MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller is having a lot of fun with Starfield, but he expected more from one skill and is disappointed.
When I saw the various gameplay videos before Starfield was released, it was clear to me: I wanted to be a space samurai. In Cyberpunk 2077 I had a lot of fun hitting my opponents with katanas or later the mantis blades and cutting them down with brutal attacks.
The animations and splatter effects in particular gave the blade fight in Cyberpunk a special flair. It felt more action-packed and immersive to me than shooting futuristic, high-tech weapons. I also found the gunplay to be good and sometimes there was no way around firearms, but I had the most fun in the close combat.
I also felt great joy in Ghost of Tsushima and enjoyed the fights as a skilled samurai. Since then, I have always picked up the katana in games whenever I was offered one. I also planned to pick up the blade again early in Starfield. Accordingly, one of the first skills I unlocked was “Melee Combat” – but I was very disappointed by its usefulness.
Toothpick instead of a sword
So in my imagination I grab a jetpack, jump into the air driven by the changed gravity, land on an enemy and take him out with just a few blows. There’s blood, maybe there’s animation, and best case scenario I just look damn cool doing it.
However, things are a little different in Starfield.
For many hours my only melee weapon was the boring rescue axe. But it’s not fast enough for me and nowhere near as elegant as a katana. I want my sword. A few more hours of play passed and I found a knife. “Well, better than nothing,” I said to myself. In games, knives often enable faster attack sequences than a heavy axe.
But disillusionment soon set in. “What am I supposed to do with a toothpick like that?” I thought – and the NPCs who opposed me in battle must have thought similar things. My knife did far too little damage, even though I invested valuable skill points in melee damage. There were no cool animations and even less blood. The fact that the knives got bigger over time didn’t help either.
I now know that there is an epic katana on the planet Neon in the Volii Alpha system, but that didn’t live up to my expectations either.
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Expectation meets reality
Instead of brutal animations, lots of blood and cut off body parts, I only saw one thing in Starfield: the same movements my character made over and over again when I stabbed with my knives. While this isn’t unusual, I found it lacked the effects to still enjoy the fights.
At some point it dawned on me and I finally knew why my expectations of the close combat in Starfield couldn’t be fulfilled: Bethesda’s role-playing game received an age rating of “16 and over” from the USK. Cyberpunk 2077 is released for ages 18 and up. A fact that I completely ignored.
Starfield never intended to give me gory animations or flying body parts. It wasn’t Starfields or Bethesda’s fault that I was disappointed. That was just me. I expected things that were never planned or announced for the game. I assumed features from a completely different game and wanted them in this sci-fi RPG.
So I was disappointed with the melee skill and the design of the blade combat because I had false expectations.
The situation is similar for many players when exploring planets and space. It is very limited and depends on fast travel, but players expected gameplay elements from space simulations like No Man’s Sky or Star Citizen, although this was never announced.
Nevertheless, players can hope for a much more open exploration in the future, because there is already a mod that dissolves the invisible walls – unfortunately currently with little yield:
You can break through the invisible walls on the planets in Starfield, but it will do you no good