After the Game Awards didn’t bring an announcement about Starfield that many fans were hoping for, the developers are now feeding us with some details afterwards. A new developer video with lead quest designer Will Shen answers some questions about Bethesda Game Studios’ most ambitious role-playing game to date.
Among other things, it is also about which known planets we visit, what awaits us there and how the fractions of Starfield work. We show you the video and summarize the most important findings. Incidentally, chief developer Todd Howard recently revealed some details about the role-playing game:
Starfield
So much survival is in the RPG and 10 other gameplay details
Is Earth in Starfield too?
If you want to watch the video for yourself right away, you can find it below this paragraph. Otherwise you can continue reading right away, we’ll tell you what’s new.
5:57
Starfield: New details on factions, companions and randomized content in the video
We visit our solar system: Attentive viewers already discovered in the Starfield gameplay reveal that a system called ‘Sol’ can be found on the star map. As the developers now confirm in the video, we actually visit our neighboring planets such as Mars, and relatively early in the main quest. On Mars we also find a large city that we have already seen in trailers:
The name of the city on Mars is Cydonia, which according to the developers “has its own inhabitants and problems”.
In the search for the origin of mysterious artifacts, we also deal with the question of what happened on Earth and why humanity left its home planet. However, the video does not reveal whether we can also explore the earth ourselves.
Random encounters and quests
Already in Skyrim or Fallout 4 made so-called Random Encounters
the game world more alive. At any time you could accidentally stumble upon a skirmish between two factions, special NPCs, or small unmarked quests. This system is to be significantly expanded in Starfield. On the numerous planets you will now find entire outposts and dungeons that are created by the developers and then placed randomly. Quests and whole groups of NPCs await you there.
We can also find outposts and quests on planets with only randomly generated content.
Of course, with the randomly created locations and quests, we tend to find tasks like get this item
or save that NPC
. The huge world should not be quite as empty as one might fear. By the way, Tillmann explains in his column what excites him so much about the size of Starfield:
more on the subject
Starfield could solve my big problem of Skyrim and Fallout
That’s how factions work
Several groups have already been introduced in the gameplay reveal that we can make friends with as the game progresses. Although some of these are enemies, the developers don’t want to force a decision on us immediately: the main quest first leads us to all the major factions. You can then play through the quest lines of all groups independently.
You then have the opportunity to influence their politics and orientation, but without being appointed the leader of every existing group as in Skyrim. But your decisions should influence the world and the fate of important characters.
Companions can speak for you
Companions like Vasco not only express their own opinion, but can also step in for us in dialogues.
NPCs that can accompany you permanently, such as the robot Vasco, express their own opinion on what happened in the main quest and your decisions during it. Also, an entirely new feature is that companions will speak for you in certain situations if you ask them to. Depending on what they then say, this can also have certain consequences for quests.
By the way, in Starfield not only NPCs are becoming more complex, your own character should also get more personality thanks to traits. This makes Steffi particularly curious:
Starfield
The first Bethesda game where I care about my character?
Now it’s your turn: Are you curious about the new information about Earth’s history, the Random Encounters or the companions? Do you think the planets filled with random quests are fun to explore, or do you think they get boring quickly? And would you like to let your companions speak for you? Write your opinion in the comments!
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