Highlights
- Akila City in Starfield has been criticized by some players for not fitting well with the rest of the game’s aesthetic, as it resembles a medieval fort rather than a futuristic town.
- Despite the visual dissonance, there are players who appreciate the unique look of Akila City, considering it fitting for a private city founded by a space cowboy.
- One aspect of Akila City that has received praise from both sides is its side quests, which provide players with a classic Bethesda town experience of discovering and solving problems for individual citizens.
Though Akila City is arguably the most traditional Bethesda town in all of Starfield, some players believe that it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the game. Akila City joins New Atlantis and Neon to form the main hubs of Starfield, with Cydonia and The Key serving a similar yet smaller purpose. However, compared to the cities of Skyrim, Starfield‘s hubs have often been described as underwhelming, where they feel less like an intricate web of NPCs, and more like theme parks that depict different sci-fi tropes.
New Atlantis in Starfield was an attempt by Bethesda to depict an urban hub on a grander scale, closer to Oblivion‘s Imperial City, rather than the smaller locations such as Whiterun or Diamond City. Billed as the capital of the United Colonies, New Atlantis purposefully evoked the more optimistic tone of Star Trek – by contrast, Neon attempted to channel the dark future of Cyberpunk 2077 or Blade Runner. Akila City’s aesthetic, on the other hand, aimed to replicate the visual language of Firefly, a space western.
Unfortunately, the appearance of Akila City somewhat contrasts the lore presented by Bethesda, ultimately resulting in some confusion for quite a fair few voices from the Starfield community. As pointed out by Minnesota_1992 on the main Starfield subreddit, Akila City’s walls look like they belong to a medieval fort rather than a futuristic town. Its role as the capital of the Freestar Collective hardly fits the backwater vibe that it’s purposefully attempting to channel. Despite being one of the oldest population hubs in the Settled Systems, its infrastructure not only lags behind the better-funded New Atlantis but also other locations within the Freestar Collective, such as Neon or even HopeTown.
While constructing a futuristic city to scale would have been a daunting task for Bethesda to accomplish, some players can’t help but wonder if Akila City in Starfield would have been better off playing the role of a lawless town at the edges of Freestar Collective space. From a visual standpoint, it perfectly emulates the feel of Mos Eisley from Star Wars, but its small size (compared to New Atlantis and Neon) breaks the immersion of some fans. That being said, other Starfield players feel that Akila City looks exactly the way a private city founded by a space cowboy should look like, and that the narrative dissonance works in its favor by adding depth.
Ultimately, where both sides find common ground is by praising Akila’s side quests, as the city most closely evokes the feel of entering a Bethesda town, slowly discovering the problems that face each individual citizen, and methodically solving them to become a local hero. Though Akila’s visual direction is already set in stone, hopefully, the city of Dazra will be suitably exotic and grandiose once Bethesda decides to tackle the story of House Va’ruun in Starfield proper.
Starfield
Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, Starfield is a sci-fi action role-playing game where players interact with multiple factions, engage in combat, customize their main character and ship, as well as explore a universe that features over 100 systems and 1,000 planets.
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Released
- September 6, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda
- How Long To Beat
- 20 Hours
- Metascore
- 86
