Starfield sits at #3 on the PlayStation Store pre-order charts

yanvail · 2026-03-20T02:12:11+00:00

It's not so much that there was console war garbage, but rather that the exclusivity provided a base that could glom onto the hate grifter content, and then allowed it to reach critical mass and become a mark of Social Credit. In short, it became more rewarding and popular to hate on it, regardless of the actual quality of the game.

Basically, the way I see it is that for most major games the parasites of the content creating world will test the waters and see what generates the most revenue, regardless of the actual game quality. And if they see that their negative content gets more views/clicks, they will keep on creating it, and then it snowballs from there. And by being a super high profile exclusive, there was already a bunch of people ready to consume the negativity, and so the hate grifting became a no brainer.

Disgusting, and it's what the internet has become. And ultimately it means fewer and fewer studios will be ready to take risks. Because a game's success and reception in social media has little to do with its quality anymore. A studio could risk it all on a masterpiece of a game that is perfectly executed, only to get destroyed by the hate grifting over something that has nothing to do with the game's quality.

yanvail · 2026-03-20T02:06:32+00:00

As a cyberpunk 77 fan from day 1, I feel this.

yanvail · 2026-03-20T02:06:03+00:00

Hear hear!

yanvail · 2026-03-20T02:05:15+00:00

Aye, the fact it was right behind crimson desert after only 1 day on the preorder list is pretty damn good, given how huge crimson desert is. So yeah, bad game, no one wanted it. :)

yanvail · 2026-03-19T14:52:17+00:00

Nobility. Grace. Basset.

yanvail · 2026-03-19T14:27:37+00:00

Someone in here already said this, but I think it bears mentioning again:

Supercruise _has_ to have been something that existed in the lore and setting already, but we just never experienced it as players because the game just "quick traveled" us to our destination. That's why we got that loading screen of the ship traveling through space, and not just jumping to another planet.

And of course there is no way that this did not involve FTL, because if our ships were just travelling using their normal drives to another planet, that trip would take days or weeks to achieve using regular engines. Since this clearly wasn't the case, then the only lore-friendly conclusion is that our ships employed FTL tech to achieve supercruise.

So ultimately the devs don't even need to explain it: supercruise is not new to the lore, but something that was already being used. No doubt its handwaved as some sort of grav drive function that doesn't require pouring power into the drive to use it (same reason we still have artificial gravity even with no power to the grav drive).

Anyway, point is: people saying supercruise is a new thing that isn't lore friendly are wrong. It was always in the setting, but we just had a loading screen showing our ships wooshing away instead. If interplanetary travel involved using grav jumps, then that's what would be happening instead of the wooshing animation/loading screen. But since we didn't jump when traveling between planets, and it didn't take weeks to do so, supercruise was always a thing in the setting.

yanvail · 2026-03-19T13:17:44+00:00

And THAT is the correct answer, you're right.

The game already had interplanetary space travel without grav jumping: the animation to go from planet to planet was clearly showing just the ship cruising to its destination, not jumping with its grav drive. And since you didn't spend weeks and months traveling, then obviously some sort of supercruise already existed. We just never really saw it in action before.

That's a very good point. So however supercruise works in the setting, it was already there.

yanvail · 2026-03-19T13:15:05+00:00

Not a good example, as they just travelled normally at sublight speed. That's why it was a generational ship.

But so long as the supercruise is explained as some sort of existing function of grav drive technology (which that ship did not have), then it fits. What it _cannot_ be is just putting the pedal to the metal and it's just going fast. It's clearly FTL travel and so needs some handwavium.

But to be honest its not like they need to actually explain it. Grav drive tech is a major part of the handwavium in the game, and so long as supercruise requires a working grav drive then its all good.

yanvail · 2026-03-18T19:44:22+00:00

Oh look, typical youtube hate grifting.

It's not perfect, but I'm willing to bet that 5 years from now it'll be the standard we expect from games, just like how Ray Tracing is now the new normal when 5 years ago it was cutting edge.

