"I had no idea how to build a resource-gathering base, expand my spaceship, find and use crafting stations to power up my gear, make sense of “contraband” cargo, or even properly dock my ship to an enemy ship’s in the reaches of space until I accidentally stumbled upon moments where the game said, “Oh, yeah, this thing? Which we didn’t really make any tutorials for? You’re interested? Fine, I’ll tell you, I guess.”

The game is about exploration, so...explore! Part of the fun is figuring out shit (if you don't find that fun, that's another story). I was recently reminded of how much hand-holding modern games do for gamers, with quest logs, map markers, pop-up hints, tutorial books, etc. I played the System Shock remake a few months ago and was super lost for a long time. The map is sparse, your objectives are mostly disseminated through audio logs that you have to find and actually pay attention to, and not much is ever really explained. But that's how pretty much all games used to be.

This kind of reads like this is your first experience with a Bethesda RPG. This is it. This is what they do. Incoherent, often irrelevant narrative that takes a back seat to just wandering around and seeing what weird shit you encounter and how many spoons and toasters you can collect.

I bought it last night and played for about an hour. It seems fine - what was advertised, but this weekend I'm more looking forward to starting a second playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. If you want impressive narrative and choices that matter (and are not railroaded into making them) it's in that one.

Yeah, they like to do mind games on you.