Starfield only 20% larger than previous Bethesda Games and more!

https://www.ign.com/articles/starfield-new-details-todd-howard-interview

Todd Howard Confirms Fallout 5 Is Coming After Elder Scrolls 6

Todd Howard has confirmed to IGN that Fallout 5 will be Bethesda Game Studios' next game after The Elder Scrolls 6, which itself will follow on from 2023's Starfield.

"Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production," he said, "and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while. We have some other projects that we look at from time to time as well."

Starfield Includes More Handcrafted Content Than Any Bethesda Game, Alongside Its Procedural Galaxy

Amid a huge amount of new information on Starfield from the Xbox-Bethesda showcase, likely the most-discussed detail was Todd Howard's announcement that the upcoming sci-fi RPG will include 1,000 fully explorable planets. Howard told us more about the game's approach to procedural generation, what it offers, and assured us that players can ignore them in favour of a huge amount of fully handcrafted content, if they want to.

Starfield’s Main Quest Is About 20% Bigger than Previous Bethesda Games, Around 30-40 Hours Long

Starfield's main quest is about 20% bigger than previous Bethesda games such as Skyrim and Fallout 4, with Todd Howard saying that means it should take around 30 to 40 hours to complete – without stepping away to do side content.

Howard said the game's main story is longer than normal due to the sheer number of quests: "This one’s ending up a little bit longer [than our previous games] and we may tune that some still," he said. "It’s more quests, so it might be 20% more than our previous ones."

Yes, Starfield Will Begin With a Classic Bethesda 'Step-Out Moment'

Bethesda's open world RPGs may vary wildly in setting and tone, but they very often share one thing – what Bethesda calls the 'step-out moment', the scene in which your character steps into the world properly, and sees its sheer scale. Starfield won't be bucking that trend.

Howard was asked if Starfield had a step-out moment, and how it would create a grand reveal of its world considering it includes 1,000 different planets: "There is. Look, the way the game starts is pretty set for everybody, so we definitely have what we call the 'step-out moment'. And we probably have a few of them given the scale of the game."

Starfield Has 4 Main Cities, and New Atlantis Is the Biggest City Bethesda’s Ever Made

Starfield will have four major cities for players to explore, including New Atlantis, which is the biggest that developer Bethesda has ever made. Howard said that New Atlantis, capital city of the United Colonies, is not just the biggest in this game but bigger than anything in Skyrim, Fallout 4, or any of the developer's previous games.

"It has all the services you would expect, and you can work on your ship there, the factions touch that," Howard said. "But that’s also the headquarters for Constellation, which is the faction that you join that is the last group of space explorers – kind of this NASA-meets-Indiana Jones-meets-The League of Extraordinary Gentleman [group]."

Starfield Doesn’t Let You Fly Seamlessly from Space to Planet: ‘That’s Really Just Not that Important’

Todd Howard has said that Starfield won't allow you to fly seamlessly from space to its 1,000 explorable planets, saying the feature is "really just not that important to the player" to justify the engineering work involved.

"People have asked, ‘Can you fly the ship straight down to the planet?’ No. We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you’re in space it’s another reality."

Xbox Showcase Live Reactions - Unlocked 54840:38Autoplay setting: OnXbox Showcase Live Reactions - Unlocked 548

Starfield’s Space Combat Is ‘Unique’, and Inspired By FTL and MechWarrior

Todd Howard said Starfield features a unique take on space combat, and that was partly inspired by FTL and MechWarrior. And yes, you can steal ships that you board.

Howard said "there's been a lot space sims that we're fans of, and space shooters from the '90s," but the team wanted Starfield "to feel [like] something unique". He went on to explain how both indie darling FTL and classic shooter MechWarrior were unlikely touchstones for the game.

During the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, Howard revealed the game will have more than one thousand planets for players to explore, what feels like just as many customisation options, and Star Wars-esque dogfighting in space.

Players are also speculating whether our own Solar System will be a plot point in the game but Bethesda has at least confirmed some story details thanks to a new trailer, though fans will no doubt continue analysing and speculating about Starfield until it is finally released in 2023.

Looks like they are working on Xbox exclusive, Elder Scrolls 6, then Fallout 5 for Xbox after that. NOICE!!

Can Todd tell me why their game ran at 21fps?

Beta and a year out from release?

they lied they said the worlds were as big as fallout 4 and they had 1000 of them

this should be 1000x as big but they friggin bethesda liar

So you can't do what No Mans Sky does by flying from space then down to the planet? LAME.

Oh no! The game is not like No Man Sky. What is the internet going to do?😂

Like Elden RIng and Fallout 76? No. If they can manage to make it run like it should, you don't unveal your game in the state that they did. This game will run sub 30fps on a 12tflops system.

So you can land anywhere you want on the planets, but you can’t actually land on the planets 🤔…. Never change Todd 😅!

good to hear it'll have lots of hand-crafted stuff.

so, maybe a bit like Mass Effect 1 where there are barren procedurally generated planets you can land on but also hand-crafted levels.

doesn't really address my concern that the game just looked a bit generic overall but this does make me feel a bit better about it

That's good and all but we're getting ahead of ourselves Todd Howard. First let's focus on Starfield releasing and becoming a hit, than we can worry about Elder Scrolls 6 & Fallout 5. Every resource should be put into Starfield as its an all or nothing.

I'm glad to see Bethesda is doing somewhat okay but let's not get carried away even though you got MS's blessings.

