‘Related but not the same’: Cyberpunk 2077 dev defends Starfield after cinematic comparisons

Starfield is receiving so much criticism for its poor and outdated graphics that a Cyberpunk 2077 dev has stepped in to defend the Bethesda title after so many have drawn unfair comparisons between the two games.

The differences between the two boil down to the tools and designs more so than the engine it was developed on, according to Cyberpunk 2077 developer Patrick Mills, who came to the defense of the under-fire star-faring RPG on Oct. 2.

Although Starfield launched on Sept. 6, it has received criticism for various aspects such as its poor map function, terrible flying systems, lack of ground vehicles, limited open-world maps, and now its outdated and poor graphics.

With the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 on Sept. 21, players can’t help but compare how different the two look, especially with Cyberpunk’s new and improved graphics, which look crisp, modern, and a vast improvement from what they were in the original release.

He believes the differences between the two boil down to more than just the engines they were developed on, and that one of the reasons why they are so different might be because they used different tools and designs.

One of the main digs fans have around Starfield is their cutscenes and how they compare to Cyberpunk’s. But Mills shuts this down as he explains that in Starfield, various situation-based scenes can happen on almost any planet and with several NPCs, and developing and creating them would have taken a long time, revealing it took the Cyberpunk team years to make their major cutscenes. So, it’s hard to compare the two when there’s more that went into these scenes than meets the eye.

Mills commented on this further by saying he doesn’t “see any reason why they couldn’t do something more elaborate if they wanted to [and] had the tools.” He is right; if Bethesda wanted to do something different, use other tools, or use a different design style, they could have because they have access to the tools and resources to make it happen.

Granted, Starfield was in development for nearly a decade, so there is a chance the tools and design style choices they’d made may have been a little outdated, but if they wanted to change anything, they had the time to do it.

Whether it comes down to design styles or tools, the two games are very different, and they both have advantages and disadvantages, so it’s tough to compare them outside of their genre similarities.

And we have to remember, this is Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update, not 1.0. So, who knows? Perhaps with an upcoming DLC or a quality-of-life update, Starfield may live up to these player’s expectations in the long run.