Starfield has been redeemed - by turning it into a huge Star Wars RPG
Although it's by no mean a terrible game, Starfield is a huge disappointment, given it was the long-awaited new release from the creators of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 4. Outdated, under-designed, and with some really odd gameplay decisions, up until now it's not even had the benefit of a thriving mod community.
Compared to Bethesda's other games, there's been relatively little interest amongst the fan community in creating new content for the game, or so we thought. That's all been made up for now, by Star Wars Genesis: a fan-made total conversion that is completely free and considerably more impressive than the parent game.
Starfield obviously took quite a bit of inspiration from Star Wars, as well as dozens of other sci-fi series, so it's not as if everything has had to be changed, but the amount of effort that's gone into it is extraordinary, from landspeeders on Tatooine to a recreation of the Yuuzhan Vong storyline from the old expanded universe.
Rather than a single entity, Genesis is what is called a modlist, bringing together different mods, big and small, by different fans and making sure they all work together.
We'd never even heard of it until today, when we saw it highlighted on ResetEra, but it's already on version 8.2 and is apparently surprisingly stable.
As you can see, the graphics aren't as good as the recent Star Wars Outlaws but you've got to remember this is fan made, and it's not as if Starfield itself was particularly accomplished in terms of its visuals.
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Even so, you get a recreation of Coruscant and Tatooine, and redressings of existing Starfield locations to look more Star Wars-y. There's also new enemy factions, new quest content, and new bosses, but also bug fixes and faster loading – with the various modders certainly not being slow to criticise the base game.
'Vanilla Starfield is best described as a bland exploration game with simply nothing out there for you to explore. Thousands of planets filled with the same repetitive locations, biomes, and enemies. Genesis addresses that by adding new, unique experiences across the galaxy,' reads the introduction on the official website.
'Star Wars Genesis is developed with a gameplay-first philosophy. The goal is an immersive RPG with a unique story and expansive endgame, rather than a re-skin of Starfield with the same flaws,' it adds. More Trending
Rather than Starfield itself, the mods list MMO Star Wars Galaxies and BioWare's Knights Of The Old Republic as the primary inspiration, as well as 'Legends', which is the official name for the old expanded universe stories.
You can certainly see those influences in the huge range of different roles you can take on, including being a drifter on Tatooine, where you can build outposts, fight Tusken Raiders, and trade with Jawas.
You can also be a smuggler and work in the underworld on Coruscant – with criminal syndicates like the Hutts and Pykes, join the Empire, or play as a Mandalorian.
It's an extraordinary effort and while it's only available on PC hopefully it'll give Lucasfilm some inspiration to get an official new role-playing game made, as it's been over two decades now and it's looking increasingly like the promised Knights Of The Old Republic remake is never happening.
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