Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka and Bethesda_Kraken seem to take issue with, claiming that the game isn't actually boring and that the large number of loading screens were necessary for the game's "expansive gameplay".

Some of Starfield's planets are meant to be empty by design - but that's not boring. When astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren't bored.

Both of these developers then go on to list all the positive aspects of Starfield and give the people leaving negative reviews tips on how to get more out of the world. These wise words of wisdom include telling players to try making different characters, try to find hidden outposts, and carrying on into New Game Plus. They also give these people the option to give feedback directly to the developers, though something tells me the slightly passive-aggressive responses may have well and truly burnt that bridge.

Developer responses to negative reviews are pretty rare on Steam, mostly because any developer familiar with how the Internet works knows that argument is a losing battle from the outset. It's incredibly bizarre to see a developer as big as Bethesda responding in this manner, especially since they're arguing with purely subjective reviews. It's not a very good look, which Bethesda is probably now finding out after getting a pasting from Steam users in the replies.

Bethesda is responding to negative Starfield reviews on Steam. Absolutely bizarre if you ask me and despite media attention this hasn't stopped, the last response is from today pic.twitter.com/ay589tg8cc

— JuiceHead (@JuiceHead33) November 28, 2023

Posted: Dec 02, 2023 8:56 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/starfield-devs-responding-negative-steam-reviews/