Everything We Know About Starfield

Robot Companions

When Todd Howard did a Reddit AMA in November 2021, one of the most specific questioned levied towards him was whether “Starfield” will have robot companions. In response, Todd only said, “kind of”. What that means is anyone’s guess – though we did briefly see a robot in one of the trailers. Perhaps the game “Starfield” will get compared to the most, Obsidian’s “The Outer Worlds” also featured a robot companion called SAM who was a lot of fun. We hope it’s a quirky, interesting robot companion rather than the bizarre robots Bethesda added to “Fallout 4” with “Automatron” DLC, robots that people built once or twice and then almost completely lost interest in. Still, is any sci-fi epic really complete without an endearing, mechanical friend?

Creation Engine 2

If you assumed “Starfield’s” teaser trailer was all a pre-rendered cinematic, we can’t blame you – but you may be surprised to learn that it wasn’t. In fact, it was all rendered in Creation Engine 2, which Bethesda says will also be the engine used for “The Elder Scrolls 6” – this is certainly a far cry from the days of Gamebryo. However, while Creation Engine 2 might look great, it’s not a brand-new engine, as you’ve probably already guessed. It will be building on the same foundations as all of its predecessors, which means it will almost definitely be full of glitches – potentially even the same glitches as “Morrowind”. But perhaps the Microsoft acquisition, plus the disaster of “Fallout 76”, will make Bethesda strive for a more stable performance this time around.

Full Mod Support

But you don’t have to worry about the potential bugs too much because, continuing old traditions, “Starfield” will have full mod support from Bethesda. With “Fallout 4”, Bethesda even enabled mods across consoles – something rarely seen – so we’re glad to see Bethesda’s commitment to its own community continuing. Especially when “Fallout 76’s” always-online nature meant it was impossible to mod. It’s always nice to see game developers acknowledge that their game is going to be torn apart by modders and encourage that. It’s only a matter of time before everybody reskins all the enemies as Barney the Dinosaur and turns all the spaceships into giant, flying trains – and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Background

“Fallout 4” had one of the most massive and ridiculous character creators of all time, letting you make all manner of bizarre-looking people to explore the Commonwealth with. But one of the biggest problems with “Fallout 4” was that you couldn’t change your background whatsoever; if you played as a man, you were a former soldier, and if you played as a woman, you were a former lawyer, and in both instances, you’d have a dead spouse and a missing son. It seems Todd has listened to this particular criticism, as “Starfield” will allow you to customize your character’s background. This is more similar to the way BioWare games have let you build a character, and will let you choose some pre-set options including being a scientist, being a gambler, and being an outlaw.

Pronouns

Something else Bethesda is doing with the character creator is giving players the option to set their pronouns. This is absolutely great news for inclusivity, and players will be able to pick between he/him, she/her, and they/them pronouns. This was something “Cyberpunk 2077” tried and ultimately failed to do as it tied pronouns into voice selection, but it’s something very successfully implemented in “Black Ops – Cold War” and “Forza Horizon 5” – the latter of which is one of the most inclusive games ever made. Hopefully, Bethesda getting on board with providing this option will mean that choosing pronouns is the industry standard.

Setting & Premise

It’s set around three hundred years in the future when humanity has spread out and created multiple distant space colonies, part of a society called the “United Colonies” that have since diverged to have their own unique cultures and identities. The player is always going to be a member of a group called Constellation, which Todd Howard described as the “last group of space explorers”. This is presumably the way to put the player in a position to explore so many different planets. Among the other factions there’s also the Freestar Collective, which has previously gone to war with the United Colonies - and there are probably many others we haven’t heard about yet.

Microsoft Exclusive

Following the news that Microsoft was seeking to buy Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax back in 2020, people were waiting with bated breath to see if this meant Bethesda’s games would now become Microsoft exclusives. Ultimately, this proved correct: going forward, first-party Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC. Games that have since come to PlayStation, like “Deathloop” did so because of pre-existing agreements. This means that if you’re a diehard Sony adherent you’re out of luck: you’re not going to be playing “Starfield” unless you buy an Xbox or a computer. But when you do, you can play it day one on Xbox Game Pass, just like every other first-party Microsoft IP.

E3 2022

Something else Todd Howard said on Reddit was to keep your eyes peeled come E3 2022 for plenty of new “Starfield” info. Until E3 2021, information on the game was pretty thin on the ground, but we’re hoping to see a lot more next summer. This is in keeping with Bethesda’s habit of showing tons of gameplay just a few months before a game releases, which they did with the last two “Fallout” games. This time though, we know “Starfield” is coming, and we know to be on the lookout for it. Even if the game gets delayed, we’re definitely going to see it shown off in a big way in 2022.

Locations

Bethesda has released a small handful of views with overviews of some of the game’s core locations as well as plenty of concept art – some of it animated. The locations we have info on right now are New Atlantis, Akila City, and Neon. Neon is a decadent, visually-stunning “pleasure city”, a huge platform with a dome on top that produces drugs. Akila is a walled and diverse city that, ironically, values freedom but keeps its citizens confined within to protect them from deadly wildlife. Finally, New Atlantis is the futuristic metropolis of your dreams, the biggest city in the game, and the United Colonies’ capital.

Release Date

In late 2021, “Starfield’s” release date was revealed as November 11th, 2022. In recent years, nearly all big games have seen at least one delay, if not more, so it wouldn’t be surprising if we actually don’t see “Starfield” until 2023. Obviously, it would be great if “Starfield” does release in 2022, but if it needs a little more time then that’s fine as well. On the other hand, we know Bethesda really isn’t above releasing games absolutely full of bugs and glitches that in some cases are never even patched out, so similarly, it’s just as plausible that “Starfield” will come out in 2022 and will be full of myriad technical issues as a result. Or, maybe they’ve estimated the development time completely accurately and we’ll be pleasantly surprised.