Starfield takes place in the distant future of 2330 when technology has advanced to a stage that led humanity to the stars but apparently has also taken away their ability to create city maps. The spacefaring game from the makers of Skyrim is understandably receiving complaints from a few who are frustrated and would like more useful directions to guide their character, yet the developers at Bethesda most likely designed the lackluster maps in this manner on purpose. The level of detail in Starfield overall, with the intricate worlds that have been created, lends itself to the idea that the dev team simply could not have overlooked the maps.
It is still possible that Bethesda could make an update to Starfield that would provide city maps for areas such as New Atlantis, Neon, or Akila City, due to feedback. Currently, when inside one of these large and crowded cities, the map is little more than a blue screen with a dotted white grid and a couple of key locations that can be selected. Even the key locations listed are extremely limited and do not include basic things like weapon shops or places to buy meds. While the scan ability is helpful, its use is significantly diminished in more complex cities.
Bethesda has been very quiet about any reasoning behind making the map system so plain, but it was likely a design choice. Starfield is about exploration, whether that is exploring the galaxy in space or walking around unfamiliar cities. A lack of navigational aids, which many in the real world rely on, forces people to slow down and take a look at their surroundings.
This system adds to the overall emphasis on exploring and is a nice touch that not everything is immediately apparent and provided. Optional quests are stumbled upon, interesting sights and shops are discovered, and it provides an added sense of accomplishment and a bit of an unexpected dopamine rush.
Games such as Starfield are more immersive when people can take things a bit slower and walk around a location rather than just jumping immediately from one place to the next. Walking through the cities leads to hearing conversations between NPCs, which even provides the means to pick up some of the best quests in Starfield that would have otherwise been missed. There is a level of detail that has been crafted into each place with interesting things to see, conversations to hear, and plenty of interesting attributes of each of the worlds, and all of this could be missed by rushing around or utilizing fast travel.
2023-09-14 09:48:03
Article from screenrant.com
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