Is Starfield more Oblivion than Skyrim? A Question of art style

 There has been much criticism surrouding Starfield over the past couple of weeks. The average review score for Starfield has continued to get more and more mediocre over time. While the overall rating is still mostly positive on Steam, the recent reviews are what are causing for the review score to continue getting less stellar. The Metacritic reviews are mostly positive and the non-gamer outlets are giving rave reviews of the game. In the post-release marketing of the game, Bethesda has emphasized the reviews of legacy, often elite magazines. It's as if they are trying to get non gamers to play this game. 

While players have criticized Starfield's realism, I feel that the game has very interesting stories.

However, one of the one most important aspects of Starfield that often does not get mentioned enough is that the game feels similar to Oblivion more than Skyrim.

Moving Away from Skyrim

The thing that Skyrim had that made it so great was that it was able to appeal to many groups of people. It appealed to the nongamer as well as the mainstream and hardcore gamer. That is why it was so great and remains in the memory of so many gamers to this day. While many games end up becoming obscure and forgotten by the audiences within a couple of years, Skyrim remains as relevant as when it was released many years ago.

However, there is a problem with this. 

Skyrim is a highly influential game that has created a narrative that games have to made in its style. This idea has made it very difficult for Bethesda to please everyone. 

So, instead of trying to please everyone, Bethesda decided to go back to the title that came out before Skyrim and go back to the province of Cyrodiil and see all that great multiculturalism.

Starfield is more reminiscent of Oblivion than Skyrim. In many ways, I look at New Atlantis as a futuristic version of the Imperial City with all of its diverse groups of people.  

However, I think one of the most important links between Oblivion and Starfield is the planet Jemison. I have already talked about how Jemison is one of the best parts of the game. But there is another aspect of Jemison that I did not really talk about. 

Jemison reminds me of Cyrodiil in Oblivion. 

While it's not exactly the same in its style. Oblivion's Cyrodiil and Starfield's Jemison seem designed in a way to have certain emotions that reveal something about the player's inner thought process. Skyrim seems to be more about adhering to the tropes of Scandinavian mythology, while Cyrodiil is more traditional fantasy than Skyrim.

Jemsion seems to be an excellent example of Bethesda trying to tap into the memories of a generation of players who played Oblivion before Skyrim. Considering that Oblivion was my first foray into the Elder Scrolls timeline, I think this is one of the reasons why I like Starfield so much. I understand that people expected more from this game but this game but I feel that the game has achieved the vision of the people in charge. This is why I love the game so much. 

I always found that Skyrim was too bland looking, too earthy. While I appreciate the change in the style, the game was dull looking and all the races looked the same. Oblivion and Starfield share much in common and I am happy that Starfield took inspiration from the Oblivion more than Skyrim.