September 6, 2023Bethesda Game StudiosBethesda Softworks
PCXbox Series X/SPlayStation 5
RPGOpen WorldSci-Fi
Bethesda's 2023 space RPG is the studio's first new setting in twenty-five years, and it is a game of hand-built pieces connected by procedural space. Cities are the strong part: New Atlantis, Akila and especially Neon are dense, and the faction questlines - the Crimson Fleet infiltration and the Ryujin corporate arc in particular - are among the best quest writing Bethesda has done. The ship builder is genuinely deep, letting you assemble a vessel module by module and then crew it. The criticism, which is fair, is the space between: a thousand planets generated from tilesets, loading screens where flight should be, and outposts that rarely justify themselves. New Game Plus is woven into the story rather than bolted on, which is an unusual and effective idea. Shattered Space added a hand-crafted world, and the Creation Kit brought the mod scene that Bethesda games ultimately live on. It reached PlayStation 5 in 2026 alongside the Free Lanes update.