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Starfield’s zero-G gunfights are a rare treat, but I do enjoy themFloating points
Floating points
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios
Apologies to the chief, but there’s a not-entirely-accurate bit inKatharine’s postannouncingStarfieldas October’sRPS Game Clubgame. I, of the RPS Treehouse,dotruly loveStarfield, and have only been quiet about it because admitting you enjoy The Grey Bethesda Game but couldn’t get intoBaldur’s Gate 3orElden Ringfeels a bit like going to the Savoy Grill and only ordering chips. No one will ask you to leave, but they’ll probably start questioning your judgement.
But dammit, I like chips, and I like Starfield! I like its roving space captain fantasy, I like its utilitarian aesthetic, and I like how its click-clacking guns sound like extremely violentmechanical keyboards. Especially if I get to fire them at floating pirates, while I’m also floating, and said firing punts me upwards into a ceiling.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settingsWas Starfield worth the wait? Liam and Alice B discuss this question - and more - in the video above.Watch on YouTube
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Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Softworks
Another entertaining physics quirk is how easily you can lose control of yourself. You can manoeuvre in any direction and activate your boost pack for a quick burst of speed, but air friction is a poor brake, and attempts at rapid relocation will usually end with you bumping into things like a putz. Luckily, outside of those puzzles, there’s usually little need for precise movements in zero gravity, so you can simply enjoy the kinetic pleasures of bouncing around spaceships like a mishit ping pong ball. Brilliantly, the recoil of ballistic weapons will propel you backwards as well, making for shootouts that are either wilder or more tactical – the latter if you try to navigate with your back already pressed up against a wall, to save you the trouble of smashing into it later. Laser weapons don’t have this trait, and for that reason, I’ve been leaving them unequipped whenever the chance for a zero-G fight comes up.
Sadly these opportunities are indeed hard to find. In the dogfight minigame it’s possible to knock out enough of a ship’s systems that you can board it and battle the occupants without gravity, but even in a galaxy as big as Starfield’s, fixed sources of weightless duels are incredibly rare. If Bethesda makeNuka World-style expansions for it, I hope they include a few new ones, and that they include more unfastened litter than ever before.
