We need to talk about the new Starfield+ Choice game, no spoilers

Okay, I’ve had enough. In all our reviews, we’ve had to dance around what Starfield does with New Game+, even though it is Really really important. The problem is that this has led to a lot of conflicting advice from reviewers and creators who have already done it about whether or not they should rush through the main quest and get to it as quickly as possible, which is what a lot of people are saying. But I would do the opposite, and “max out” your first playthrough before thinking about it.

Why? What is happening here? We have to talk about it, but I’ll do it somehow Which avoids any spoilers for the story, despite how closely related it is to the NG+ story. All I’ll say is that NG+ is partly explained in the story, but the logistics of what that means is more complicated. And I have to say, despite my overall love for Starfield, I don’t like the way this was handled. If you really want to know nothing Regarding NG+, even theoretically, don’t read this, but I won’t spoil the actual ending of the game.

So, the first order of business is what you keep and what you lose.

keep:

• your level
• Your skills
• Your abilities

You lose:

• All weapons and armor
• All materials and credits
• All bases and ships, custom or otherwise
• All your exploration% on planets
• All quest lines have been reset

This is a huge sacrifice, so why do it at all? As the creators point out, there are some bonuses you get in NG+. Without going into detail, you get two “items”. I won’t say what these items are, but they are cool, admittedly. However, they will not be useful throughout this period. You also get some new dialogue options that will help sometimes skip checks or quest steps. Most of the time they do nothing. There’s also something else that’s fairly simple, but too difficult to list here.

However, as accurate as the above is, I don’t think it’s worth rushing through your first playthrough to get there. Why? many reasons.

First, if you are in a hurry Just The main mission is to reach the end, you will not encounter any of the faction outcomes or side quests in the game, of which there are many. So, if you start NG+, which is a place where, like a new save file, you can make different choices, you’ll have There is no frame of reference What a different option for anything but the main quest itself.

Secondly, skipping all the side content and exploration and just blasting through the main quest is… a very bad way to play Starfield. It’s painful to hold yourself back by resisting the urge to explore or do a lot of the quests you’ll find in the world based on the advice of “trust me bro, NG+ is worth it”. In my opinion, no, it is not. Not if it involves rushing into a campaign.

My advice is to “maximize” the game as much as you can, and then once it starts to dry up, maybe play it again with NG+. This is what I did after hour 80 or so, as well as around hour 50 an act I did NG+, and I didn’t enjoy the fact that all my stuff was cleared out, along with a huge list of tasks I was going to do later. So while I “watched” the first few hours of NG+ and the changes it brought, I eventually reverted to the old save that existed before NG+. You can see the “items” you get and some early dialogue options by doing this, but I’ll keep a save in your old game and you can go back to it if you want. You’re given a clear choice on whether or not you want to use NG+ at the end of the game, and if you say no, you can always come back to it later.

I don’t like any of this.

For me, story-driven or not, the concept of NG+ in a game about large-scale exploration, finding hundreds of secrets, and exploring hundreds of planets, doesn’t mix with a system that resets all your progress with minimal changes in a new game. the way of playing. Yes, I understand that people do a lot of playthroughs of Bethesda games, but when you do, you don’t Delete your old character’s save file, which is basically what happens here, and it only lasts at your level. I think NG+ makes sense in more straightforward single-player games, but here, in a sprawling Bethesda RPG where they want you to explore and build elaborate things and save enough to buy massive ships or luxury apartments, that kind of reset built into the story sucks.

complication everyone From this I’ve heard that at some point in the NG+ process, because yes, you’re supposed to do this many times, there might actually be something going on. He is More important from a story/gameplay perspective than I’ve seen so far make it to NG+2. However, I have no idea how many NG+s it will take, not even if it’s a guaranteed thing, or a random chance. And here in NG+2, I don’t know how many more times I can do this loop in pursuit of this unknown thing. Now, I just want to settle down and start the game fully 100% in a way that I didn’t in my first two games, one long one, one rushed to see if anything new will change in NG+2 (so far, it hasn’t) ‘No change from NG +1 (even a little).

I don’t think this is a good system, and not something the story should have been based on. I love almost everything about this game, but this was one of the major decisions I disagreed with the most.

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