Correction: the 'thousand planets' line was accurate. The complaint was never that they were absent; it was that they were the same.
Starfield
Bethesda's first new setting in 25 years, a space role-playing game released in September 2023 with a thousand planets and, according to the internet, nothing on most of them. The record's entry for a launch that was large, fine and disappointing at the same time, and for the loading-screen counts that became its meme.
Testimony
4 entries · newest firstThe record notes that Starfield was played by millions and argued about by all of them, and that the argument was mostly whether 'it is a Bethesda game' was a defence or a diagnosis.
November 2023: Bethesda's Steam account replies to negative reviews explaining that some planets are empty by design, and that real astronauts were not bored. The replies are screenshotted more than the game.
I remember taking a screenshot of a loading screen in a lift, and then another loading screen outside the lift, and putting them next to each other for no one in particular.
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Where did you see it, and when? A date and a source that still resolves.