Had a think, and the stuff in Starfield I'm reacting negatively to is almost entirely stuff that mods fixed in previous games. It's just been ages since I played one of these de-modded.

"Huh, these environments look like someone just kitbashed random plants down, and they don't even change when you harvest": mod-fixed

"Huh, the way they did fast travel completely undercuts any sense of adventure": mod-fixed

"Huh, this UI is catastrophically poorly put together": mod-fixed

"Huh, the way they've chosen to further limit armor/gear options really undercuts what choices you can actually make": mod-fixed

"Huh, this is all just random loot that doesn't seem well thought out, which gives everything this vague sense of being proc-gen": mod-fixed

Never play a naked Bethesda game. This is no exception. Heh. Whatever, I'm still having fun, and good news, this feels EXACTLY like their Skyrim engine++, meaning all the mod tools should still work and be as powerful as they were before.

Also, if anyone was worried about the Starfield planets being huge infinite expanses of open-world proc-gen?

Well, no. What actually happens is you land on one, and you get this big stretch of (procedural? semi-procedural?) planet, and it populates it with Radiant-ish quests and locations, and if you keep walking, you hit a wall.

They're zones. They're semi-procgen zones. It feels VERY much like Skyrim, even here. I doubt mods will be able to populate entire planets because (the planets don't exist, they're just piles of potential random encounters that the engine picks from when populating your little semi-random square).

Which is actually very good! This does NOT feel like No Man's Sky, once you hit the limit and realize what they're doing.