Preliminary review -

If you're a Bethesda RPG fan, you can stop reading. You're going to buy this no matter what, reading anything negative is just going to spike your blood pressure. Stay healthy.

I sit here after 1.5hr of playtime, having needed to research and install both mods and patches just to get the game to NOT look like it has a built-in 2010-era ENB slapped on top.

Basically, it's a Bethesda RPG, in every meaningful way. Tons of random objects to loot, lots of little storytelling vignettes, weird take on leveling and skills, janky but passable combat, and bugs.

Visually, out-of-the-box it's horrendous. Lack of HDR (fixable with Special K), incredibly ugly LUTs (can be modded), and the UI animations locked at 30 FPS making space combat a stuttery and distracting mess (also can be modded).

Performance-wise - it's pretty well documented that it runs like garbage. Luckily the modding community has already identified some of the issues (the executable was compiled wrong, hence it's 90mb size). nVidia users have a mod for DLSS that helps tremendously.

Story - I'm 1.5hr in. Can't really speak on that. At least the protagonist isn't voiced.

It's not as buggy as Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc were at launch. It's better behaved than CP2077 was at launch.

But the oversights are baffling and glaring. We've all heard about the missing FOV slider and always-defaulted-to-on upscaling.

It plays OK. If you want a new Bethesda RPG - you're going to buy it eventually, and you know what you're buying. If you just want a new space adventure game, wait a year or two for some patches, sales, and mods.

So far, it's nothing special and it's fundamentally at least partly broken.

I'll update the review at 20 hours and at 40 hours, and probably once more if/when I hit 100 hours.

Edit: Wait....an unironic cover of Rocket Man in the live action trailer? Does Bethesda actually have internet access, or are they just that clueless about how much of a meme that song has been since Family Guy reminded everyone that the Shatner version exists?

Preliminary review - If you're a Bethesda RPG fan, you can stop reading. You're going to buy this no matter what, reading anything negative is just going to spike your blood pressure. Stay healthy. I sit here after 1.5hr of playtime, having needed to research and install both mods and patches just to get the game to NOT look like it has a built-in 2010-era ENB slapped on top. Basically, it's a Bethesda RPG, in every meaningful way. Tons of random objects to loot, lots of little storytelling vignettes, weird take on leveling and skills, janky but passable combat, and bugs. Visually, out-of-the-box it's horrendous. Lack of HDR (fixable with Special K), incredibly ugly LUTs (can be modded), and the UI animations locked at 30 FPS making space combat a stuttery and distracting mess (also can be modded). Performance-wise - it's pretty well documented that it runs like garbage. Luckily the modding community has already identified some of the issues (the executable was compiled wrong, hence it's 90mb size). nVidia users have a mod for DLSS that helps tremendously. Story - I'm 1.5hr in. Can't really speak on that. At least the protagonist isn't voiced. It's not as buggy as Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc were at launch. It's better behaved than CP2077 was at launch. But the oversights are baffling and glaring. We've all heard about the missing FOV slider and always-defaulted-to-on upscaling. It plays OK. If you want a new Bethesda RPG - you're going to buy it eventually, and you know what you're buying. If you just want a new space adventure game, wait a year or two for some patches, sales, and mods. So far, it's nothing special and it's fundamentally at least partly broken. I'll update the review at 20 hours and at 40 hours, and probably once more if/when I hit 100 hours. Edit: Wait....an unironic cover of Rocket Man in the live action trailer? Does Bethesda actually have internet access, or are they just that clueless about how much of a meme that song has been since Family Guy reminded everyone that the Shatner version exists?