Starfield did not impress many players. Dissatisfied users noted technical problems, outdated design of the Bethesda game, and low-quality content.
Recently, TES V: Skyrim co-author Kurt Kuhlmann spoke with PC Gamer and shared his vision of the problem with Starfield — the game lacked the influence of Todd Howard:
The main problem with Starfield is that the game didn't fully come together as a single whole.
Kuhlmann explained that since the development of TES V, the structure of work at Bethesda has changed significantly. During the work on Skyrim, he could directly interact with all quest designers as a leader, but the situation was different with Starfield:
Todd was still the creative director [of Starfield]. But now he had "managers," including studio heads and producers representing multiple studios.
In essence, the managers no longer created content but focused on management — Kuhlmann didn't like this:
It happened that someone would approach the managers of one studio and get one answer, and someone would approach the managers of another studio and might get a completely different answer.
Todd Howard's growing responsibilities led to delays in decision-making — his answer was needed, but he was busy with managerial tasks:
Decisions sometimes weren't made on time because Todd was required to act as an arbiter, and he was busy. [Todd] is a very good project manager, [but when] his attention was diverted from the game, it really hurt the project.