Bethesda's Starfield development team is more than double the size of Fallout 76's, due to the manpower needed to build a universe as expansive as this new Sci-Fi RPG. This comes as no surprise following Bethesda's earlier reveal that there were thousands of planets in Starfield, but as this development team size was discussed during a recent interview, it's still a nice look into the game's development.
Starfield has been in development for quite a few years now, with the game originally set to release on November 11, 2022. However, because Bethesda needed more time on the project, Starfield was delayed into 2023 alongside Redfall. Fans are now waiting for a new update on Starfield, and PC Gamer recently conducted an interview with Nate Purkeypile. Purkeypile worked at Bethesda for 14 years on projects like Fallout 3, FO4, and FO76 but recently struck out to found Just Purkey Games. Purkeypile is working on smaller projects now, a direct result of constantly working on huge gaming projects, and obviously couldn't say much.
Yet, this interview speaks to the difficulties of game development on such a large scale. Many, for example, believe that the day of single-studio AAA games is long gone, and it's obvious why. Fallout 76, according to Purkeypile, had "200 [people] tops" working on it, while "Starfield is a much bigger project, it's like 500 people or something on the team." But such manpower is needed when building such huge games, as there are a lot of little details that must be decided upon. It may not seem like much, but everything down to metal panels, color use in video games, material use in said metal panels, differentiating those in Starfield's environments, and much more must be decided when building up a new universe.
It's not all big picture stuff, but making sure small details support the bigger world around them. For example, Red Dead Redemption 2's use of small details have often been praised as important elements in bringing the open world to life, but the human cost of crunch on Red Dead 2 is also known. Rockstar has moved away from crunch culture, at least making necessary steps, but gamers are still going to want such details in any game. This pertains to Starfield, too. Purkeypile described making a new universe like Starfield is "much harder versus if you asked me life, hey, make another follow-up game. You'd be shocked at how many metal panels they did in concept."
It must be said that, hopefully with such a team size, crunch on Starfield has been completely mitigated. Bethesda too has a history of crunch, but public figures have stated that the company has moved away with this. More people doesn't mean less work though, but Starfield's delay is a good sign if done in good faith.
Starfield releases in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.