Starfield is Bethesda’s first self-developed title not in the Fallout or Elder Scrolls franchises, finally giving Todd Howard the ability to create something unlike anything we’ve seen before.
After the release of Fallout 76, Bethesda went through a bit of a rough patch. Starfield has the potential to restore the company’s reputation and at just the right time considering the massive hype revolving around The Elder Scrolls 6.
If you’re interested in Bethesda games, here’s everything you need to know about Starfield, including its release date, gameplay, leaks and more.
Starfield release date
During Microsoft + Bethesda’s E3 2021 presentation, Starfield was brought back into the limelight with a cinematic teaser. It was also revealed that the game would be launching on November 11th, 2022. It will be an Xbox Series X|S and Windows 10 exclusive and will be available day one with Xbox Game Pass.
Starfield gameplay
It’s hard to say what Starfield will actually play like considering we haven’t seen any gameplay footage, but it’s not difficult to speculate based on what we know about typical Bethesda games.
Starfield will likely feature the ability to freely switch between first and third-person camera perspectives, which has been common throughout the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. In each of its games, Bethesda ensures players feel like the setting is sufficiently interactive to compliment the overall theme. Skyrim, for example, takes place in a high fantasy world where players can forge armor, master powerful abilities, enroll in a college for mages, and join a seedy organization for assassins.
As Starfield takes place in the vast expanse of space, Bethesda will likely allow players similar interactivity, but in ways that suit the setting. I can imagine Starfield featuring ship modifications, an organization of smugglers, high-tech weaponry, equipment that can be upgraded, bizarre alien planets and ship-combat. Obviously, this is all speculation, especially since we know very little about Starfield.
The game was also confirmed to be entirely single-player, which isn’t surprising after the less-than-successful launch of Fallout 76. Additionally, Bethesda hasn’t been known for releasing multiplayer experiences, so it isn’t shocking for the company to return to its roots.
Todd Howard also confirmed in an interview with The Washington Post that Starfield is akin to “Skyrim in space,” which is rather characteristic for him to say.
Starfield story
We don’t know much about Starfield’s story, but it’s been recently revealed that the game has over 150,000 lines of dialogue. This is more than twice the amount of dialogue seen in Skyrim. It seems like Bethesda is going for “more is better” here, which could be a cause for concern.
Starfield setting
Starfield takes place in space in some capacity, which is pretty much the only thing we know about its setting. It could be a dark, futuristic science-fiction about how humanity is dangerously low on resources and needs to expand its grasp outside of the solar system. Or it could have nothing to do with Earth, and could revolve around all sorts of colorful alien lifeforms while the player travels throughout bizarre environments.
I hope Starfield represents a wide spectrum of unique alien races that the player can create relationships with, whether that be in the form of romance, friendship or rivalry. The Elder Scrolls series has always allowed the player to pick from a handful of fantasy races when creating a character, so I’d love for Starfield to do the same.
I loathe the idea of Starfield featuring dozens of planets only for them to be inhabited by generic humanoids within earth-like environments. If I’m flying my ship toward an alien planet teeming with life, I expect it to be unlike anything I have never experienced. This isn’t to say that earth-like planets can’t be prominent, but I’d at least prefer if the game featured a healthy balance between exotic and ordinary.
This comes with the expectation that the game is more colorful. If Starfield intends to go into a darker direction where humanity is scattered, and our rugged spaceships are barely chugging us across space, it’s expected that the game will be gritty.
If the game is gloomy, I hope Bethesda understands the value of an ambient soundtrack, muted colors and the utilization of darkness to instill fear into the player. If we’re going to explore a world ripe with hopelessness, I want flying through space to not feel adventurous, but terrifying.
There’s one thing we currently do know about the game’s setting, and this is that it will feature expansive cities, larger than we’ve ever seen in a Bethesda game before. This is thanks to the overhauled Creation Engine, which allows the developers to craft larger worlds.
We got a first look at some in-engine footage, although no gameplay was shown (which is disappointing after three years of waiting). The teaser didn’t reveal much, but it did give us an idea of what type of sci-fi setting we could expect. It seems that it’ll be more grounded, with an aesthetic that accurately reflects where space-related architecture and designs are at in the modern day.
Bethesda released three short videos highlighting the concept art for some of the game’s areas. These locations are Akila, New Atlantis and Neon. Each video runs around 50 seconds long and is accompanied by developer commentary.
Bethesda Softwork’s YouTube channel published another video explaining a nugget of Starfield’s lore. It will boast a section of its universe that’s referred to as “The Settled Systems” as players embark on their journey in the year 2330.
20 years prior, the United Colonies and Freestar Collection were engaged in a brutal war. Cut to modern day, an uneasy peace is kept among the two major powers. And yet, The Settled Systems are still as dangerous as ever, occupied by groups like the Ecliptic Mercenaries and Pirates of the Crimson Fleet. The player will be part of Constellation, an organization that seeks to explore the deepest depths of the galaxy to uncover its secrets.
Starfield leaks
Starfield supposedly had a few images leak that revealed a surprising number of details.
In the first image, we see the model of a rugged spaceship. Immediately, this implies a less high-tech version of humanity, as the ship is beat up, has paint scratches, and looks like the engineer had stuffed a bunch of scrap together to make a barely-functioning spacecraft. This sorta evokes the feeling of a space western.
However, the second image paints a different picture. We see our protagonist floating in front of a spaceship that looks far more modern and well-kept. Additionally, the playable character’s space suit looks a lot like a modern Extravehicular Mobility Unit, the suits Nasa use to traverse space.
Additionally, we see a weapon icon on the bottom right that looks a lot like a sawed-off shotgun. It could potentially be a futuristic laser-based weapon with a similar shape, but if it is a sawed-off shotgun, the setting will likely be more realistic than fantastical.
