How No Man's Sky launch fiasco serves as an important insight for Bethesda and Starfield

Starfield is one of the most anticipated games of 2022, and the hype for the game is massive. The game has been a long time in the making, and Bethesda ensures that its ambitious project doesn't miss its mark. Among many things in the game, space exploration will be one of the most essential functions.

Todd Howard has reportedly traveled to SpaceX to get relevant pieces of information to maintain accuracy. While all the ambitions and early signs are positive, there's still a note of caution the developers should practice by observing No Man's Sky.

There are certain similarities between the two games, which originate from the theme of space. It's quite likely that Starfield's space exploration will retain some features from No Man's Sky.

Yet, the latter's initial release should be a strong warning for Bethesda and its developers. No Man's Sky has turned out to be a redemption story, but Starfield will have to do better.

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Bethesda should pay attention to No Man's Sky while developing Starfield

It wouldn't be an understatement to say that Starfield is "the" game fans anticipate among the 2022 releases. Despite the game likely being an Xbox-console exclusive, the amount of hype it has garnered is massive.

Hype is not bad and works wonders, but only when delivered. If there was one game that failed at that, it's No Man's Sky.

The debacle of the 2016 release was immense as fans and players barely got what was even promised. Players thought they would have an amazing adventure in a procedurally generated universe. There were also assumptions that players would be able to enjoy co-op and play with each other.

Suffice to say, many of the promises made weren't delivered. The problem didn't stop with the missing features, as there were many bugs. The state in which the game was launched was outright terrible. Since then, Hello Games has released plenty of free DLCs that have added content and fixed many issues.

Today, No Man's Sky is an excellent game, and it has been a recovery story of its kind. However, Bethesda will have to observe the mistakes and prevent them from repeating them. Unlike Hello Games, Bethesda's expertise with game publishing is much more. This means that gamers will likely be much more impatient with them.

Ensuring a proper release of Starfield will be extremely important to Bethesda. Its last major release of Fallout 76 ruined a lot of reputation, and it's another example of a game that launched in a poor state but then recovered. However, the game failed to carry on with the success of the previous Fallout games.

A significant lesson for Bethesda will be to ensure that they don't make too many promises. The developers have dubbed the upcoming game Skyrim in Space. Things like these can often backfire, especially when Skyrim is a stunning game.

Bethesda must ensure that they stick to the ground realities when making promises. It's expected that the requirements of Starfield will be more than that of No Man's Sky.

The possible complexities of the game will also likely be more as there will be RPG elements. While all this seems brilliant as a setup, the chances of things going wrong also increase.

Bethesda has taken the time it believes is necessary for a great release. The information revealed has stuck to its limitations and has not promised anything that could be too good to be true. Perhaps the company has already observed what happened to Hello Games with its poor launch of No Man Sky.

A poor launch can always be recovered if developers are willing to rectify the problems. A company's reputation can be trickier to repair than a video game, and the stakes have never been higher for Bethesda.