After months of hints and teases, Xbox and Bethesda finally revealed more information about the highly-anticipated new IP from Bethesda: Starfield. And it was way more information than anyone could have hoped for or expected. Described as Fallout in space by many on the internet, Starfield stunned fans with its graphics, its gameplay, and its scope.
You can’t talk about Starfield without first acknowledging that it is an absolutely stunning game from a graphics perspective. All of the footage shown on Sunday reinforced that. This game is firmly in the current generation of consoles and its visuals take full advantage of all that power. From stunning mountains to a sprawling space port and from space exploration to space battles, the details are incredible and make you feel like you are there.
Space battles? Yes, I said space battles. We’ll come back to that in just a minute though. Let’s talk about gameplay. As you’d expect from a Bethesda RPG, gameplay for Starfield feels familiar in the best ways. Your confirmed silent protagonist has freedom to explore wherever you would like, collecting resources and items as you go, battling alien lifeforms and other sentient beings, and creating your own story. Your options for exploring are not limited either as the game will feature 100+ systems and 1000+ total planets. That may or may not include moons, space stations, or asteroids as well. Gunplay looked pretty tight in the limited footage showing it. There was no sign of melee combat but that doesn’t mean it won’t be there. And yes, there is space combat. You could even call it dogfighting in space, I certainly am. So when I’m fighting in space…
Can I design my own spaceship to fly? Yes, yes you can. Ship design will be a big feature in Starfield. Customize it how you want and then head to infinity and beyond in it (wrong franchise). You can also customize outposts and bases on different planets and hire NPCs to work there. And a Bethesda RPG would not be complete without a very in-depth character creator. You may spend your first 20 hours in the game just designing your character and making them look just like you, what you wished you looked like, or just the coolest thing you can create at random. Do it however you like. Once you’ve got your looks down, there’s plenty of RPG elements to go into your character. These are things like background characteristics, style traits, and skill trees. This character will truly be exactly what you make them and unlike anyone else.
The most incredible part about all of the things that were revealed is that it’s just the beginning! Starfield is set to release sometime in the first half of 2023 for Xbox Series X|S and PC. Count on more information to be revealed as that time period gets closer and expect the scope of this new franchise to grow and evolve with each new revolution!
Image from: Xbox/Bethesda
