Regardless of the fact that there is still no official information regarding the possible release window for Starfield, Bethesda did share some of the things that make up the background for the game. Starfield is an upcoming single-player first-person RPG that focuses heavily on sci-fi elements and the overall theme of space adventure, designed to be a next-gen experience and, possibly, a whole new franchise. The game has reportedly been out of the pre-production phase, according to Todd Howard, for a few years now, and it appears to be in a playable state even though Starfield has no release date.
Starfield is a game that will have to deal with space travel somehow, but the title seemingly is one that explores the dangers of the process. During a conversation during the 2019 E3 between Todd Howard and Elon Musk, the former affirmed that Starfield is not following in the footsteps of other games founded on space travels, nor that it will look like any of the sci-fi movies or TV shows people are used to. Instead, traveling among the stars and through the universe is going to be a difficult process during which accidents and unexpected events shouldn't be so unexpected, after all.
Bethesda Is Looking At Flight In The '40s For Starfield
Spaceships in Starfield will likely use a special fuel, with some of them likely running on Helium-3. This could mean that player agency on fuel will be part of Starfield's gameplay, with plausible actions involving refilling the ship's tank or finding combustible materials or gases, to begin with. Another thing that Howard said is that space travel in Starfield is not so different from flight in the '40s, meaning that it is a dangerous practice that does not come without risks, but one that people still pursue for the sake of science or exploration.
In the '40s, flight was not considered to be something that only pioneers or scientists tried, but it wasn't a walk in the park either. Planes occasionally crashed, but they remained a convenient way to travel long lengths in shorter time spans. In a similar way, Starfield could be looking at that period of time to draw inspiration on what drove people to fly and why the benefits outweighed the risks. Starfield will probably have cities, so its take on space travel could be that people travel great distances similarly to what others did just over a century or two earlier only to arrive at otherwise unreachable locations for personal reasons, work, family, or else.
Bethesda's Starfield And Elon Musk's SpaceX Influence
Flight in the '40s is clearly not the only muse for Starfield, and Todd Howard confirmed that Elon Musk's SpaceX program was actually a big source of inspiration for Bethesda's new IP. The main reason for this is that Bethesda wants to keep the game as realistic as possible, with foundations in science and what space travel looks like now or, likely, in the near future. Starfield seems set to give players a sense of authenticity, where it doesn't necessarily feel like a game as a whole, but a sort of glimpse into the future of humanity and space travel.
Howard even visited Elon Musk's SpaceX center to acquire more information, including the impact of physics and gravity on space travel, so that Bethesda could turn this and more into something that a game can handle. What this means is that Starfield is likely looking at some sort of survival system, where players can use spaceships hands-on, rather than an off-screen means of fast travel. As such, the sci-fi aspect of Starfield lies more in the fact that the game is set in a not-so-distant future than anything else, because the focus on realism seems to prevail.
Despite this, the new generation of Bethesda games, including both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, are also closely looking at improvements that are not mainly relying on graphics, but rather new features that make said IPs feel different in a way. This is probably why SpaceX was such a big influence on Starfield, and players should expect some innovative aspects coming with it.
Starfield is in development.