Starfield shows tiny gameplay snippets in new video and reveals many details about factions, NPCs and dialogues in the space role-playing game. But what does that mean exactly?
There are only eight months left until the release of Starfield on 11 November 2022, but Bethesda Softworks has so far held back with information about the role-playing game.
But now a new video sheds some light: In part 2 of the “Inside the Starfield” series with the subtitle “For all Wanderers”, the developers around designer Todd Howard talk about factions, companion NPCs and the playful freedom that Starfield is supposed to offer.
What emerges behind these statements is the effort to lean significantly more on classic role-playing strengths again with Starfield and to move a bit away from Fallout 4, which is tailored to the mass market. We summarise all the important findings for you.
All the info from the new Starfield video
Game Director Todd Howard, Design Director Emil Pagliarulo, Lead Quest Designer Will Shen and Lead Artist Istvan Pely explain what Starfield will offer aside from a huge open-world universe in the new video:
- During character creation, you determine the background and traits of your character. Bethesda says it wants to bring back the depth of play of its earlier Elder Scrolls games.
- The game world will apparently be very dynamic. Supposedly a comet can hit a planet. According to the developer, the game must be prepared for such chaotic, unpredictable moments and react dynamically to them.
- When it comes to the story, Bethesda wants to ask the “big questions”: Love, adventure and mystery are components of the game, but there is also an overarching level about the cosmos and the universe itself. According to Todd Howard, Starfield should also deal with the most important questions of all: “Why are we all here, what is the goal and where is humanity going next?
- In dialogues, a new version of the persuasion mini-game from The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is used. However, there is not supposed to be one right way, a kind of emotion scanner like in the Deus Ex games would be conceivable. Todd Howard calls the new version one of the “most successful new dialogue systems we’ve ever had”.
- The game’s hero is accompanied by computer-controlled characters, among others the developers show a robot. In Starfield, it is supposed to be particularly important what the companions’ opinion of your avatar is. They also comment regularly on what is happening.
- NPCs are supposed to look more believable than in the Fallout or Elder Scrolls series. To achieve this, real people, their faces and movements have been scanned with a multitude of cameras, similar to the photogrammetry technique Bethesda uses to design the landscapes.
- The video introduces some of the factions in the game in more detail.
- The United Colonies are an idealised space republic and correspond most closely to the idea of a good faction.
- The Freestar Collective, on the other hand, is for western fans with colonists living on the edge of civilisation and wearing wide-brimmed cowboy hats.
- Ryujin Industries is a megacorp corporation that could be straight out of Cyberpunk 2077.
- Crimson Fleet is the name of the pirates in the game, and you can also join this rather evil group in Starfield.
- The factions all have their own entry quests, for Ryujin, for example, you have to prove yourself before you get the job.
- Even if you want to play a morally good character, you can try out other ways of playing. For example, it should be possible to infiltrate the pirates of the Crimson Fleet as an undercover cop.
Starfield: What we know so far about Bethesda’s sci-fi epic (UPDATE)
What this means for Starfield
According to the latest information, it looks like Bethesda is attempting to move back a bit from the course followed in Fallout 4 with Starfield. The return to old mechanics from past “hardcore RPGs”, as Todd Howard puts it in conversation, speaks for the title being less shooter and more role-playing game again.
There are also clear parallels to The Outer Worlds or Fallout: New Vegas, for example in character creation with the traits or that there will be more options for interacting with factions and solving their quests.
Will the open-world promises actually be kept? Lead Quest Designer Will Shen asks, “What if a comet hits somewhere? Because that could happen! You can’t control it, but the game has to kind of govern it.”
Bethesda stresses in the video that you should “not just play a game, but live in this universe”. In doing so, they promise “a tangible impact on the world” . “We don’t just make role-playing games, we make simulations,” is how Design Director Emil Pagliarulo sums it up. “Crazy things can happen, something no one expects”.
Starfield will be released on 11 November 2022 and is said to offer a “gigantic, open universe in which players can do whatever they want”. We expect to see longer gameplay scenes and a concrete look at how it will all play in the summer.
Because regardless of whether and in what form an E3 will happen, Bethesda and Microsoft are guaranteed to hold another showcase to present their games for the Christmas trade. And there, Starfield will almost certainly be one of the focus topics.
