Comparing Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 is “actively harmful” says CD Projekt Red dev

CD Projekt Red’s senior quest designer Patrick K. Mills has said that it’s “actively harmful” to compare Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077.

Following the official release of Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG, one player shared a short video on Twitter showing the creative difference between the game and Cyberpunk 2077. 

More specifically, the user compares how some roleplay elements in Starfield are less immersive to Cyberpunk 2077, like being unable to fully submerge into the water after jumping from a high point, aiming your weapons at NPCs – which garners no response or reaction – and other environmental design choices like no bullet spray on water surfaces. 

In response, Mills shared the video, saying that comparing these two games is harmful to the games industry (via NME). 

“How times have changed,” Mills said. “[To be clear] this fake criticism is actively harmful to the way the audience interacts with the medium and I hate it, but it’s very funny to see after how many hundreds of these were made to ridicule [Cyberpunk 2077].”

When Cyberpunk 2077 launched back in 2020, it was largely received negatively for its poor optimization, as well as similar criticism for the game’s animation and environment design like those things pointed out in the Starfield video. 

Another Twitter user argued the developer’s point, saying that both games’ aims are different and the criticism of Starfield is fair because Cyberpunk doesn’t offer an exploration of a galaxy, while “Starfield not having any attempt at swimming/submersion while exploring planets is extremely questionable.”

“Is that the point?” Mills replied. “There’s no commentary, just a handful of features being compared. What’s the meaning of this comparison? How does this relate to how I should feel about or experience these games? Useless criticism.”

Starfield is now available on Xbox Series X|S and PC, as well as Xbox Game Pass. After leaving early access on September 6, the game surpassed one million players across all platforms but quickly went on to pass 6 million as of September 7, making it Bethesda’s biggest launch of all time. 

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