“Starfield” for PS5 is receiving rave reviews—this time I’m genuinely tempted

The moment the game booted up, I once again saw that familiar shot of a spaceship slowly gliding across the sea of stars. It felt like locking eyes again with an old acquaintance I’d once brushed past on another platform. As a player who’s always been in the PS camp, when Starfield launched only on PC and Xbox last year, I did feel a bit like I was left outside the door. Last night it finally landed officially on PS5, bringing along two story DLCs in one go. This kind of “late to the party but dressed to the nines” entrance really does feel quite ceremonial for story-focused players.

Let’s start with the hard numbers. As of writing, Starfield has already received 1,204 ratings on the PlayStation Store, with an average of 4.68 stars, and 86% of players giving it a full five stars. In an age where players often vent by giving low scores, calling this “overwhelmingly positive” is not an exaggeration. Even more striking are the two story DLCs that launched simultaneously: “Shattered Space” and “Echoes of the Past” (Earth Fleet). Both currently sit at 32 ratings, 4.81 stars, and 94% of those ratings are full marks. This level of consistency surprised me a bit, and instinctively makes me think: maybe story-driven content is significantly more appealing.

As for the characters, back when Starfield first came out on other platforms and its reputation was very split, I watched a lot of gameplay and dialogue clips and felt a bit uneasy. Space-themed games can easily fall into a “look at the ships, look at the universe, look how huge the systems are” show-off trap, where the characters end up like functional NPCs who only talk about quest objectives or dump lore, like being stuck in a meeting with a colleague who only reads from manuals. For someone like me, who cares most in an RPG about “whether I can sit down and really talk with the characters,” that sense of distance is more disappointing than broken numbers or balance. But with the PS5 version now scoring this high—especially the focused praise around the DLCs—it makes me curious: have they managed to flesh out character arcs and emotional expression more fully in the new story content?

What impressed me from the player reviews is that people aren’t just moved by “sheer amount of content” or “visual presentation.” They talk more about the sense of exploration, the narrative threads, and the immersion brought by faction quests. Space RPGs haven’t exactly been rare in recent years, but there are very few that make you feel like “you’re actually living with your crew, arguing, making up, then continuing the journey.” If the PS5 version of Starfield can make your companions stop repeating lines mechanically and instead respond to your choices with subtle shifts in dialogue, I’ll be much more willing to forgive its old-school issues with pacing and UI. I can accept that it’s a Bethesda-style giant sampler platter of a universe, but I can’t accept party members who always feel like shadowy tag-alongs.

What worries me a bit, though, is that Bethesda’s writing sometimes treats “suffering” as a shortcut to quick empathy: you hear lots of tragic backstories, but if there’s not enough growth and self-determination afterwards, the hardship starts to feel overplayed, like it’s forcibly demanding your sympathy. If Starfield continues some of its older titles’ pattern of “selling tragedy first, then spinning in place,” I’ll feel uncomfortable playing it—especially if female characters are once again written as purely functional figures who only sacrifice, accompany, and get rescued. In that case I’ll definitely roll my eyes and close the dialogue window. What I’m hoping to see in these DLCs are characters who dare to make choices, who make mistakes, who regret things, but have their own trajectory of action—not decorative vases in spacesuits.

From a purchase-advice standpoint: if you’re a PS5 player who hasn’t touched Starfield before and you like slow pacing and the kind of experience where you settle into a universe and “live” there over time, now is a relatively good time to jump in. The base game’s rating on the PlayStation Store has already stabilized at a high level. If you naturally care a lot about story, you can prioritize watching the ongoing reception for the two DLCs, “Shattered Space” and “Echoes of the Past” (Earth Fleet), and see whether that 4.81-star rating is just a short-lived honeymoon or holds up long-term. I’d suggest that players who prefer experiencing a complete story all at once wait for a bundle discount or for the content to be a bit more “all-in-one” before boarding; whereas those obsessed with exploration and everyday life in space can treat it right now as a mini-vacation: meeting a brand-new crew, slowly getting to know each other.

Compared with other open-world RPGs of a similar style in the past two years, Starfield is not the kind of game that “takes your breath away at first sight.” It’s more like a travel companion whose strengths and flaws you only gradually see clearly after spending enough time together. This PS5 release, with its strong numbers, has given it a solid starting point. But what really matters to me is whether, once I’m actually on board, somewhere in those long stretches of dialogue and branching quest choices, I’ll hear a line that really jolts me, or see a character arc that makes me want to follow him (or her) all the way. If it can deliver that, then the annoyance of being a year late and split across platforms will fade into the background like distant stardust.