Starfield, an open world built for roaming: new details from Bethesda

“Made for wanderers” is a seemingly simple slogan, but one that is of great interest to those who know and appreciate gaming. BethesdaAnd, perhaps, that’s what many wanted to hear from Todd Howard and his cohorts about Starfield, the protagonist of a new in-depth video from which other interesting information emerged.

Game director Todd Howard, design director Emil Pagliarolo, task designer Will Sheen and chief graphic designer Stefan Bailey were the protagonists of the new “In the Starfield: Episode 2” video, a round table at which some design-related aspects were outlined. And the concept of Starfield, where the gameplay was not shown (except for a very short part) of course.

So we’ll have to wait for the next maximum event which is likely to be in the spring, and Bethesda has no intention of opposing what was previously mentioned, obviously. In any case, important statements were made, but the most important is the abbreviation of the title of this episode of the video diary: “Starfield will be an open world created for wanderers”because it is the core of the open world built by Bethesda and is – basically – what everyone wants from this new gaming experience.

As Pagliarulo mentioned, it’s a matter of creating a simulation that integrates classic RPG elements, but everything is connected on a particularly broad level and must include a lot of additional variables, opening up the many different possibilities that the freedom of choice afforded to players. Furthermore, another dominant theme in Starfield is the fact that some of the historical characteristics of classic RPGs are restored and proposed in new forms.

Characters and Factions

Character building has always been left to the player’s initiative in most Bethesda Softworks games, especially the The Elder Scrolls series, and again we will be dealing with a similar system. The a heroIn short, it is not predetermined and this also contributes to the feeling of freedom typical of Starfield, in which the story is built according to the will of the player, starting with the appearance of his avatar in the game world. In this case, Head of Graphics, Istvan Pely, explains that building the hero and NPCs is based on new technologies, which exploit systems to detect and reproduce true 3D shapes similar to photogrammetry used in scenarios, but applied to character creation. The goal is to create as distinct faces and bodies as possible, while giving the NPCs a certain charisma.

Another recurring item that will be present in Starfield is Factions: This sci-fi world also offers different social groups to interact with, each linked to new lines of quests and developments in the story, as well as potential developments for the protagonist.

We already talked about it in the previous special about what we know about the new world of Bethesda, but the question has been resumed and further clarified: the colonial union is a republic of space, based firmly on the idealization of technological progress and order, on the other hand the Freestar collective consists From the frontier residents who reject central control and form a company similar to the Far West and Ryogene Industries, a giant corporation based on commerce, for example.

Relationships and social interactions

Much of the game’s action is based on interactions between characters and factions, historically “game-creating” elements in classic RPGs that lead to story building and missions. Bethesda’s approach to world-building was quite radical, trying to build a whole new world unrelated to any standardized chain, and to study ways to make it believable and to make it meaningful and original. Interactions between player and NPC. This also relates to the way you can participate in factions: in The Elder Scrolls, or in Fallout, these were limited to unlocking new lines of quests to be pursued in a servile manner but in Starfield, at least in the developers’ intentions, it’s about unlocking new contexts To work with a certain degree of freedom.

For example, to get into Ryujin Industries you have to suggest yourself as candidates for a real job, but there are different possibilities, such as that suggested by Todd Howard about the possibility of becoming part of the Crimson fleet, or “pirates”, the faction consider them “bad guys”, if so to speak. It is possible to join this faction but They position themselves in different ways: If we don’t want to share the goals and vision of the fleet, we can work incognito, play a double game and pursue other ideals. All this is also related to Dialog system developed by Bethesda for Starfield, which must represent something different from what we have seen so far in their games: the main idea is not to want to present a line that is recognized as “correct” but to provide many different possibilities for approach and interaction and with ethical nuances that cannot be easily distinguishable, thus bypassing the clear distinction between right and wrong.

The apotheosis of the open world

What also emerges from this recent video discussion session on Starfield is that Bethesda wanted to create a file An open world that is as rich and complex as possible, has greatly evolved what has been accomplished so far in the history of the team, which has specialized in this genre for decades now. Waiting to see how all this will really be organized in the game, which in fact has not yet revealed itself in an official way other than the mysterious presentation at E3 2021, we can at the same time count on the developers’ willingness to suggest something new and also developed in terms of their great experience in this Kind of stock. The openness of the world, given the possibility of freely exploring the universe, must be reflected in the wide and varied range of actions and methods possible also in the interaction with characters and scenarios.

As in any game, points out Pagliarulo, we have adventure, mystery, and a fairy tale, but here too Universe To provide an extra level of exploration and build one’s own adventure, which in some sense becomes the human’s way of searching for essential answers to life’s great questions, Howard reported in the video. All great ideas, but being able to put them into practice within a video game is a gigantic task, even by tapping into the greater potential of next-gen platforms. Also for this reason, curiosity to see Starfield in action at this point has reached an unsustainable level and we hope to soon have news of the popular full presentation that should arrive in the coming months, considering the release date is still set for 11. November 2022.