Starfield "Invisible Walls" Controversy

Overview

Starfield "Invisible Walls" Controversy, not to be confused with the Starfield Menu Controversy, refers to a viral debate and backlash about a supposed discovery that the 2023 Bethesda video game Starfield employed invisible boundaries blocking players from exploring a fully open world. While the veracity of the information is not confirmed and stems from a leak, some players took this as a sign that Bethesda had lied to players about the game being fully open-world and voiced their anger with the perceived sleight.

Background

On August 22nd, 2023, Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines^[1] appeared to confirm that Starfield would allow for infinite player exploration, responding to a fan asking if they could explore an entire planet he said, "Yup, if you want" (shown below).

On August 26th, the Chinese gaming forum M.gamer.com^[2] saw a leak in which a player stated that if they ran for too long in one direction they would receive a pop-up saying, "Boundary reached, open the map to explore another region or return to your ship" (shown below).

A video showing this phenomenon was uploaded that day but was copy-struck by Bethesda^[3] shortly after (repost shown below).

Star, Flop, invisible walls this game Metacritic score will get below 75 may be in the low 60s a big foul Microsoft WOOLLEY_GAMER</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wakeydog?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">wakeydog shockle28</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JayDubcity16?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">JayDubcity16 Puertorock77_</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/playstationyesr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">playstationyesr have a good laugh pic.twitter.com/L63NakwWZX

— 𝓓𝓪𝓻𝓴𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓭𝓪𝓵𝓾🇯🇲🇮🇪 (@alucardkyos) August 27, 2023

Developments

In late August 2023 as the controversy spread online, the rumored "invisible walls" incensed players who perceived Bethesda as lying to them. For example, on August 29th, 2023, Twitter user @iamalitayyeb^[6] expressed disappointment about being "promised" an open-world immersive experience, gaining over 40 retweets and 400 likes in roughly 24 hours (shown below, top). On August 27th, user @WOOLLEY_GAMER^[7] expressed similar sentiments about the invisible wall breaking immersion, gaining over 50 retweets and 500 likes in three days (shown below, bottom).

Over the following days, the purported leak was denied by some others who said they already had the game. Windows Central editor Jez Corden^[4] said the leak was "not entirely accurate" and to wait for the review embargo on the game to lift before jumping to conclusions (shown below, left). Forbes writer Paul Tassi,^[5] who also is in possession of a review copy of the game, said nobody "knew what they were talking about."

While it's still unclear if Starfield will have "invisible walls" by release, some expressed that they would not mind if there were in fact invisible walls in the game alongside the rumors. Videogamer^[8] wrote that Starfield is still a narrative-driven video game, and keeping players on track, writing, "As a role-playing game, each location should really have something to compel the player towards it. Procedurally generated locations simply wouldn’t have this, nor would it have been feasible for each planet to be fully explorable."

Search Interest

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External References