playing it on gamepass, i wasnt going to buy it as I expected a bugfest. My expectations were low. Coming as a fan of the old privateer, wing commander, iwar, elite, ED etc I was always going to make comparions.

First, i was very surprised by the initial polish and bug free nature (for a bethesda title). I soon downloaded some mods for inventory management but apart from the poor UI I was pleasantly surprised.

Content seems fine so far. im level 25 after 20 hours. Ive run the main quest till i got my voodoo, now im building outposts and dipping my toe in faction quests. Sarah wants me badly so im helping her out. Then benching her so I can go full pirate without annoying her.

I had some captain land near my outpost and beg me for water. so i stole his ship. That made me giggle.

Space exploration is no ED and that was initially a bad thing, till i remembered that exploration in ED was just a pain. Sure I could supercruise from star to outpost, but after the thousandth time this was just a pain. I got randomly interdicted sure but it added nothing to the game for me. I much preferred the surface traffic, population centers and ground work. Also walking about your ship with the ability to make it a flying base complete with crew is good.

space combat is better in ED for me, the density is better and flight model better. Ground combat is vastly superior in SF. It is fun. The missions are ok, not just go her, kill, come back. there are arcs. You can also murder hobo if you so wish and even keep a pirate base too.

The grind is not really there. Sure if you want to do everything then of course there is grind. But you can get a good set of armour and a ship early enough (Mantis), a decent early reactor for credits (warhorse) and ive had a number of epic weapons that are perfectly usable (running a semi auto 144 damage beowulf that uses 7.7, its a beast that two/three shots everything and can fire as fast as you click). Vendors run out of money quickly, but there is a mod for that!

I like the idea of choices. want to fast travel? go for it, but you can slow time it there if you want. Want to juat go build? sure, find a moon and away you go. Feel free to manufacture and sell too as you can set up rudimentary links. Wanna murder everything but still have a base? sure! companion arcs and crew that have a purpose? yep. Plus you dont need to endlessly log on/off to grind resources for hours. choice is good.

So far SF is a decent game, not perfect no but there is ample content to keep you busy for hours.