130 hours into Starfield, one player had a revelation that a lot of players seem to concur with: "Starfield is missing the weird, crazy story bosses to kill and weird, crazy named weapons and armor." Fair warning, this article contains spoilers for Starfield (Elder Scrolls and Fallout, too) so don't come at me.
It's a fair point, LazyOldMan makes in his Reddit post on the Starfield sub. Starfield does appear to have landed on a distinct lack of "Psycho buffed, serum dripped, mutated, magic enhanced, corrupted, enraged or gigantic boss[es]".
When you go back through some of the distinct and memorable bosses from earlier Bethesda games, there seems to be something missing from Starfield's boss designs. He continues, "Everyone is in great health with all limbs attached and normal sized."
Alongside being less mutated, and less jacked up on drugs, bosses appear mostly averse to actually fighting. One point in particular that the original poster brings up, is the encounter with Mech boss Paxton Hull. "Knew much of nothing about him and then the fight was over. He was basically a random enemy. Not really something to remember."
Commenters really seem to have latched onto Paxton, making the point that surely sending players to a mech factory then NOT having him jump into one and start messing you up is a disgrace to our good friend Checkov and his gun.
"You'd think in a whole ass mech factory with all these tools and mech parts, the 1st would at least have built/restored a mech to defend their base," says Fructose_Father_ in the comments section. "The whole time going through that base I was cautious that a huge mech would rise from its bay, then it just never happened.
"Feels like Starfield has missed a bunch of opportunities".
Not only that, the original poster makes it clear the game is lacking the charm of unique weapons and outfits dropped by bosses too, such as Fallout's alien blaster, the rail gun, or - my personal favourite - the Wabbajack from Elder Scrolls.
All this being said, LazyOldMan doesn't like to end on a sour note. "I'm loving Starfield. I mean it took 130 hours for me to feel the lack of named enemies and truly unique gear. Hoping DLC brings something fresh."
To be fair, players have been finding some incredible stuff in Starfield, such as one player's near-perfect version of The Kodama machine pistol. And while Paxton Hull is no Vulthuryol it could just be that, with the size of the game, all the good stuff is a little more spaced out… if you catch my drift.
