Starfield PS5 Review: Great Performance, But Still Hollow Planets

2 weeks ago 9

Published Apr 7, 2026, 11:15 AM EDT

Scott Baird is a contributor with over a decade's experience writing about video games, along with board games and tabletop RPGs. Scott has previously worked for Dexerto, Cracked, Dorkly, and Gamepur.

It's strange to look back now at 2023, as there was a time when people were predicting that it would be the year of Baldur's Gate 3 vs Starfield. A fantasy epic from a lesser-known studio that was carrying two massive franchises on its back, facing off against a brand-new sci-fi game by a legendary studio that was promising to go where no one had gone before.

The final result was a bit more lopsided than that. Baldur's Gate 3 went on to become one of the most acclaimed video games of all time, earning a stunning critical and commercial response thanks to being one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Starfield, on the other hand, was a far more polarizing experience, one that stood in the shadow of Tav and their companions.

15 Starfield Powers That Are So Unfair They Break the Game

If you're looking for guidance on the best powers in Starfield, we've got you covered!

Starfield launched three years ago, and it has received a steady stream of content updates and DLC that have further fleshed out the experience. Now, PlayStation 5 players will finally get the chance to play the game, as its console exclusivity has ended, and it's now available on other platforms. The question now is whether Starfield has improved since its 2023 launch, or whether Sony fans will have to experience the same disappointment as Microsoft fans did years ago.

A Universe Full of Ubisoft Map Icons

It's not hyperbole to say that Starfield has the worst intro of any Bethesda game. The player character starts out as a miner who stumbles upon a fragment of metal, triggering a bizarre vision of the stars. They wake up a few days later, just as a ship with a strange visitor lands on their world. It turns out that the metal they found is an Artifact, a relic from an ancient civilization being sought by members of the Constellation, an organization that seeks to unravel the mystery of who created the Artifacts.

Within ten minutes, the player is given a ship of their own and has (mostly) free rein of the galaxy. Following up with the Constellation leads to the main storyline, where the player seeks out other Artifacts, while numerous factions are dropped into the quest menu, giving the player tons of story threads to follow.

It's not hyperbole to say that Starfield has the worst intro of any Bethesda game.

The reason why the Starfield introduction is so bad is that it doesn't make the player invested in the world. There are no stakes, no great threat that needs conquering, just a universe to explore. The lack of a solid goal other than "Find Artifacts, Get Money" just isn't that interesting, especially as most of the quests take way, way too long to become compelling, especially the main one.

Those hoping for a Final Fantasy 14-style rebirth for Starfield will be left disappointed by the PS5 port, as this is the first point at which the game should have been improved. The game acts as if its very existence is enough to interest people, which might explain why the intro gives the player their freedom so quickly. It should have taken more time to establish the setting and, more importantly, to provide a reason why the Artifacts are so interesting, as a brief cutscene showing space just isn't good enough.

Starfield's Universe Lacks Grit & Intrigue

A botched intro can be forgivable if the rest of the game makes up for it. Unfortunately, where Starfield fails most is its universe. It just isn't as interesting as the worlds of other RPGs. So many of the planets in Starfield are biomes with one or two science facilities and mobs that need killing, making exploring and visiting strange new worlds tiresome very quickly.

This isn't to say that every single location in Starfield is boring: there are some absolutely gorgeous worlds to explore, ones that match the grandeur and scope of the game's potential. This is also true of some of the cities, like Neon and New Atlantis, which exceed anything in the previous Bethesda RPGs.

So many of the planets in Starfield are biomes with one or two empty science facilities to explore that visiting strange new worlds becomes tiresome very quickly.

The bigger issue with Starfield is the lack of characters and personality in pretty much every aspect of the game. Starfield goes for a NASA-punk aesthetic, a codename for lots of beiges and muted colors, kind of like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but without the grit. Everything comes off feeling overly sanitized and lacks a lived-in feeling

Open world games that outclassed starfield

8 Open-World Games That Outclass Starfield

In a league of their own against the self-proclaimed '25 years in the making' game.

The party members are the biggest victims of this, as they're so boring in terms of their appearance, personality, and backstory that it's hard to remember anything about them save for the broadest of details. This is also true of the factions the player can join, which feel more like a checklist of motivations and genre tropes than actual entities within their universe.

