A new video from Bethesda Game Studios containing more Starfield information was dropped yesterday, taking people’s hype for the game to new levels. Indeed, from what we know about the game, Bethesda Game Studios have done a lot of listening to the community, addressing key complaints from that of Skyrim and Fallout 4. That said, these are both still some of the best games out there.
This new exciting discussion between Todd Howard – Bethesda Game Studios Director, Emil Pagliarulo – Design Director, Will Shen – Lead Quest Designer and Istvan Pely – Lead Artist, shed some more light on what we can expect from Starfield, as well as revealing some more concept art. Needless to say, it has fans even more excited and those who were doubting Starfield are starting to find it harder to do so. Before we delve into breaking down this discussion, lets have a quick recap on what we know about Starfield prior to the release of this video…
Starfield what we know recap…
- It is going to have heavier RPG mechanics that more recent Bethesda Game Studios games. This was announced by Bethesda during the Tokyo game show. As big RPG fans, we are extremely excited about this. In my opinion it is one of the very few shortcomings of Skyrim and Fallout 4.
- Although it is sci-fi, the technology and mechanics are based, where possible, on real life science. Supposedly set around a few hundred years from today’s settings. It has been described as ‘NASA Punk’.
- It is multiplanetary. Based on the above, potentially Earth is one of these.. All the systems we know of can be found (Bethesda Website) but it extends up to 50 lightyears from our Solar System. 3 of these ‘settled systems’ being New Atlantis, Neon & Akila.
- Each system has its own species with their own laws and cultures. One of them is rich in a narcotic substance which is harvested and taken by people on the system ‘Neon’. (Looks kind of like a cross between Kamino and the home of the Gungans of Naboo in Star Wars) More on this later…
- There are two ‘step out’ (into the world) moments. (Usually in Bethesda Game Studios games there are one.) People have speculated that one will be seeing the starting place, the other will be your first journey into outer space.
- Bethesda Game Studios plan to continue to have mod support. It was confirmed in a 7-minute video with Todd Howard and other senior Bethesda Game Studios executives. Link below:
- It is ‘very big’ and ‘very long’.
- It is a next-gen experience. Only available to previous generation machines (Xbox One family of devices) via streaming.
For more information, check out our piece on what we know about Starfield… But now lets break down the information we go from the new video. For those who have not already seen it, please see below.
Unpacking the NEW Starfield information
For a five minute video, there is a lot to unpack! Getting right into the meat of it, it seems that, like what has been so successful in Bethesda Game Studios games before, the game is going to surprise players by forcing situations on them that are out of their control. The beauty of Bethesda Game studios games is that they are role playing experiences but also ‘simulations’. The worlds they build are living and breathing universes that players get to find their way in. Lead Quest Designer Will Shen tells us that things will happen within Starfield in the worlds that puts players in situations they were not expecting that they need to respond to.
Character building and role playing are seeing the return of some much requested systems. Todd Howard mentions specifically ‘Backgrounds’ and ‘Traits’, but also notes that they will be done in a ‘new way’. It is exciting to see how they could have built upon these. Seeing the success of them in The Outer Worlds by Obsidian is sure to have helped, as is the success seen with the use of companions in The Outer Worlds. It is good for immersion in a role playing game when NPCs react to you and your actions, and a great way to do this is through your companions.
There is going to be the most sophisticated character creation yet. On top of enabling players to have better role playing capabilities with the return of traits and backgrounds, Bethesda are pushing the photogrammatry tech that is being used to create more realistic and immersive environments and using it in character creation and NPC design. Istvan Pely, Lead Artist wants us to find ‘believable’ characters that we feel can be real people, even describing it as a ‘severe level-up’. Rightly stating how important it is for immersion.
We got more information on two of the factions. Firstly, The Crimson Fleet. A faction of space pirates. A questline where the player can choose to play and join this criminal organisation, or if the player is choosing a righteous path, work as an undercover cop. Great for replayability, but also for role playing. One of the criticisms of Skyrim and Fallout 4 were that choices made by the player in questlines did not counting for much. Now it appears there will be more than one way to complete a quest for different character builds. The other is much more down the corportate route. From what Will Shen said, this is a quest with a corporation, Ryujin Inustries, where you will have to apply for the job to start the quest. This is a fun unique way of starting a quest, something that has always been a strong suite of Bethesda Game Studios anyway.
There is a return of a persuasion mini-game. This was a nice idea when done in Oblivion, but was a little basic. This time around though, according to Todd Howard, you ‘are having a conversation where you are actually trying to persuade’. Also according to Todd Howard, it is ‘one of the most successful’ speech systems they have had. It really did feel in Fallout 4 and Skyrim like speech did not count for much, so it is good to see a fun reason why people might invest in it.
Lastly, something we already knew.. The game is about exploration but it appears to be more than that. Starfield wants us to find ‘What’s out there?’ and ‘What’s next for humanity?’ Basically saying, explore, go find out. And Exploration is something they NAILED in Skyrim and Fallout 4.
This most recent Starfield snippit came at a great time. Positive Xbox news had dried up, and the thirst for more information on Starfield is only growing. The only thing fans will be wanting to know now is when will we get more? Episode 1: An Endless pursuit came out 3 months ago. Another 3 months takes us up to June… ‘E3 time’… You have to feel we will get a tiny bit more before…? When do you think we will get more information? And is there anything you would like to see included in Starfield?
