Shattered Space Adding More POIs Was Nice, But New Locations Aren’t Enough To Fix The Game’s Biggest Problem With Repetition

Starfield‘s approach to points-of-interest, or POIs, has been a point of contention since it initially launched. Currently, Starfield has a number of handcrafted POIs which are then randomly placed on planets. Their loot and enemy placements are then randomly generated to make them feel more distinct. However, as many players have discovered, these POIs end up feeling incredibly repetitive, even with the loot and enemies being switched out each time. They never feel unexpected, mysterious, or challenging, as players approach them the exact same way every time.

In fact, the POIs end up being one of the worst parts of Starfield, especially as players have found that the same data slates, dead bodies, and lore entries are popping up across multiple POIs. Starfield: Shattered Space attempted to fix the problem with new POIs, but it wasn’t enough. However, there is an obvious solution to Starfield’s POI problem that could make all fans happy.

Shattered Space’s New POIs Don’t Fix The Problem

They’re A Band-Aid Solution

Starfield: Shattered Space introduced a number of brand-new POIs for players to discover, thus somewhat increasing the fairly limited pool currently in the game. These new POIs are a worthwhile addition, especially as they reduce the sheer amount of repetition players experience every time they venture to a non-story-related planet in search of things to do. However, while everyone is grateful to have more content to uncover, Shattered Space’s new POIs are not enough to fix Starfield’s biggest problem with repetition.

More than anything, adding additional POIs to Starfield feels like a band-aid solution. It is a temporary fix that will momentarily remove the feeling of repetition until players have discovered all the new POIs and begin to see them over and over again. Adding new POIs doesn’t fix the root of the problem, which is that doing the same content repeatedly gets boring, and the game is in desperate need of procedurally generated content.

As much as people languish at comparisons between Starfield and No Man’s Sky, it’s hard not to feel that NMS‘ approach to POIs is handled far more efficiently, as players are always guaranteed something new, even if it is a variant of what they’ve already uncovered before. Starfield copying and pasting its handful of POIs across its procedurally generated worlds is just not enough, especially when those POIs aren’t interesting enough in the first place. Of course, if Bethesda continues to add more and more POIs, eventually there will be enough to stave off repetition.

Starfield
copying and pasting its handful of POIs across its procedurally generated worlds is just not enough, especially when those POIs aren’t interesting enough in the first place.

However, Starfield’s mistakes are making it hard to invest in, with Bethesda having little reason to continue investing in it, especially thanks to its dwindling player base. The chance of Bethesda creating enough unique POIs to make it so players rarely encounter the same place twice is exceptionally slim. Instead, it should create a model akin to Remnant 2’s procedural generation which makes its locations modular, rather than handcrafted locations that are repeated ad nauseam.

Modular POIs Could Make Starfield Less Repetitive

It Would Make Starfield’s Universe Feel Truly Unexpected

One meaningful solution to Starfield’s biggest problem would be to introduce modular POIs. Starfield’s current model of copying and pasting handcrafted content isn’t working, largely because its bloated universe has 1,000 planets for players to explore. While not every planet needs completely new content for players to engage with, especially as Bethesda intentionally created barren planets to create a more realistic universe, there are simply not enough unique points of interest to reduce the risk of encountering the same ones repeatedly.

Modular POIs would fix this problem, especially if Bethesda created enough unique parts. Essentially, Starfield would draw from a range of assets and tilesets and bring a handful of them together in a random order, thus creating a brand-new POI. It’s how No Man’s Sky’s randomly generated creatures work or how the incredibly immersive world of Remnant 2 is put together. Modular POIs would help make each one feel unexpected, while still making them consistent with the in-game lore. For example, mining stations would still always look similar, but wouldn’t have the exact same layout each and every time.

In order for modular POIs to work, Bethesda would need to create a vast range of tilesets for the game to create new areas out of. For example, it would need to create multiple variations of corridor tilesets which would then be stitched together to create a cohesive area. However, unlike with handcrafted POIs being repeated, even with just a handful of options, there is a lot of potential for variation.

While fans have been calling for more handcrafted content for Starfield, it’s clear now that it simply isn’t the answer. Shattered Space’s completely handcrafted world was not enough to fix the base Starfield experience. Even had it been an enjoyable location to explore, fans would still eventually have to return to the repetitive POIs of Starfield’s sprawling galaxy. Introducing Modular POIs to Starfield would fix the base game in a way that Shattered Space never could.

POIs Need To Actually Make Sense In Starfield

They Need To Stop Popping Up Where They Don’t Belong

Another issue that Starfield: Shattered Space failed to address is that POIs often do not make sense. They constantly pop up on planets where they don’t belong, have assets in places that don’t make sense – like seating and food outside on a toxic planet – and appear multiple times within the same system. POIs are almost too randomly placed in Starfield, creating a completely inconsistent sense of worldbuilding that all too frequently breaks any immersion.

In a game like No Man’s Sky, it’s easier to forgive these inconsistencies, as absolutely everything is randomly generated. However, Starfield is a largely narrative-driven game with a more consistent and detailed world. Bethesda has put real thought and effort into creating the universe players explore, so when POIs don’t make any sense, it feels like a mistake. Of course, there are plenty of mods that fix Starfield, but it shouldn’t have to be up to modders to improve the game. Bethesda should have thought of this before releasing Starfield.

Points of interest have been one of the biggest issues for Starfield skeptics since it launched, yet Bethesda has not fixed them. It can continue to add more, and, if it adds enough, this could eventually rectify the problem. However, unless it implements some form of modular POIs and fixes the random placement of them to ensure that they make sense from a world-building perspective and aren’t repetitive, Starfield will continue to feel more like a video game and less like an immersive space sim.

Source: Bethesda Softworks/YouTube, Helpful-Leadership58/Reddit