Starfield is Bethesda’s first original role-playing game in 25 years and is set in the down-to-earth and realistic space of the 24th century. Almost three years after the announcement, we’re slowly getting details about the game and when you can expect to play it. We’ve compiled all the information we could find about Starfield below, including trailers, video updates, interviews, and concept art.
Now that we’ve officially entered Starfield’s launch year, we’re expecting to hear more from Bethesda about the big new space game. We will continue to collect information about Starfield’s factions, characters, and space travel here. Here’s everything we know so far about Bethesda’s next RPG.
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What is the release date?
What is the Starfield release date?
Starfield release date is November 11, 2022. It will be available on day one on PC, Xbox and as part of Game Pass.
Starfield now has a Steam page
The upcoming interstellar RPG has one steam page, and while it doesn’t exactly give a full description of the gameplay or what we can expect, it does confirm the release date and shows us that Bethesda is starting to start marketing the game. We can likely expect even more reveals and details in the coming months as they finally start talking more concrete details about the game.
Check out the Starfield trailers
Here’s the official Starfield trailer from E3 2021
You can check out the Starfield E3 trailer above. It’s a film that shows an astronaut climbing into a spacecraft while a robot stalks the surface. We get a nice look at the ship while a voiceover says “What you found is the key to…unlock everything” and “We’ve arrived at the beginning of mankind’s final journey.” The pilot is seated at a console, flips a series of switches, and the trailer ends with missiles firing and the ship about to lift off.
You can also check out the first episode of a new series on Starfield from Bethesda called Into the Starfield below, which breaks down her inspirations, features new concept art (including some beautiful animated ones), and talks about the game.
How is the setting and gameplay of Starfield?
Starfield has exploration at heart.
Bethesda showed a little more of its hand on Starfield with a recent extended video in which Game Director Todd Howard, Studio Director Angela Browder, and Art Director Matt Carofano chatted about inspirations for the upcoming space RPG.
“A lot of our games are about exploration and this is ultimate exploration, what’s out there? What’s behind the earth?” said Carofano. “While Skyrim is sort of an epic fantasy, this is a more down-to-earth game and take on exploration…”
Howard had similar things to say when discussing the implications of exploration and the setting of Bethesda games of the past.
“We always kind of have this ‘step out’ moment into the world,” says Howard. “Technology has changed. We’ve all changed. So when we loaded a game, our expectations were, ‘Okay, I’m going to get out and there’s going to be that moment.’ Being able to do that and feel new in every generation, in every game, is something that’s really special about what we do.”
“I like to say that Starfield has two ‘step-out’ moments. That’s cryptic.”
One of the most recent trailers breaks down the region of space known as the Settled Systems, a 50 light-year radius around our own solar system, where humanity has spread. It is divided between two major factions – the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective – who live in an uneasy peace after a recent war. It also touches on some of the other threats the player might face: “Mercenaries of the Ecliptic, Pirates of the Crimson Fleet, violent spacefarers, or even the fanatical religious zealots of House Va’Ruun.”
Starfield has more than twice as much dialogue as Skyrim
During the Tokyo Game Show, Howard told the audience that Starfield will launch with a full Japanese localization and that it has over 150,000 lines of dialogue. as Nibellion pointed this out on Twitter, which is more than twice as many lines as Skyrim, which had 60,000 of them. It’s also more than Fallout 4’s 111,000 lines of dialogue. This is going to be a talkative RPG.
Starfield will have a pleasure dome where you can get high on alien fish
In the short videos, titled “Location Insights,” Design Director Emil Pagliarulo introduced some of the settlements you’ll visit in Starfield. Each video is less than a minute long and is just Pagliarulo giving a quick synopsis of some concept art, so there’s not much to do. However, one of them seems interesting. Originally built as a fishing platform on a water world, Neon was rebuilt into a pleasure town by its owners, the Xenofresh Corporation, when they discovered an alien fish with valuable psychotropic properties. This literal dopefish is now only legal on neon.
