Starfield review – an exquisite, electric, faintly rickety universe of possibilities

Xbox Series S/X, PC; Bethesda/Microsoft
Bethesda's long-awaited space epic is a vast interstellar canvas full of glorious sights to see and intriguing threads to pull - if you can keep patience with its fussy systems

There's a feeling when you approach your ship, a snug and plucky little star-hopper named Frontier (of course), as it squats on the circular expanse of a landing pad. An inkling of stars pricks through the dusky sky; the hatch hangs invitingly open, a furnace of light spilling from the ship's belly on to the tarmac. You stride past your robot butler, who has awaited your return with the infinite patience of a machine, clamber over whatever trinkets you've scattered across the ship's floor to make some room in your backpack, and lower yourself into the pilot's seat. A bank of buzzing CRT monitors, analogue switches and lights blinks back at you. As the ship's thrusters flare, there is this sensation - rarely felt in our world, where every copse and cul-de-sac has been Google-sapped of all intrigue - of possibility, of range, of the opportunity to chart the unknown. A universe of storyline threads awaits, ready to be gathered up and laced.

Not at first, though. Starfield, the latest game from Bethesda, a studio known for big-hearted and bug-ridden worlds that strain at the seams of their supporting technology, starts blandly. You play as a miner who happens upon a fragment of an ancient artefact that, when touched, sends you tumbling into a psychedelic vision. This experience earns you an invitation to join a Masonic-like guild of explorers known as Constellation. The group believes that the artefact could relinquish some of the universe's deep secrets, a conviction burnished by the fact that, when its fragments are brought close to one another, they float and fizzle with arcane energy.