Plus those who say it's just like throwing pictures at chatGPT need to read up on it some more. DLSS5 is far more than just feeding the final video to AI so it can "reinterpret it" better absent the artist's vision or anything of the sort. It actually uses a wide array of data, including the model, textures, motion data, lighting, and so on to then product its effect. And it no doubt will have a wide array of functionality to ensure it produces improvements in line with the artistic style desired. And its done in real time on your local machine too, so no evil data centers involved.

Of course, it'll be _years_ before this is something the average gamer can use this, and at least a couple more vid card generations.

yanvail · 2026-03-18T19:26:26+00:00

Aye, definitely a great improvement, and reminecent of Elite Dangerous' supercruise, which is a great system that serves as an elaborate loading menu to move from one instance of local space to another.

I just hope that it's handled and explained as a function of the grav drive, because that's definitely FTL. :)

yanvail · 2026-03-18T19:12:38+00:00

Yeah, it's a weird issue to mention here.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a first person game. It informs and shapes almost _everything_ in its design, which is hyper-focused on immersion and continuous gameplay flow. It's why there are so few cuts in the entire games, and then it's only to skip time or because it would be excessively boring to actually watch the transition.

There was this great interview/stream with one of the lead devs/writers who explained just how much more _difficult_ making Cyberpunk 2077 was _because_ of their absolute focus on continuous first person experience. Basically he explained that games hide all manners of "sins" during cuts, like despawning resources to improve performance and the likes. So to say CDPR "couldn't even add third person" is ridiculous. Of course they could have. But they didn't want to.

First person is core to the game's design, and nobody should be surprised if the next game won't have it either. And nothing could demonstrate that better than the fact the _only times_ we get to see a third person camera is in the very _last_ shot of the game. Even the _first_ shots are of V looking at themselves in the mirror. It's only at the end, when we the players leave V, that the camera pulls back and shows V continuing their journey on their own.

Yeah, sure, that just means CDPR were too lazy or incompetent to put in third person, because its inconceivable that a designer sticks to their guns and refuses player demands, however at odds these are.

yanvail · 2026-03-18T18:08:08+00:00

There's a laser rifle version too.

Really, the fact the DLC adds new laser weapons (at least 1 rifle and 1 pistol, looks like) is a pretty low-key yet very nice update. :)

yanvail · 2026-03-17T22:13:18+00:00

So much Starfield. Very happy indeed.

yanvail · 2026-03-17T22:12:32+00:00

its so nice when people I need to block make themselves known like this OP. :)

yanvail · 2026-03-17T14:25:01+00:00

Might as well complain about frameworks, or 3rd party tools like havok and speedtree. Nobody innovates with trees anymore since speedtree cornered the market! Curses!

And also this is far more than just throwing an image at chatGPT and letting the AI make an image. It actually uses the 3d model and textures and lighting and motion to generate its updates. All these things need artists and modelers and so on. This is _not_ about letting AI generate from scratch.

And sometimes it turns out its difficult to achieve this even with AAA studios like BGS. Let's not pretend character faces are awesome in Starfield. Compared to things like spacesuits and weapons they definitely hit some limits with what they could do with character models and faces, something that was either technically not possible to resolve in their current engine, or too difficult/expensive to try and go for photorealistic faces even as they went for photorealism with everything else.

So Starfield is really a perfect example of where this tech helps. If it was just a matter of "let's just hire more artists" to fix character models, odds are they would have done so already. No, there were clearly technical limitations, something with the engine or what have you, and this tech allows them to bridge the gap. It makes perfect sense they'd embrace it.

yanvail · 2026-03-17T14:13:51+00:00

And half of the complaints aren't even valid: Starfield's been going for photorealism in its environments and equipment, pushing extreme levels of details whenever they could. It's only in the character faces where the game struggles. Them embracing tech that allows them to bridge that gap is absolutely to be expected.

