Bethesda went into the F76 launch with more goodwill than they went into the Starfield launch with. This time around they had eroded that "benefit of the doubt" and goodwill to the point that people were fed up.
The negative reviews - in part - are a condemnation of Bethesda as a whole and their past failure.
Maybe true, as I understand it, the most egregious problem with FO76 on launch was the complete lack of NPCs with stories, dialogue and reasons for you to care about anything in the world.
IMO, FO4 was quite barren in that respect as well. Outside the main story and faction stuff, I remember there not being a lot of side content with real stories and dialogue. Whereas Starfield has a huge amount,ranging from very simple tasks to multistage quests, but all involving talking to characters and getting their perspective on things so you can decide if helping them suits your character or not. I’ve spent almost no time wandering aimlessly on planets or picking up generated missions to go and kill a bunch of dudes in some random base (tried it a couple of times).
As with Skyrim, it seems the best plan is to do a little main story and then sod off to have your own adventures. The formula isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.
Shipbuilding is a thousand times more fun than settlements in FO4. Since it just costs money (with better modules unlocking by level and to a lesser extent, the relevant skill), it gives you an actual reason to earn cash that was missing in their previous games.
Also their version of NG+ and how it links with main story is quite interesting IMO. I don’t usually bother with NG+ and usually prefer to start from scratch, but I’m enjoying taking the same character back to start to doing different things with or occasionally repeat the same quest with foreknowledge.
In short, it’s a Bethesda game that does things the Bethesda way, but it’s good one IMO.
