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Starfield is incoming! Todd Howard recently did an interview in which he discusses brand new features and details about the game, and we’re here to break them down for you.
How will Starfield work?
As Todd Howard stated in an interview:
“We do a lot of procedural generation in Starfield, but I would keep in mind that we’ve always done that. It’s a big part of Skyrim in terms of questing and some other things we do. We generate landscape using procedural systems, so we’ve always kind of worked on it.”
Howard does stress in that same interview that Starfield has more handmade content than ever before, so there’s a path that players can take that would be the most optimal, one that you’ll still be able to deviate from but can take on if you choose.
You’re able to create your own character, design your own spaceship and travel anywhere in a series of systems presented to you. There’s also space combat, so your customized spaceship actually matters in the long-run, since if you don’t have the weapon systems you need then you’ll turn into space parts.
In terms of actual space combat, Howard has stated that it is inspired at least in part by FTL and MechWarrior. You’re able to steal ships that you board, but Bethesda have made the decision to not include the landing procedure you might be familiar with thanks to games such as No Man’s Sky. You’ll likely not really miss out on this that much, especially given how many planets that the game has, but it could be a make or break deal for many people.
How Big Is Starfield?
Starfield is currently around 20% bigger than any other Bethesda game (with other 1000 explorable planets), and since Skyrim and Fallout 4 are already incredibly long games that means this game will take roughly 30 to 40 hours to complete if you choose to just focus on the main content of the game and avoid all side content. That’s just for the main story too, and Howard has dedicated himself to making more content for the game post-launch.
“This one’s ending up a little big longer than our previous games and we may tune that some still. It’s more quests, so it might be 20% more than our previous ones.”
“We’ve learned that people do play out games for a really, really long time. They’re still playing Skyrim- not straight for 10 years, but they leave it and they come back and there’s extra content. Certainly we’re going to be doing extra content for this game, and we love our modding community.”
In terms of actual civilizations, Starfield has four major cities including the city we saw in the gameplay footage recently, New Atlantis. Howard has stated that New Atlantis isn’t just the biggest city in this game, but it’s bigger than anything in Skyrim, Fallout 4 or indeed anything else that Bethesda has ever worked on.
When Will Starfield Release & On What Platforms?
Starfield is due to release in early 2023 after suffering from a delay earlier this year.
“We’ve made the decision to delay the launches of Redfall and Starfield to the first half of 2023. The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredibly ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them. We want to thanks everyone for their excitement for Redfall and Starfield. That energy is a huge part of what inspires all of us every day and drives our own excitement for what we are creating.”
It’s currently due to release as a Microsoft exclusive, which means it’ll only release on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Windows Systems. It’ll be a day one Game Pass release too, so if you have that service you’ll be able to play it instantly.