It bears mentioning that Starfield has a few amazing story moments and dungeons, with some genuinely exciting encounters that rank among Bethesda's best. Unfortunately, these are few and far between, and what's in the middle is just a malaise of grey and tedium that needs to be sat through before getting to the interesting stuff.

Starfield's Ships are a Highlight (Except During Combat)

The protagonist of Starfield won't travel far without a spaceship, and it doesn't take long before they are given one, along with some money to customize it. Every port in Starfield has a mechanic who sells and repairs ships, as well as access to the expansive ship builder mode.

Starfield's ship builder is the undisputed highlight of the game. It's easy to build ships from scratch, as well as update and customize existing ones to the player's desires. Chances are, most players will stick with the hunk of junk they're given at the start of the game and just keep adding to it as they grow familiar with it over time.

Starfield's ship builder is the undisputed highlight of the game.

There are tons of weapons to use and compartments to add, all of which affect the ship's speed and maneuverability in combat. What's even more impressive is that the ship is a fully realized element of the game world. Adding compartments, such as an engineering lab, is reflected in the vessel when the player enters it. There are also options to customize the inside of the ship, offering unparalleled design possibilities, so long as the player has the credits to buy all the pieces they need.

It's a shame that the ship-to-ship combat isn't quite as good. The ship combat feels like a slow jousting match at its best, and like a blind shooting gallery at its worst. The 3D movement of space means that it's really easy to lose track of enemies and have to spin to get them in target, all while they're free to blast the player out of the skies.

Starfield has an FTL-style system where the player can divert energy to different aspects of the ship as needed, such as powering up weapons, boosting the shield, or making the Grav Drive boot up faster in case they need to get out of dodge. The controls for doing this are finicky, however, and it's easy for enemies to pile on while diverting power.

Bethesda Hasn't Abandoned Starfield After All, Releases Surprise Update

Bethesda is making good on their promise to continue supporting the game throughout 2025.

The closest thing Starfield has to a Fallout 3-style V.A.T.S. system is the ship's targeting mechanic, which slows down time and lets the player aim at specific parts of an enemy ship, giving them the chance to disable their weapons and take out the engines, allowing them to be boarded. It's also a lot easier to divert power in this mode. While this makes combat easier, it also takes a lot of the fun out of it, as the player is stuck slowly chipping away at an enemy's health bar, in what is supposed to be fast-paced space battles.

Designing ships in Starfield is a blast, especially once the player has acquired lots of cash and found tons of unlockable upgrades. It's just the combat that brings it down, especially as it's mandatory in certain quests.

Starfield's Universe is No Skyrim

Eventually, the player will have to get off their spaceship and start exploring. It's here where Starfield's Bethesda roots come out the most, as the gameplay loop is very similar to that of Fallout. The combat is mostly centered around gunplay, with facilities that are full of locked doors that need to be picked, storage crates that need to be plundered, and the odd NPC who can be talked down via a persuasion mini-game.

There's something that isn't quite as satisfying about Starfield's gameplay loop, at least not compared to the other Bethesda titles, and it took me a while to work out. See, at its core, Skyrim is a personal power fantasy, one where the player acquires arcane and physical might that improves over the course of the game. Meanwhile, Fallout is a survival fantasy in which the player starts out whacking Deathclaws with pool cues, but eventually gets better gear, allowing them to explore more and face off against bigger threats.

It's here where Starfield's Bethesda roots come out the most, as the gameplay loop is very similar to that of Fallout.

Starfield doesn't hit either of those buttons. It uses a skill system, but these mostly gatekeep certain skills, and it never feels like the protagonist is growing in power with each level up, at least not in a tangible way. There's also no magic system equivalent, and while the player does unlock supernatural gifts later in the game, these are limited in scope and are more like one/two-shot combat powers, rather than anything that drastically alters the gameplay.

The progression is mostly tied to the ships and equipment, with the player spending time split across the two. The ship design is a lot of fun, but it's let down by the combat. Meanwhile, the player equipment is closer to Borderlands, where the hunt for gear with different colored names and buffs is the order of the day. There's also an expansive equipment upgrade system, allowing them to be improved even further.

