Starfield is Bethesda’s first IP in decades, a space-set RPG where players appear to travel from world to world exploring the cosmos and their inhabitants. Not much has been revealed about the game so far, with developer wishing to avoid teasing too much information too long before the game’s release.
However, there’s one feature many fans will be hoping to see in Starfield when it’s finally released. It’s a feature which many fans have hoped for in Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, and which Starfield provides the perfect opportunity to implement without stepping on the toes of those established franchises and their formulas.
Starting Starfield
Bethesda fans have wanted multiple ways to start the studio’s iconic RPGs for a long time. As evidence, doubtful fans need look no further than one of the most popular Skyrim mods, Alternate Start – Live Another Life. This mod allowed players to avoid the typical Skyrim starting experience at Helgen and instead choose to begin the game in a myriad of different ways in multiple different locations.
Starfield should include multiple origins with different starting experiences. While game series like The Elder Scrolls may struggle to introduce this feature without breaking some of the franchises’ famous opening rules–the player has always started as a prisoner in every main Elder Scrolls game dating back to Arena–Starfield could easily implement this feature as a new IP.
There are a few reasons that players enjoy having multiple entries into Bethesda’s game worlds in particular. Unlike games like The Witcher 3, Bethesda RPGs like Fallout and Skyrim are more focused on their world and less focused on their player character as independent from the player. The protagonist gets no voice, no explicit character development beyond anything the players themselves imagines, and rarely has any background to speak of aside from in Elder Scrolls games in particular. Freedom is the name of the game in Bethesda RPGs, and the starting experience in games like Skyrim is one of the few things players are forced to have in common. Some simply take the extra step to mod it away.
There are other mods like this which have been created for Fallout 4 to allow players to avoid the starting experience or to go through another one, all with the aim of allowing players as much freedom as possible to roleplay as whoever they would like to in Bethesda’s game world. If Bethesda is looking for inspiration for different starting experiences, the studio can look to the Skyrim modding community again.
Alternate Lives
Alternate Life allows the player to start the game by arriving by ship at a major city, holding property in one of Skyrim’s holds, being initiated into a major guild, patronizing a local inn, or having just joined on side in the Skyrim Civil War. Each of these options comes with its own choice of faction, inn, location and so on. One-off options include starting as a vampire in their lair, starting in the half-sunk wreckage of a ship as its sole survivor, or starting in a orc stronghold or khajiit caravan depending on race.
Since The Elder Scrolls 5 is such an open game, almost every Skyrim questline and location can be used as a starting point. It doesn’t require full prologue experiences to be developed, just for the entry points themselves to be established. In Starfield, this could mean starting on any of the planets which will be included in the game, starting as a space pirate, a salvager, a colonist, a scientist, or as an initiate of any of the factions Starfield has in store which have yet to be revealed.
Breaking the Bethesda Formula
One of the major reasons Bethesda may decide not to do this is the lack of control this allows the studio over the starting experience. Skyrim’s starting experience isn’t only iconic to the point of becoming a meme, it clearly sets up the stakes of the world. The Empire, Stormcloaks, Thalmor, and dragons are all mentioned and present in the opening, setting up the main stakes and factions of the province. It is possible that Bethesda would be concerned that by opening up Starfield’s start, the developer risks players missing some vital set-up or information.
However, there are a few different ways that Bethesda could handle this. In one version, the opening which gets the most attention might be referred to as the story opening, like the start of Skyrim in Helgen. Players could choose this, or they could choose many other entryways into the world. When they choose to begin the main quest, they may then go through the starting experience as originally designed. In Skyrim, this would be the equivalent of starting in a city like Solitude but triggering the events that lead to Alduin arriving at Helgen by trying to cross the southern border into Cyrodiil, being ambushed, and waking up in the cart.
It’s possible, however, that having one option which seemed prioritized in the story could be alienating to players who want to choose other paths. Starfield could adopt a more limited prologue system like Cyberpunk 2077’s Life Path system, which gives players 3 origin options to choose from which eventually converge on the main story. Dragon Age: Origins took a similar path, with 6 distinct origins converging with the player joining the Grey Wardens, with the Battle of Ostagar at the end of the game’s first act filling in for a story-inciting incident in a similar way to the arrival of Alduin at Helgen.
Starfield is a chance for Bethesda to shake up the formula of its well-known open-world RPGs. While expectations for the game will be high, it does not have the baggage of having to perform many of the same tropes as the studio’s most established IPs. By shaking off these relics of the past, Starfield could realize the open-world RPG formula’s full potential on the next-gen consoles, and help take Bethesda back to the top after the disappointing reception of games like Fallout 76.
Starfield is in development.