In a new video, Starfield shares his ambitions and even compares himself to Oblivion. The developers also focus their discussion on factions and play freedom.
Todd Howard (Game Director), Emil Pagliarulo (Design Director), Will Shen (Lead Quest Designer), and Istvan Pely (Lead Artist) reunite for a new discussion about Starfield. The next big project from Bethesda, which relies heavily on its immersion and the freedom left for the player to live their story.
A personalized experience
At this meeting, the developers insisted on their desire to fully invest the player in the created world.
It’s the level of immersion we’re focusing on, you’re not just playing a game, you’re living in this world, in this universe. It’s a gigantic open world where the player does what he wants. You feel your influence on the world
. You feel like you’re there. Some types of entertainment involve following an experience. You see what the creators want to show you. We want to put you in a position where you decide…that’s what makes video gaming the best form of entertainment.
To achieve this, the studio will strive to have believable NPCs, both visually and in terms of the interaction the player will have with them in Starfield.
The technology starts with a scan of real models, like the photogrammetry of our landscapes. The same applies to people in the game. It’s not just about how your character looks, we want the interactions with the NPCs and all characters to have real impact and make you believe they are real peopleyou are real and your interactions are real.
Amidst these non-playable characters, the player can also rely companions. The latter will comment on events that we observe. Nothing new per se, but seeing how far the concept has been pushed.
Starfield revisits the “old codes of hardcore role-playing games.”
For the team, the title is a return to basics, allowing them to reinstate elements but approach them from a different angle:
We don’t just develop RPGs, we create simulations that lead to crazy things that can happen, unexpected things. Many of us have been doing this together and with Starfield for a long time, It’s good to go back to things we haven’t done before: the stories, the traits, the character definition, all the stats. There are so many games now that offer this, that People are ready for a game that takes on the old codes of hardcore RPGs. Things we used to do but approached them in a new way. We always allow players to create interesting, unique characters. This game is a strong build.
Since we’re in the old one, the Oblivion game reappeared during this conversation when we touched on the dialogue system. As a matter of fact, Starfield will have a persuasion minigame similar to what Oblivion offered back then without being a copy-paste. The idea really is to be able to have real conversations that the player will have “the feeling of convincing someone of something”.
Finally, we also had a few words about Factions. In particular, there will be the Colonial Union, which represents the idealized future of the space republic, the Liber Astra Confederation, which takes its cues from the space western fantasy, and finally, Ryujin Industries, which symbolizes the big companies and for which you have to try, employed to become. According to the developers, this is the faction with the best introduction.
Unfortunately, no gameplay snippets punctuated the video, only new concept art. Starfield is expected for that November 11, 2022 Exclusive to Xbox Series and PC.
