Todd Howard Says Starfield Is a "More Hardcore RPG" Than Previous Bethesda Games

In a new interview, Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard said that Starfield is a "more hardcore RPG" than previous Bethesda games such as Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Howard also said that the game itself is "very big," which is a quality that the studio's RPGs are known for.

"It's also a bit more hardcore of a role-playing game than we've done," Howard told The Telegraph. "It's got some really great character systems – choosing your background, things like that. We're going back to some things that we used to do in games long ago that we felt have really let players express the character they want to be. So I think when you see it being played, you would recognise it as something we made."

As with previous Bethesda RPGs, the game can be played in both first and third-person, though Howard says that first-person "is still our prime way of playing." Howard noted that the game is aiming for a different take on sci-fi than Star Trek and Star Wars, saying that the team refers to Starfield's aesthetic as "NASA-punk."

He also revealed that he spoke to people in Elon Musk's SpaceX in order to ensure that the game gets the future of space travel right, at least in the broad strokes. However, while Bethesda aims to be more realistic than the Mass Effects of the world, Howard says that the game will still feature scientific impossibilities like laser blasts in a vacuum. "It is a game, let's make no mistake," Howard says.

At E3 2021, Starfield got a new trailer and a release date of November 11, 2022. It will be exclusive to Xbox and PC; the trailer did not mention PlayStation at all. Fans believe that the newly-revealed trailer has an Elder Scrolls clue hidden in it, because of course they do.