The problem is the lack of a tangible impact this has on combat, and, in the end, it makes all the dungeons and combat encounters feel the same. It doesn't help that the enemies fall into familiar mob types all too soon: human pirates, angry robots, and aliens that look distinct, but have the same two attacks. In the end, the battles become tiresome, which is death for a game where it's such a core part of the experience.

And then we come to one of the biggest complaints with the original release of Starfield: the segmented nature of the universe. While Fallout 3 and Skyrim had one giant world where players could run from one end to the other, Starfield is composed of many smaller biomes.

In practice, most of Starfiled is spent in fast travel menus. While the update launching alongside the PS5 version cuts down on this a little, it doesn't change the fact that a good chunk of the game is spent fast traveling to locations to have one conversation with a person, before fast traveling to a small area, fighting a group of enemies, then fast traveling back for another chat. It gets tiresome and makes the player wish that someone would invent long-range communications.

Starfield, Microsoft Flight Sim 2024, Fable Rumored Headed To PS5, Switch 2

Starfield, Killer Instinct, the in-development Fable, all are rumored to be headed to the PS5.

The other tiresome aspect of the game is purchasing items. In a game like Skyrim or Fallout, it makes sense that settlements don't have everything a player would need, especially remote ones. In Starfield, not only do shops have limited resources, like healing items or upgrade materials, but vendors also have limited money supplies that run out quickly.

Far too much of Starfield is spent traveling across the universe to try and find more pots of Adhesive, a key weapon/spacesuit upgrade, because an entire spaceport in the biggest settlement on a populated world only had three jars full.

While we're at it, the endurance/inventory weight system is just as frustrating here as it is in Fallout/Skyrim games, with the player losing health and the ability to fast travel. This is a kleptomaniac's nightmare, and results in a lot of annoying inventory management. The PC version of Starfield sorted this problem with mods, but PS5 players aren't as lucky.

In the end, the frustrations all pile up as death by a thousand cuts. It's just needless annoyances at every turn, ones that grind the player down throughout the runtime.

How is Starfield on PS5?

In terms of performance, Starfield runs beautifully on PS5 hardware. Even on the base launch PS5, Starfield hits a solid 30 fps outdoors and 60 fps indoors. During my playthrough, I only had a single crash and a handful of instances of enemy AI bugging out and not responding to stimuli.

Starfield's DualSense implementation is also really well done, with the adaptive triggers adding a satisfying kinetic feel to firing a gun, while radio transmissions can be heard through the controller's speakers, giving the feeling of actually being hailed by another vessel.

In terms of performance, Starfield runs beautifully on PS5 hardware.

But what about the brand-new content? Starfield's PS5 launch coincides with the Free Lanes update. This allows players to travel directly to planets within the same system, which not only cuts down on menus but also has a chance to trigger a random encounter.

Technically, the Free Lanes update does make travel within the same system quicker, but not by much. Maybe I just had a bad run, but most of the random encounters were boring: brief conversation snippets with tedious NPCs, who arrive in their ships, before vanishing off to wherever.

In all fairness to the Starfield developers, they did say not to expect any big shake-ups for the Free Lanes update/PS5 port. The core experience and story remain the same; it just includes some QoL features and new content on top of what was already there.

The PlayStation 5 release of Starfield was the game's second chance, one where it could have been shaped by player feedback, kept out of Baldur's Gate 3's shadow, and shown to a whole new audience in a fresh light. That chance has been wasted, as what's here isn't that much different from the 2023 release. Starfield is somehow bloated and yet empty, overly complex and yet lacking. It's a universe of wasted potential, one that struggles to get the player invested in its reams of content. It's not a bad game by any means, but it's definitely lacking in substance, and anyone seeking an experience with the same level of depth and engagement as Bethesda's previous outings will want to look elsewhere.

Released September 6, 2023

ESRB M For Mature 17+ / Blood, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Strong Language, Violence, In-Game Purchases

Pros & Cons

Starfield has the best ship builder mode in video game history
Some genuinely gorgeous locations and epic encounters sprinkled throughout the game
Those who are drawn in have a ton of content to experience

Low stakes story and boring NPCs kill any motivation to play the game
Ship combat is clunky and unsatisfying
Combat system gets boring quickly, thanks to disconnected progression system and lack of enemy variety
Way too many quests involve chains of fast traveling to locations
Fatigue mechanics and limited shop resources are terrible systems and should have an option to remove them