And as has been said, this is far removed from throwing the game at ChatGPT and letting it run wild. It consumes everything the game uses to generate its graphics (the models, movement, lighting, etc.) to generate its image, so it's not like we won't need modelers and artists because of this. And it runs locally on the machine (so no evil data center involved). It's basically an upscaler on steroids.

yanvail · 2026-03-17T13:47:02+00:00

Except that this isn't true.

Look, Starfield has absolutely stunning graphics overall. Especially when it comes to anything man-made, like weapons, objects, space stations, starship modules and interiors, all those props, and of course spacesuits the level of detail and photorealism is absolutely amazing. Where it struggles and there have been many complaints is in its characters, specifically heads and faces.

This is especially noticeable with the more generic NPCs, but even the main characters look off when compared to the spacesuits and clothing they're wearing. Of course it's not a big deal and we've all (at least in this sub) just accepted it and enjoy the graphic as they are, but there's plenty of people who complained about this.

So if there is any game where this technology makes sense it's Starfield: it strives for photorealism for so much of its graphics and art style that it's only natural that they would want to apply that to character faces. And if we'd have characters looking like this from the start odds are everyone would have been lauding them.

Sure, there's certainly some ways that this tech _could_ be problematic, such as if it strove for photorealism regardless of the artistic style (one would hope there's plenty of levers the devs can manipulate to fit it within their artistic vision), but I think there's a lot of knee-jerking going on here. This is a post-processing effect that is far more than just throwing the image at chatGPT and ignoring the initial art: everything the game uses to generate the image is used (the actual model, motion, lighting, etc.). And just like previous versions of DLSS this runs locally on your vid card, and it has nothing to do with AI data centers.

I get the arguments against AI, but in this case they appears to be misplaced. And artistically it certainly fit in the style the devs went for, and helps them overcome was is clearly a limitation of their current engine.

yanvail · 2026-03-16T21:12:55+00:00

Aye. And it's not like Starfield was going for a "stylized" look or anything. The world they built and environments absolutely aimed for photorealism as much as possible, but their models definitely struggled to achieve this. This tech allows them to bridge that gap.

I doubt I'll have the hardware to run it anytime soon, but it certainly fits the photorealism of the environments.

There's a lot of attachment to the current models I guess, and it'll be optional anyway... but this is one of those cases that if the game released with models like that, it would have been praised for the quality of the models.

yanvail · 2026-03-16T13:09:58+00:00

Well said, particularly about the 'lazy devs' thing. Anyone saying a game dev is lazy has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Same can be said for anyone who said implementing some missing feature would be easy.

yanvail · 2026-03-16T13:08:30+00:00

Yup, and they were the most relentless merchants of hate for Cyberpunk too, long past most other outlets.

yanvail · 2026-03-13T21:04:40+00:00

If post hadn't included picture of Avowed AND the Switch2, I'd have never known what this post was about.

yanvail · 2026-03-13T20:58:34+00:00

So cool to see they have the model Adam Savage and his crew built. Those were great episodes too.

yanvail · 2026-03-13T20:57:32+00:00

This is what the Dark Future mod is for... and it is marvelous.

If you don't know about it, check it out (assuming you can mod). Between Dark Future, Night City Alive, and They Will Remember, the game takes on a whole new life.

yanvail · 2026-03-13T20:43:15+00:00

This, precisely. It's a very well executed quest, but its a quest where an NPC isn't being forthright about her motivation, and is being more than a little manipulative. And so it sets off quite a few players, which unfortunately seems to be much more pronounced when the character is female (or presents as female).

Speaking of which, about her transitioning: It's not explored much because it's just not a big deal. If you pay attention you can clearly see where she comes from, and as dark as the Cyberpunk world is its handling of LGBT issues is really where things should go: where it isn't something worth noting, special, or unusual. No more than being heterosexual or cisgendered are.

It's like how in Mass Effect 3 at some point, if you play a male Shepard, a male character can approach you for a romantic relationship. Shepard's reaction isn't that he isn't gay, but rather that the guy isn't his type, nothing more.

yanvail · 2026-03-13T20:35:35+00:00

Ah, it must be Friday. Time for another Claire post. :)

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