Starfield will be Bethesda’s first big next-gen role-playing game – and the first new brand in years. We gather all the info on the game for you so far.
“Starfield is Bethesda’s destiny game,” diagnoses colleague Peter Bathge in his plus prediction for Bethesda’s science fiction epic. Not only will it be Bethesda’s first new in-house brand in many, many years, but it must also function as an image saviour: After Fallout 76, Starfield could mean a big return to old form. And after the takeover by Microsoft, everyone is asking themselves what the future looks like anyway.
So exciting times are ahead of us. To get them off to a worthy start, here’s all the information Bethesda has released on Starfield so far. And you can also read between the lines what the science fiction role-playing game is supposed to be for Bethesda in concrete terms.
Table of Contents
Everything we already know about Starfield
Release Date: When will Starfield be released
Starfield will be released on November 11, 2022, Bethesda and Microsoft officially announced at E3 2021. In the run-up to the presentation, the release date had already been leaked by an article in the Washington Post.
But the release of Starfield on 11 November next year is not really surprising anyway: Industry insider Jeff Grubb, for example, speculated about a release in April 2022 – but this was contradicted by expert Jason Schreier. According to the latter, fans should not expect a release before the end of 2022 – which should prove Schreier right.
Starfield has been in development for five years. The team noted down the first ideas as early as 2012, active development began after the release of Fallout 4 in November 2015.
When will we see the first gameplay?
Bethesda is not giving any concrete details here yet. However, Todd Howard explained in an interview with the Telegraph that, as always, they “don’t want to show gameplay until closer to release”. This means that we might not get to see real gameplay scenes from Starfield until 2022.
Can I pre-order Starfield already?
No, the pre-order phase for Starfield will most likely start in summer 2021 at the earliest. And even this prediction is on shaky ground.
Platforms: What is Starfield playable on?
Starfield will be released for the PC and on consoles exclusively for the Xbox Series X and S. A release for the Playstation 5 is not planned – as Bethesda and Microsoft confirmed at E3 2021.
Quite a foreseeable development, after the takeover of Bethesda Studios by Microsoft, Xbox boss Phil Spencer already explained in an interview that the deal was primarily to gain exclusive games for Xbox, PC and Game Pass. He said games that already had contractual commitments to the contrary were excluded.
Apart from this, only the future will show how much Microsoft interferes in the studio’s creative processes. Xbox boss Phil Spencer publicly stresses that they want to give the Skyrim makers a free hand.
And we think this concession is realistic: Bethesda is not in a major crisis according to all forecasts. With takeovers, it is quite common to keep the functioning workflows on track for the time being. Of course, the public communication including marketing is likely to change in some form due to the proximity to Xbox.
What kind of game will Starfield be?
Starfield is supposed to be a single player role playing game of the Bethesda school just like Skyrim and Fallout 4. In concrete terms, this means: a large sandbox in which playful freedom is paramount. Creative director Todd Howard also emphasises that the style of the game should clearly distinguish itself from the sci-fi top dogs Star Wars and Star Trek.
How exactly Starfield sets itself apart from other universes can be seen well in the E3 trailers from 2021 and a documentary released at the same time. Here we get an impression of spaceships, planets, cities and armour – or spacesuits.
From this it is clear that Starfield shows a rather realistic kind of space technology. Spaceships look not unlike actual rockets or stations inside, for example NASA – creative director Todd Howard speaks of “Nasapunk”. He even paid a visit to SpaceX for inspiration.
Still, the game has room for more outlandish locations. In one artwork, for example, a city can be seen on the water.
Starfield is supposed to feel realistic and believable overall, but still remain a game, not a simulation. That’s why players are allowed to use more exotic weapons, for example, and there are lasers or sounds in the vacuum of space.
Story: What is Starfield about?
Until we learn exact details, we must continue to be patient. However, a little is already known about the location of the universe in Starfield and we also already know something about our character. We will be able to create our own character down to the last detail and freely choose many characteristics and backgrounds such as his or her past. Starfield is supposed to feel more like a hardcore role-playing game and remind us of earlier RPGs.
In Starfield we play a human explorer who belongs to a very large organisation. This faction is called Constellation and consists of a large number of extraordinary space travellers. In addition to this large faction, there are many smaller ones, which can even be divided into subgroups. We already know a few of them, too. Most of them are probably associations of human colonies. These include:
- The United Colonies
- Vanguard (part of the United Colonies)
- MAST (part of the United Colonies and Vanguard)
- SysDef (part of the United Colonies)
The Freestar Collective
The last major and presumably hostile group is the Crimson Fleet. A loose confederation of pirate captains flying under the common banner of “Jolly Rodger”. These pirates seem to be a bigger problem as they spread out over several star systems and cause trouble.
