That's a great take and very accurate. I remember getting to the part of the game where it gives you a side task to start an outpost somewhere. In my brain I could only picture the Ryan Reynolds meme "But Why".
They definitely tried to make 'Fallout in Space' and it just didn't work all that well. I think they spent way too much time trying make their traditional story elements and dialogue trees work in a large space game... what they should have done was create a completely NEW game.
Starfield, at first, has a little bit of that sense of awe and wonder of the vastness of space. But that wears off way too fast and eventually your only reason to travel is to check the box of the current active quest. As you said, very little risk and very little reward to explore and so the game becomes very linear.
They definitely tried to make 'Fallout in Space' and it just didn't work all that well. I think they spent way too much time trying make their traditional story elements and dialogue trees work in a large space game... what they should have done was create a completely NEW game.
Starfield, at first, has a little bit of that sense of awe and wonder of the vastness of space. But that wears off way too fast and eventually your only reason to travel is to check the box of the current active quest. As you said, very little risk and very little reward to explore and so the game becomes very linear.