At the Starfield Direct, Bethesda showed off starship combat alongside the game's mindbogglingly massive number of other features. When you pilot your spaceship, you can allocate your power to the ship's various systems, gaining benefits depending on whether you are fighting or exploring.

For example, increasing your engine power will make your ship go faster, powering up your grav drives will shorten the amount of time before a "warp speed" jump, and strengthening the power resources of weapons and shields will help you take less damage and deal more. How much power you can allocate, and what systems are available, is dependent on the layout of your ship (which is fully customizable, by the way). There are also special abilities related to piloting. The ability "Targeting Control Systems" will let you target specific subsystems on enemy craft, knocking out their shields or engines.

You'll have to stay on your toes as you can be raided by pirates, but you can also raid other ships yourself. After destroying an enemy ship, you can loot the remains right from the cockpit. However, you can also board enemy ships by docking with them and take them over from the inside. The ship is then added to your fleet and you can take control of them at spaceports.

The Starfield Direct revealed plenty of details about the open-world sci-fi RPG, including character creation, factions and NPCs, as well as the return of the adoring fan meme from Oblivion.