The other videos introduce New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies, and Akila City, the capital of the Freestar Collective, which is walled off to keep out “alien predators that are a cross between a wolf and a velociraptor.”
Starfield’s inspirations
The art style has been dubbed “NASA punk” internally
“Early on in this project, when we were trying to figure out the overall aesthetic of this game, we coined the term ‘NASA punk’ to describe a sci-fi universe that was a little more grounded and relatable,” Starfield artist Istvan Pely recounts Xbox Wire. “We wanted a very realistic setting. You can draw a line from today’s space technology and extrapolate from there into the future so that it’s believable and understandable.”
It might sound like a silly name, but it’s caught on with the team as a useful shorthand for Starfield’s crude and gritty portrayal of the future. “What’s really interesting is how accustomed we all are to this concept,” said lead animator Rick Vicens. “When you said NASA punk, the art team was able to instantly make those two words work. It was just the perfect term for our art direction and for everyone staying in the same flow and working with a consistent style.”
Starfield is “like Skyrim in space,” says Todd Howard
We don’t know much about Starfield’s history yet. Speak with The Washington PostTodd Howard said Starfield is “like Skyrim in space” and will contain factions, with Constellation, a group of human explorers, being the most important.
“It’s like NASA is meeting Indiana Jones and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a group of people who are still looking for answers,” Howard said.
“There are many factions in the game, but [Constellation is] the most important of which you become a part. It’s a bit like Skyrim in terms of the structure of the game, where you’re going to be who you want to be, and then there are different factions that you can join and really make your own way.”
Like Skyrim and Bethesda’s Fallout games, Starfield will be playable in both first and third person perspectives.
Todd Howard traveled to SpaceX to bring “authenticity” to Starfield
In the same E3 chat between Howard and Musk referenced above, Howard said he visited Musk’s company, SpaceX, for Starfield research and inspiration. It’s not clear how that inspiration will manifest, but Howard did mention that helium-3 — a speculative nuclear fusion fuel — could be the isotope used to fuel Starfield’s ships, or at least something to debate.
The ship’s appearance in the trailer showcases futuristic yet recognizable technology. Lots of buttons and switches like the cockpits we have today as opposed to super exotic technology we see in games like Mass Effect.
Starfield has been in development for years
Back in 2018, Todd Howard said the project had exited pre-production and was currently in a playable state internally. The teaser shown at E3 2018 was mainly developed to give us an idea of the atmosphere of the game. in a (n Interviewed by The GuardianHoward says, “We’ve been talking about this for a decade, we started putting things on paper five, six years ago, and active development started after we finished Fallout 4, so two and a half, three years.”
Even more Starfield details
Spaceship Battle may be on the menu
This is just speculation, but there could be starship battles in Starfield. The trailer shows the astronaut’s ship console, and on one of the displays there is a listing for WPNS: Weapons. Below that are three options (including MISS, which could be missiles) and the word HOT to indicate the weapons are operational.
There is also an indicator for shields (SHLD) and on another monitor there is an indicator for power. If we have guns on the ship and a way to channel power to the shields, that’s a pretty good indication that there’s going to be starship combat – unless it’s all just fancy cosmetic stuff.
Starfield is integrated into Creation Engine 2
The trailer begins with the words “Alpha In-Game Footage | Creation Engine 2” that can be seen on the screen. Bethesda confirmed that Starfield is first game built in the new engine.
We don’t know much about Creation Engine 2 or how different it is from the engine Bethesda has been using and updating for years on everything from Skyrim to Fallout 76. With Bethesda’s RPGs being highly modifiable, we’re definitely hoping Creation Engine 2 continues the tradition.
There’s a short making-of feature you can check out below that shows a lot of interesting concept art.
What other tidbits have come down about Starfield?
At the Skyrim 10th Anniversary concert in November, we got a surprise look at Starfield’s music and some new concept art. It’s worth checking out both the relevant part of the concert and new images of Starfield concept art.
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