Ive been thinking Starfield is the swansong of gaming. It really shows how video games in general have devolved into an absolute bowl of unsalted white rice bland nothingness. Nothing about the game was memorable, nothing about it was remotely interesting or stood out. You have one of the largest studios in the world spending a decade developing and throwing god knows much manpower and money at this game and the end result is a "functional" at best mess.
The fact they can do this and walk away from it like nothing bad happened without major restructuring and people being fired or fresh talent brought in is truly something else. Sure every few years well get something genuinely nice out of left field like Eldenring, but Starfield type games are the norm and will only get worse as time goes on. See what CoD has turned into, see what Battlefield series turned into, see how CP2077 initially launched etc
I think its a byproduct of the hyper consoomer era we live in. Everyone's personality is entirely the products they consume so they will defend xyz product to the death because its not just about the product being bad and wasting some money, it means theyre fundamentally bad as well if xyz product is bad.