Starfield hasn’t even been released yet, but already the first critics are coming out of the woodwork. A former WoW developer has bitten into the main menu of Starfield, of all things.
The release of Starfield is still a few days away – two weeks to be exact. But that apparently isn’t stopping some people from already publicly criticising Bethesda’s design decisions. Even if it’s about complete trivialities.
What happened?
As is customary in the gaming industry, selected people and members of the press can get a first-hand look at a new game a few days before its release. GlobalESportNews colleague Kevin has already dived into Bethesda’s space RPG, so that he can provide you with a detailed review in time for the release – Peter, however, does not criticise Bethesda on social media.
That’s what former World of Warcraft developer Mark Kern did instead. He too has apparently had access to Starfield and is not at all taken with one thing in the game: The main menu.
“A team that doesn’t care “
On Twitter (now X), Kern shared a screenshot of the main menu over the weekend, writing: The home screen of a game can reveal how stressed a development team was and how proud they are of their work. Starfield’s main menu either shows that the team was overworked and close to a hard deadline, or that they just didn’t care about the start menu.
The physiognomy of start screens.
The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work.
Starfield’s start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn’t care. pic.twitter.com/Ok4gzQ3DVo
– Grummz (@Grummz) August 19, 2023
Kern apparently feels Starfield’s main menu isn’t pretty enough and accuses Bethesda’s developers of being uncharitable here. In the same thread, he wrote that loading screens are often programmed at the end of the development cycle; often developers are then stressed and will include a quick fix as a placeholder.
But good developers would then replace them with a nicer splash screen after release.
Bethesda strikes back
Of course, Bethesda didn’t let this criticism, which was irrelevant from a gameplay point of view, sit on its hands for long. On Twitter, Bethesda’s PR boss Pete Hines replied that the start menu of Starfield wasexactly the way the team had wanted it The design was decided years ago and was one of the serious things that was agreed upon for Starfield
Criticising the work of other developers solely on the basis of one’s own taste, Hines called extremely unprofessional
by Kern. An opinion shared by numerous users on Twitter. Tastes are just different. One fan reminded us that we don’t play the start screen and that the menu can only tell us a little about the quality of the finished game.
Starfield will be released on 6 September 2023 for Xbox and PC. Then you can form your own opinion on the current main menu debate.
What do you think about Starfield’s main menu? Timeless and simple or could it have been a bit more? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
