I think discussion around it just became toxic, you can't really say anything about Starfield without a bunch of people hijacking the conversation to talk about how much they hate it.

That's what hype does. Hype can be good if the end product lives up to it, or the hype isn't so potent. Tears of the Kingdom comes to my mind for this. The hype was more like "it's coming, we think it's going to be cool" and a couple of gameplay vids. Then their reputation combined with the understatement of how good the game actually was created a wildfire of good hype.

Starfield was like "PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE BEST GAME EVER MADE, IN THE WORKS FOR HALF A DECADE, YOU'LL NEVER PUT IT DOWN, GAME OF THE YEAR GUARANTEED" and created a ton of bad hype. Bad hype is good for sales, but creates unrealistic expectations and makes a lot more people go "meh" once they find out what it is.

Let me tell you a secret: bad hype is intentional. All that matters to a studio is how much they sell, not that players continue playing.

Bad hype makes players stop talking about a game pretty quickly.

I mean, the only game on the GOTY list where the hype is still going is Baldurs Gate 3. At least thats how it feels to me. Granted Im not into nintendo games as I once was both the new Zelda and Mario felt like they flew by me. Maybe it was the stacked year. maybe I didnt have as much time for gaming or maybe Im not seeing them much on the internet. BG3 sure feels like its cementing itself into the 2023 zeitgeist.

Well calling Starfield impressive but also immediately-boring would be a massive understatement.

It almost feels like a benchmark. With all the gameplay depth and immersion that goes along with running one. It's not bad at what it does, quite the opposite in fact. It's stellar. But there's just so little to it, despite the massive world fulll of blips and bits. It's Skyrim driven to an insane extreme: Even wider, even grander, even more impressive. And even more shallow. Much more shallow.

I feel like the same thing thing happened with FO4 until the new mod tools came out. Like I bought starfield, it’s ok, but IMO it won’t hit it’s stride as a game I play frequently until there are a bunch of mods to improve QoL

This is where I was. Decent game, just lost interest after like 2 weeks. There was a bit too much fishing around in the inventory and clicking through menus.

There were definitely a few cool moments in it, but I think they got to engrossed in the procgen planets to really give it all that handcrafted feel. Having 1000 planets forced the content to be too spread out. And other games have been out for years that handle the procgen better.

7/10 review guy was right. Decent game with some cool parts, but also a lot of issues and annoyances.

I mean, he talked about both games. It seems like neither one alone was enough for an opinion article, so he wrote about both.

Hogwarts was fun, not really all that groundbreaking in any particular way but it was a good take on that universe for sure.

Hogwarts legacy was good until the hype wore off and then you notice that it's not very good story/gameplay wise and the whole game coasted on the castle itself.

The problem with HL is that it had very little to offer beyond "you're a witch at Hogwarts". They put together a great setting... then did nothing with it. It's a huge pity and a great waste of something that could've been amazing.

It's a heavy year so I can understand Hogwarts being left off especially since people have a reason to dislike. Very loved by the casual audience (where I am at least) but I don't think any of my gamer friends cared for it that much.