Wish there was a "Meh" button. It's not bad, but it's also not great. It's tolerable, inoffensive, but a pretty boring experience. Which is upsetting since there was genuinely good potential here but Bethesda played it far too safe imo and the product suffers as a result. I applaud it for having more RPG elements than Fallout 4 (which isn't saying much) but it still feels like Bethesda doesn't quite understand what their core audience wants. Characters are a moderate upgrade from the previous cardboard cutouts of Skyrim and Fallout but NPCs might as well not exist because of how little they add to the world. The exploration is a huge step back which is detrimental for me because that's 75% of the fun in a Bethesda game. As beautiful as some of the scenery of some planets are they serve little purpose most of the time other than filling space. Quests were mostly forgettable in my short time with the game and I had a hard time staying engaged despite really trying to get into it. Gunplay was pretty good overall though I will say. As disappointed as I am there is still some good things in this game it's lacking the soul of the older Bethesda titles. I'd probably give the game a 6/10 which isn't a bad score, but it's below what I expect for a major Bethesda title which is why i'm voting Negatively. I'm hoping they fix some of the exploration and traversal as something as simple as that would likely be enough to nudge it to at least a 7.

Wish there was a "Meh" button. It's not bad, but it's also not great. It's tolerable, inoffensive, but a pretty boring experience. Which is upsetting since there was genuinely good potential here but Bethesda played it far too safe imo and the product suffers as a result. I applaud it for having more RPG elements than Fallout 4 (which isn't saying much) but it still feels like Bethesda doesn't quite understand what their core audience wants. Characters are a moderate upgrade from the previous cardboard cutouts of Skyrim and Fallout but NPCs might as well not exist because of how little they add to the world. The exploration is a huge step back which is detrimental for me because that's 75% of the fun in a Bethesda game. As beautiful as some of the scenery of some planets are they serve little purpose most of the time other than filling space. Quests were mostly forgettable in my short time with the game and I had a hard time staying engaged despite really trying to get into it. Gunplay was pretty good overall though I will say. As disappointed as I am there is still some good things in this game it's lacking the soul of the older Bethesda titles. I'd probably give the game a 6/10 which isn't a bad score, but it's below what I expect for a major Bethesda title which is why i'm voting Negatively. I'm hoping they fix some of the exploration and traversal as something as simple as that would likely be enough to nudge it to at least a 7.