The thing is that for a lot of Bethesda fans the game fully missed the mark that scratches the players itch. If there’s one thing people unanimously agree Bethesda games are great at it’s creating a world that’s interesting to explore. Starfield is by far the least interesting Bethesda game to explore, because there’s nothing interesting to catch your attention?
Jake brings it up perfectly. In Skyrim you start a quest and then you start traveling to the quest location. A dragon swoops in and you fight a dragon. A spooky cave is along the way and you check it out. An hour has passed and you’re not even at the quest location yet. In Starfield you start a quest, you fast travel to your ship, then you fast travel to the planet the quest is on, you land on the quest location, you walk to the actual and 10 minutes later the quest is done. Nothing interesting happened between the start of the quest and the end of the quest, except maybe for the quest itself.
In Skyrim a quest is an opportunity to explore, in Starfield a quest is a check on a checklist. I don’t think Bethesda has necessarily lost its magic but I do think Starfield is missing the Bethesda magic.