Currently lvl 6, didn’t like the first couple of hours, thought the graphics and npc build a bit dated, also no adequate display adjustment…everything is a bit grey and washed out. I’ve done my best adjusting my projector settings but it’s still washed out.
im beginning to get into the combat, I’ve levelled up the pistol and jet pack and it’s marginally better….still feels a bit clunky….a lot of load screens which Is poor imo.
Yeah, it is a slog the first 10-15 hours apparently. That has been almost a universal qualifier from all reviews. It was like that with Skyrim, as well, to be fair. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose to conjure a sort of modified ‘IKEA effect’.
And I agree about the display settings. I searched around for in game brightness and constrast settings because on my high end ultrawide monitor that I’ve already done pro calibration on it looked washed out from that very first scene, but none exist. I may just end up setting up a custom display profile on the monitor itself to compensate, but it is quite poor they did not allow adjustment in game.
They’ve improved the Creation engine substantially, but I agree the graphics and character models look dated compared to recent game releases. That said, I am fortunately able to run it on Ultra with FSR2 (ridiculous that Bethesda signed that exclusive deal with AMD, though, which means no DLSS support until a modder makes it possible) and that makes a big difference. I think most it is based on still using their in-house engine and the fact the game has been in-development for 8 years; I think the latter point explains a lot of instances of “I feel like [insert recent game] does [insert specific game system, graphics element, or mechanic] better”. If it had come out 3 years ago it would have felt far more fresh and impressive. Time waits for no one, not even Tom Howard’s passion project. I reckon they’ll eventually have to ditch the Creation engine in order to substantially reduce development cycle times to remain competitive… but that is a massive undertaking given the sheer complexity of their world building and quest systems. Rebuilding those on something like Unreal 5 is a monumental challenge.
I think, like with Skyrim before the big quality of life mods were built, the best way to describe the menus and inventory management is clunky, as you say. And, as I said in my review round up, the way they have decided to do space travel is disappointing (at times it feels like how an actuary would design a game); cutscenes and loading screens—essentially reducing it to a very fancy excel spreadsheet—doesn’t inspire the awe of exploring the universe.
Hopefully that will be improve with time, as well.
But I do think there are great elements in it that probably take a bit to come out, and I am enjoying the return to more complex dialog and consequence structures.
I will reserve full judgement until I have 20 or so hours in.
I will say it definitely feels like a Bethesda ROG (for better or worse).