So the game isn't as ambitious as No Man's Sky OR Star Citizen as some people here were claiming. It's more like Mass Effect with more customization elements

Flying from space to planet only works on these procedurally generated planets without 100s of npcs running their script. Just impossible to pull off if you also want the handcrafted BGS worlds.

you can still land just about anywhere and watch the land and take off cut scenes from whatever world you are on.

Huh? Who said that? No Man's Sky I'll give you that.

blaznwiipspman1 was definitely drinking that Kool-Aid, but then again, he is special

Sub 30 fps trash coming soon to Xbox.

Sounds like some great stuff indeed. I loved just wandering around and exploring in Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and 4. The prospect of doing that on various planets sounds awesome to me. Hope the main story will be as cool as Mass Effect. I really liked what they showed off of the game so far. Am really looking forward to seeing more and am super hyped for the game when it comes out next year.

umm no they did not say that

@regnaston: proto is a phychopath

I disagree with the seamless space flights comment. I would love to be able to fly through the atmosphere and get into space myself. Jumping from star system to star system could be a loading screen or transition though. That just tells me that these planets will just be small arenas that you can't really explore the way you want to.

The more I hear about this game, the worse it sounds. How are they going to model anything after FTL?!?! What does that even mean?

And what do we get when going from space to the planet itself, a cutscene? I now agree that comparisons to NMS aren’t fair. NMS is far more accomplished as a video game…

It's likely an in engine cutscene since the planets might be procedurally generated. Fine if it was a technical limitation, one they hope to get around in a future update. But they're not being honest about it and saying it's because we don't care about it. Bogus.

Procedural creation in a bethesda game.....

Yeah this probably wont end well but think about the memes!

Skyrim was freaking huge, 20% is great. Perfect, even. Game worlds being too large is a major concern of mine these days. I was worried they were going to make it too big.

I'm guessing there will be a handful of really detailed, hand-crafted planets while the rest will be some combination of randomly generated (during development, not during gameplay) with some hand-crafted aspect for missions and exploration.

Yup, new IP. Which is a rarity these days from major publishers. Deserves 100% attention so they can hit it out of the park.

Not surprised to hear about the next Fallout or TES game; sort of a given that publishers/studios this size have at least a few projects going at once at various stages of development, otherwise you're not really utilizing your workforce and resources at 100%.

Play NMS?

😁

Starfield Doesn’t Let You Fly Seamlessly from Space to Planet: ‘That’s Really Just Not that Important’

Well that sucks.

Probably wouldn't have been as much of an issue if they switched to UE5.

The gameplay reveal looked incredibly mediocre. Wasn't excpecting much from a developer that hasn't made a quality game in 12 years.

Since when do people think that the E3 framerate is the final framerate?

And 20% better than any PS game 🤣

Same, same. Knew it was gonna be bad, but not this bad. Not gonna say too much before I know more, but it sure ain't looking good, and it keeps looking worse.

But since game "journalists" have forgot what makes videogames good and mostly feed upon clickbait and ad revenue, I'm sure it'll get many 9/10s.

lol

They already have done PG in a game 🤡 Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall.

Yeah and the open world was horrible bunch of copy pasted towns and caves. Imagine defending Bethesda games engine lmao 🤡🤡

Pffft, you mean not being able to fly the Normandy from take off to landings like you were playing MSFS in space didn't make you rage quit and never play another second of that supposed RPG game in space? ;o

You just don't know what to expect from a massive story driven RPG like we do, sorry. sarc off.

lolol :P

That was their first attempt, 26 years ago 🤡 Probably before you were even born. 😂

Judging their track record, you defending them is actual 🤡🤡 lmao.

mod it 😎

I have a feeling this game is going to be a mess at launch but those who love Bethesda games will overlook the issues. I'm just hoping it's not as bad as '76.

The good news here is, I am not defending them, lol. I don't know them and I don't have any ownership in them and I have never finished a game of theirs. But you do you. 🤡🤡🤡 ROFLMAO

Sure thing 🤡🤡

I can... The game is in development maybe? I don't, know... Seems too obvious. Lets have SWs chime in with any ideas?

I'll check Gamepass to see if it's out... Nope it's not out yet, so...

Can you tell me why Returnal is 1080p? :-S

Still in development.

You won't play it anyway, Protoss.

On the PC at least. XD

@HalcyonScarlet said:

@hardwenzen said:

Can Todd tell me why their game ran at 21fps?

I can... The game is in development maybe? I don't, know... Seems too obvious. Lets have SWs chime in with any ideas?

I'll check Gamepass to see if it's out... Nope it's not out yet, so...

Can you tell me why Returnal is 1080p? :-S

You're still getting fooled by this development excuse? Its Betheda. Whatever you see in pre alpha stage, is the state the game will launch at😂

@SecretPolice: I totally forgot that I couldn’t fly the Normandy seamlessly from take off to landing on planets. My bad. Worst game ever! lol ;)

Well now, that's mooaar like it..

lolol ;)

Another blow to wenzen and Ghost.

Well shit, can I get blow?

Sounding good. Nice sized main quest. Fallout in space with added space combat. A settlement to build up. 1000 procedurally generated planets which, i'm sure, will be hit and miss but there are 1000 of them.

Is there a Mako to drive around on them? I liked the Mako in ME1...i admit it. I thought it was great fun just hopping around from place to place, seeing the sights and finding loot. A more developed that would be great.

But yeah: fingers crossed it actually delivers. bethesda have not been on a great run since skyrim.