Bethesda's upcoming space adventure Starfield has been making a lot of waves recently. Initially slated for a late 2022 release, the game became another victim of development delays and its launch was pushed back into 2023. Fans don't necessarily have to panic, though, as the developer used the recent Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase to show off a hefty chunk of Starfield and do a deeper dive into its features, showing that the game is coming along nicely. As well as giving players a look at Starfield's gameplay for the very first time, the showcase allowed the developer to go into more detail about what the game is actually about.
While there are plenty of sci-fi games that may have a premise that's similar to Starfield's, Bethesda's newest IP does set itself apart for several reasons. It is undoubtedly far more ambitious than a fair few of its space-faring counterparts, with over a hundred systems and a thousand planets to explore. However, the main reason Starfield stands alone is the fact that it will examine humanity's first explorations into space as they try to establish their foothold among the stars, which is something not a lot of other sci-fi titles feature.
What Starfield Is All About
Bethesda has made no secret about the fact that Starfield is first and foremost a game about exploration. It is a concept that affects everything from the gameplay to the characterization and is a major component of the game's player-driven story. There's obviously been a great deal of attention paid to Starfield's design, not only because of the work needed to address the vast scope of the game but also because of the commitment to realism and design. According to a recent report, it has been suggested that Todd Howard neglected Fallout 76 in favor of the upcoming Starfield, showing the game's significance within the studio.
Starfield's realism isn't just in its designs though. Bethesda seems keen to include this element in other features of the game, like its representations of different space-faring communities. Starfield wants to ask questions about how human societies would carve a niche for themselves in a new and intensely challenging environment, and what humans in space would actually look like. The game is attempting to present – perhaps for the first time in a major title in this genre – a more realistic version of a sci-fi future for humanity.
Sci-fi Games And The Exploration Of Space
Space is obviously a very popular setting for sci-fi games, but how these different titles approach it can vary. In the vast majority of games that feature humans in space, there are already established colonies, systems, and societies that may be new to the player, but that aren't new to the people that live there. Games in series like Dead Space, Borderlands, and Destiny fall into this category, where humans have already found a home for themselves and in some cases have done so for millennia. This isn't to say that there aren't still new places to find or things to discover, but for the most part, there isn't a question about how humans will be able to sustain themselves out in space.
There are, of course, lots of variations. While the Mass Effect games mostly take place in a Milky Way where humans are an integrated part of the galactic community, they are still trying to find their proper place within it. Humans are a fairly new feature among the other races, and players can learn a lot about the first journey of humanity beyond the confines of their solar system in the lore that's dotted around the game. Mass Effect: Andromeda takes a very different approach, but humans and the Milky Way races that travel with them to the new galaxy have a shared history, and the Andromeda Galaxy is already populated with established sentient aliens.
The fresh-out-the-box feel of humanity's antics in space that Starfield has seems pretty singular. Players can find unexplored planets in games like No Man's Sky or establish new colonies in titles like EVE Online, but they don't have quite the same thematic focus as Starfield. There's an excitement to Starfield's air of discovery, but there's also danger around what humans might find out in the galaxy, or even what they might find out about themselves.
Where Starfield Could Go
Although Bethesda has started to open up about Starfield, large parts of the game still remain a mystery. Players know that they'll be able to create their very own interplanetary traveler and choose a background for them that will affect where and how they'll begin the game. There are also details of the various factions that gamers can choose to associate themselves with, and these also give an insight into how Bethesda has chosen to shape Starfield's communities. Society in the game is clearly fractured, with rogue factions like the Crimson Fleet and independent groups like the Freestar Collective vying for their own survival.
Gamers know that the largest groups within Starfield's society have had a decades-long war that has since come to an end by the time the game's action takes off. However, this conflict will no doubt shape the worlds that the player will encounter and shows that trying to survive in space and spread humanity's influence across the stars can have more than a few complications. Although players will be launched into Starfield's universe with its known characters, groups, and areas, it still feels as if players will be having a hand in establishing humanity's fate and discovering new elements of the systems.
Starfield will take place in the Settled Systems, an area of fifty light-years that extends outwards from Earth. While that seems like a contrast to the realism that Starfield seems to be striving for in the other elements of the game, it can still offer up a grounded and complex exploration of how humans strive to live in space. Unlike so many other games with similar themes, settings, and storylines, Starfield doesn't appear to have a long-established galaxy for players to try to slot themselves into, but rather it offers a space for them to craft their own story alongside humanity's.
Starfield is scheduled to release in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.