More spoken dialogue than ever
No matter what the story of Starfield will be about in detail, one thing is already certain: There will probably be a lot of talking. This information was revealed by Todd Howard when he was asked about the scope of the role-playing game during an Xbox showcase at the Tokyo Game Show 2021.
AI: The Somnium Files is coming to Xbox Game Pass today #TGS2021 pic.twitter.com/8gn1mK6ErI
— Nibel (@Nibellion) September 30, 2021
He first delighted the on-site audience by confirming that Starfield will have a full Japanese soundtrack. In this context, he then also dropped a figure that makes one sit up and take notice: Starfield is supposed to have considerably more than 150,000 lines of dialogue.
If this figure is correct, the new Bethesda role-playing game would beat its predecessors The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4 by a long way. While you only got about 60,000 lines of dialogue as a Dragonblood, in the irradiated Commonwealth it was almost 110,000. Nevertheless: Starfield would have almost as much dialogue as Skyrim and Fallout 4 combined!
New details about Starfield always come in handy. After all, the role-playing game is eagerly awaited by many fans, but we still don’t really know much about the title.
Trailer: What footage is there to see of Starfield?
Currently you can watch three different trailers for Starfield: The first teaser was unveiled at E3 2018 and doesn’t show too much. A first real trailer followed at E3 2021, which already reveals quite a lot about the role-playing game. Shortly after that, a small mini-documentary followed, which didn’t contain any gameplay scenes, but a lot of interesting concept art.
Mini-Docu from E3 2021
Starfield trailer from E3 2021
Starfield teaser of E3 2018
Screenshots: This is what official images show
You can get a good impression of the design and look of Starfield in the following image gallery. Here we have collected the most important screenshots from E3 2021 for you so that you can view all the details at your leisure. Among them are also the artworks that give you a glimpse of the world.
What exactly is there to see? The inside of a spaceship, our spaceman’s equipment, detailed fittings, alien planets and a sandwich:
By the way, screenshots of Starfield have already leaked in the past. You can read more about this in our separate articles on the subject. Please note, however, that the early development stage of the game does not allow any reliable conclusions to be drawn about the final version of Starfield.
Gameplay: How does Starfield play?
Concrete information about the gameplay of Starfield is still limited. Yes, we know that the Bethesda title will be a role-playing game. But how complex the role-playing mechanics will be and how they will turn out in terms of gameplay remains open.
However, we can firmly expect: We will form our own character, there will be gun battles, explore the universe by travelling from planet to planet and get to know different factions as well as companions. The management of aspects such as energy, shields and gravity should also play a role.
Todd Howard also promises that there will be a fitting counterpart to the crazy technology in Fallout or magic in Skyrim that will make players feel powerful. We’re also switching between first-person and third-person perspectives, with the former being preferred by the developers, as in Skyrim.
What do we know about the Open World?
Yes, we travel from planet to planet and as Todd Howard pointed out again in the interview, Starfield will be huge. As with Skyrim, however, it is up to the players to decide whether they want to finish the main story with its overarching goal and put the game down or simply let themselves drift, explore and enjoy quiet moments in the game world.
The locations you visit are supposed to feel a lot like Skyrim and co: You see interesting places, travel there on your own and are rewarded for your curiosity. Starfield is supposed to make a lot possible and allow players to test the limits – for example, by trying to read everything, lifting it up or generally just trying out whether something is possible. In Starfield, the answer should often be “yes”.
Bethesda role-playing game, but the developers are experimenting with various new systems. Our speculation: Maybe there will even be operable spaceships.
Will Starfield be a technical leap forward?
Prejudices and misconceptions regarding Bethesda’s own engine have been doing the rounds for years. The technology frameworks of Skyrim and Fallout 4 were already considered “outdated” back then – consequently, people grumbled loudly when the same engine was also announced for Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6. But the situation is a bit more complicated
By now we know that Starfield relies on the Creation Engine 2 and thus a new version of the old engine. So technically, some progress should definitely be noticeable. The extremely detailed environments from the trailer, for example, suggested that you can interact with many more objects.
In the course of Microsoft’s Bethesda purchase, Todd Howard has again spoken out about the technology: Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 marked the biggest technical leap since Oblivion (2006). The technical retread of the engine was closely linked to the new hardware possibilities of the Xbox Series X and optimised in particular for the demands of huge open worlds.
The developers explain why they are sticking to the “old” engine with the help of the modding community, among others. The community has been working extremely successfully with the Creation Engine for years to publish their own content in Bethesda role-playing games. With Beyond Skyrim, we recently saw what impressive dimensions this can take on. Todd Howard on the decision:
We like our editor, we know how to use it. We can build worlds very, very quickly with it and the modders are very familiar with it. There are a few principles that we use to develop games and that’s not going to change because it makes us very efficient. We also think it works best that way.
During a developer conference, Todd Howard also reveals that Starfield relies on procedural generation to some extent. Which elements exactly are affected, however, remains to be seen.
