Starfield Dev: "Players Are Gonna Lose Their Minds"

Bethesda Game Studios veteran Emil Pagliarulo, who has worked at the Fallout and Elder Scrolls studio for 19 years, has shared a little more insight on Starfield. In an employee profile on Bethesda's website, the developer said the sci-fi RPG is going to offer "something really special" that will make players go wild.

"Saying you're going to create the studio’s first new IP in twenty years is one thing. Actually pulling that off, that's a different story," Pagliarulo said. "It's been so awe-inspiring watching Starfield morph into this amazing game, little by little, and with us covering SO much new ground."

Starfield is lined up for release this November on Xbox Series X|S and PC. Bethesda is confident the game won't be delayed, and Pagliarulo said Starfield is far enough along into development that the systems have come together and gelled, and the vision that the studio had at the onset of production is now coming to fruition.

"There comes a point when you're working on a game, and it's just kind of a mess, especially early on, because--news flash!--that's what game development is. But then you get to that point where systems really start to come online, and things start to work well, and gel, and you see everything forming into the vision you had when you first started on this crazy journey," Pagliarulo said. "When that first happened with Starfield, it really was an, 'Oh. Oh wow. Yeah. This is… something really special. Players are going to lose their minds.' Now we just have to finish it!"

Also in the interview, Pagliarulo spoke about his many inspirations and what games he enjoys the most, listing off titles like Spider-Man and Cyberpunk 2077.

"Thief still ranks as one of my favorite games of all time. But I play a lot of games, from all different genres. My Gamerscore is something like 168,000, and that's just the Xbox games I play. So there's always something that inspires or excites me," he said. "I really love playing games that just make me shake my head, like, 'Wow. I know how they did that, and it is a crazy accomplishment.' The newest Spider-Man games have been like that for me. Or Cyberpunk. Man, to make a giant, open-ended environment like Night City? That is no easy feat. Seriously impressive."

Starfield launches on November 11, 2022 for PC and Xbox Series X|S. Like all of Microsoft's other first-party games, it will launch day one on Xbox Game Pass, which means it might reach more players than any Bethesda game before despite not coming to PlayStation.