Since its launch, Starfield was plagued with long stretches of on-foot traversal, lackluster enemies, and a story that felt nearly non-existent. But the game’s biggest issue wasn’t just pacing or plot; it was the use of procedural generation. Instead of creating each planet by hand with unique geography, landmarks, and quests, Bethesda used algorithms to generate environments on the fly as players approached them. This allowed the game to feature over 1,000 planets, but most ended up feeling empty and repetitive. Outside a few carefully designed locations like New Atlantis and Akila, players mostly discovered duplicate medical labs, lifeless caves, and repetitive helium labs.
