Creator of radical Starfield stealth kill montage talks virtual choreography and Cyberpunk 2077—'regarding combat and stealth … Cyberpunk takes the cake'

I love a good choreographed kill video. There's something so crunchy and satisfying about seeing someone elevate a game like Starfield—similar to the rush you get watching your favourite wrestler or a movie like John Wick. You know it's all been pre-planned, you know there's some kayfabe involved, but it's sick enough that you don't care. 

That's exactly what Benjamin_Winters has pulled off with this video: tearing through a Spacer base, telekinetically launching mines, headshotting fools with a silenced pistol, and descending on the game's poor redshirts with a Katana from above. It's raw, unfiltered main character energy—especially when they hit the low-grav and pull out a minigun to carve through foes as they dangle helplessly in the air. 

There's something fascinating about getting a peek behind the curtain, breaking that fourth wall, and seeing all the wires behind the stunts. It rarely makes those feats less impressive. PC Gamer's Tyler Wilde reached out to the above video's creator to ask them about their process.

"[The Starfield stealth video] was preplanned and choreographed to make sure it flowed well and I could use the game's abilities without being too redundant. Starfield's stealth mechanics are a bit harsh so I had to find the 'correct' route to dispatch the NPCs … I didn't use any mods or console commands to make the video, so generally, anyone with enough patience and the right build could replicate it!"

Winters, a self-described "Night City Resident", mainly makes these kinds of videos in Cyberpunk 2077. I think my favourite has to be this one of a lore-accurate Johnny Silverhand, where they enter bullet time to huck a grenade straight up, which later drops like the proverbial penny on a couple of staggered chooms. A lot of the shots are even on-beat, fitting for a character that probably has music raging in his head at all times.

"In comparison to Cyberpunk 2077, I do feel like Starfield lacks refinement in terms of player movement, animations, and overall stealth … Switching weapons cancels the player's cool crouch slide, activating powers or throwing grenades locks you into an animation so you can't perform cool combos with your weapons, swinging a melee weapon feels sluggish, etc. … it does make Starfield's player movements clunky, and even dated."

Having played a decent chunk of Starfield (though my clumsy 10 minutes of smacking a UC officer with a dumbbell wasn't exactly montage-worthy) and recently Cyberpunk 2077, I can't help but agree. I'm a complete novice to Night City, yet I'm starting to feel the occasional rush of John Wick-style violence without choreographing a single step. Fitting, since Keanu's rooming in your brain the whole time.

Still, it is unfair to compare a just-released game to one that's had a slow No Man's Sky-esque redemption arc. Cyberpunk 2077 was a total mess when it came out. Moreover, Starfield has a broader scope, whereas half of Cyberpunk 2077's systems are built around merking corpos in bloody mayhem. Winters made this point himself: 

"Starfield is great in so many other ways, I'd hate to compare the two games since they're realistically so different. Regarding combat and stealth, however, I do think Cyberpunk takes the cake." While I'd urge you to hop into 2077 and try yourself, it's worth pumping the brakes until September 21, where a huge overhaul of the game's RPG systems will drop ahead of its Phantom Liberty DLC on September 26.