Starfield

The best bits of Bethesda RPGs don't demo well. At least, that's the self-soothing mantral repeated while watching Starfield's lacklustre summer showcase - 15 minutes of impactless shooting and Todd Howard in a leather jacket. A slight variant on Fallout 3's lockpicking system wasn't enough to shake the sense that it was still 2008.

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Yet the bigger picture - and it's a very big picture, comprising over 1,000 planets - offers reason for hope. This is an apparent return to Elder Scrolls openness, the freedom to ignore the urgency of the main plot and define yourself by which factions you join.