Starfield could be Bethesda's most ambitious project yet, and hopefully, it's more than just a "Skyrim in space." Bethesda entirely remade its Creation engine for the title, showing a huge level of ambition for the developer.
The level of space-faring ambition in this title is similar to one that came before it. No Man's Sky, released in 2016 by Hello Games, also promised a grand science-fiction scope. Unfortunately, the content of the eventual release was much different to what appeared in its 2014 trailer, and many gamers viewed it as a betrayal. With this reception in mind, Starfield has a tight line it has to tread to avoid disappointing fans in a similar way.
No Man's Sky is also a textbook example of a game that made a comeback. Currently sitting at near 9,000 concurrent Steam players at the time of writing, the game's resurgence in popularity is partly due to a consistent content roadmap (which the team delivered on). This success comes after one of the most disastrous launches in gaming and helped turn it around. Another important element to the game's current success is its modding community. Before Hello Games began a constant set of updates for the game, the modding community stepped in to shore up the title. Some of these mods have accrued over hundreds of thousands of downloads, showing how much the game was begging for extra content. One of these popular mods, one that adds handcrafted planets to the game, might be a valuable lesson for Starfield. Of course, this depends on the direction Bethesda takes with its planet design.
What Is Similar About No Man's Sky and Starfield?
So, what are the similarities between No Man's Sky and Starfield? Unfortunately, fans know very little about the upcoming Bethesda title. However, the scant few facts available bear a striking resemblance to No Man's Sky's original marketing. The game apparently contains an incredibly vast universe, and some of the leaked Starfield screenshots show some similarities to the Hello Games title too. The detail put into the game's alleged spaceships, and the spacesuit design seem to be familiar.
Another element that both games share is a use of procedural generation, incorporating this as a way of world-building. In No Man's Sky, procedural generation creates the entire universe as the player moves through it. This includes planet creation, dynamic formulation of different lifeforms, and even the types of plants a player can encounter. Unfortunately, one of the problems this causes is planets that often feel empty. For sure, an accurate universe would have a lot of planets with very little on it. As many players realized, however, an accurate experience is not necessarily a better game.
Bethesda needs to be aware of this common criticism of No Man's Sky's initial release. The company has already announced that it will use procedural generation methods as part of its worldbuilding. The company has done this before, as it is how many of Bethesda's maps were made. A central difference here is that Bethesda uses random, procedural elements to pre-generate its worlds before adding lore. For Starfield, the company will apparently use the same technique for creating the setting, whatever that turns out to be. This means that many of Starfield's planets, assuming the plurality here, will be created with random elements, potentially skirting around some of the same pitfalls No Man's Sky faced at launch.
What Effects Do The Best No Man's Sky Mods Have?
The central issue with procedural generation in No Man's Sky was that it left planets feeling empty. The empty feeling was, of course, compounded by No Man's Sky having no multiplayer at launch. After several hours of planet-hopping between sparse locales, the wonder of the game began to wear off for some. Exotic and diverse planets were among some of the most heavily marketed aspects of the game, and many players felt this promise was left unfulfilled. To combat the lack of interesting planets, modders got straight to work to forge the game fans wanted.
Three popular mods, each sitting at just over 30 thousand downloads, are "Big Things 5," "Shaidak's Generation," and "Busier Space." Each of these focus around populating No Man's Sky's universe with more interesting things. This is the central worry for any science fiction exploration game—sometimes, space might be boring. To create an exciting experience, sometimes elements of space exploration must be carefully curated. The power of procedural generation can be very attractive for game designers. It does a lot of the heavy lifting in the world-creation process. Naturally, a truly randomized technique is a good way to create a world that feels authentic.
What Starfield Should Learn From No Man's Sky
So, what lessons should Starfield take from these mods? It seems clear that an over-reliance on procedural generation can make a video game universe feel empty. This emptiness was a huge problem with No Man's Sky at launch, especially as no players were able to interact with each others. While details of any multiplayer components in Starfield have not been revealed, it seems likely that the title will be single-player, like most of Bethesda's other RPG titles. While this might avoid controversies like Fallout 76, it will also mean that making the planets in Starfield vibrant and exciting needs to be a priority.
Bethesda's method of building locations is to use this random generation to sketch the shape of the open world, and then fill it in with lore and details. It is not quite the same as the way No Man's Sky dynamically forges planets as players explore. However, what the popularity of mods like "Better World Generation" demonstrates is that Bethesda needs to spend as much time as possible making its planets exciting. The mod even shows a great way of doing this. By utilizing several sets of random generator tables, Starfield could easily give its many planets some variety. If Bethesda decide to use this technique, it could make Starfield even more impressive than it already seems to be.
No Man's Sky is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Android, and PC. Starfield is still in development.