Starfield Man's Sky?

What's around the corner? Algorithm knows...

Starfield is the name that seems on every desperate Bethesda fans lips these days, like the dark hope lingering on the horizon that everyone is entwining their fingers and drumming up hype for. Half prayers, half cheers; the lead up to Starfield's marketing campaign (which, to be clear, has not even been hinted at yet) has been one heck of a rollercoaster to witness from the sidelines, let alone to be an active part of. Of course, I am not an actual active part of Starfield excitement because I lost interest once I realised this was a game aiming to be Science Fiction rather than Science Fantasy and thus there were not going to be hoards of really cool and exotic-looking aliens. (Huge missed opportunity.) But were I a dreamer than perhaps I would have lost my mind over those dull-looking leak screenshots or their apparent verification through a logo in the shots that matched with a logo seen on recently unveiled official merchandise. (Woah, how exciting) I'm just struggling with myself a bit here.

What I really need is more concrete information about relevant tidbits like, I dunno, what the actual game will be like! And for that there has been some movement for, out of the blue, a single snippet of information came flying our way curtsey of an interview with none other than Todd Howard himself. (Way to hear from the horses mouth) So what did we learn about Starfield? That it's a long way off. Wait... still? It's been two years and the game is still a long way off, yet you announced it and the game that's due after it? Either development has hit a pretty big snag or these guys literally cobbled up a teaser trailer from scraps of concept and pre-pre alpha stuff they had lying around. I'm starting to think those obvious early dev screenshots we saw were actually modern shots. How am I supposed to get reasonably excited for a game that's looking like it's only maybe gonna land by 2022; I'll probably be long dead by then anyway! Oh, and I guess we learnt that Starfield is gonna to be procedurally generated too.

Of course, take this and literally anything said about Starfield with a huge grain of salt, the end product is apparently unfathomably far away and anything can change in that time. Remember that Mass Effect Andromeda was also tipped to have procedurally generated worlds, and that remained the plan when we got that teaser trailer all those years ago, only to be scrapped when the creation algorithm didn't come together how the team wanted it to. And given Bethesda's track record for disappointing fans and themselves in recent years, I wouldn't be surprised if something similar ends up happening here. But assuming that literally every single possible scenario goes the exact way that the developers want it too, then we could be looking at a game that seriously takes a shot at realising a procedurally generated universe, and I don't know how to feel about that right now.

On one hand, I can see the potential here. The breadth of space that this could leave for modders to go to town with is simply wild, I cannot understate how crazy this could be for the modding space. (especially as it seems that Starfield will be using the Creation Engine once again.) Imagine creating a huge mission mod which ties itself into the random generation so that the custom content could naturally show up at any point during someone's playthrough, or altering the generation altogether so that new archetypes of worlds can be created! We have no idea if this procedural generation will be robust and overarching enough for such to even be possible, but in the ideal situation there's pretty much no reason why it wouldn't be. We've seen the same thing come out in Starbound, although that is a 2D indie game and thus a lot easier to create for, but the modding scene has still proven itself substantial there and I think we might expect something at least comparable from the famously modder-friendly Bethesda franchises.

Of course there is one game which makes for a much juicer comparison, and that's because it was most likely a better inspiration for these sorts of systems entering the galactic equation, and of course I'm referring to No Man's Sky. Hello Game's swansong was very sold on the premise of it's random generation which created a universe of such a mind boggling scale that no one person could feasibly see every planet in a life time. It was a universe informed by algorithms and asset libraries, and one which could promise endless exploration for those that don't expect too much individuality from their alien worlds. For my part, however, I will point out that Hello Games went the route of entrusting every aspect of the world design to their delicately crafted generation systems, whilst I have a feeling that a company as meticulous as Bethesda wouldn't have that sort of trust.

Bethesda have for years been defined by their world building over everything else. Their games' combat has always tittered on the brink of serviceable, their RPG elements have been decent but largely unrevolutionary and the storytelling is... well, no one's going to be giving them a creative writing award anytime soon. But the world design; forever top notch. From Diamond City to Solitude, each time that team sets to creating a living breathing worldspace they achieve it to industry evolving standards and I would be absolutely shocked it that's a tradition they put in jeopardy for Starfield by letting a machine handle everything. Sure, Bethesda have bragged about Starfield being their biggest world yet, but I imagine the plan is to have certain small chunks of their hand crafted systems be random generated, rather than the whole thing. (But again, we don't know. Someone could have seriously snapped within Bethesda and gone the way of machines forever more.)

As far as this information fits into what we've already heard about Starfield, it could yield an interesting, if derivative product. I know that sounds pretty presumptuous given how little we've seen, and I personally hope my gut instinct is leading me wrong right now, but I fail to really absorb all the hushed whispers surrounding this project without ample scepticism. So far it appears we're looking at a game about experimental Space travel, where players will endure feats of pushing themselves further across the stars in exploration, which is pretty much the entire mission statement of No Man's Sky. I'm sure there'll be some sort of greater story within all that, something to actually write a plot around, but from the get-go I have to say; that is an incredibly dry premise. Right now this is feeling more like Kerbal Space Program without the creative ingenuity, rather than a grander version of The Outer Worlds. (I just want aliens. Please.)

But that's just the impression I'm picking up right now, I'd love to be wrong and I have been severely so before. Originally I wasn't even that interested in Cyberpunk until that surprise 2018 trailer came out flanked with promising early impressions and I was indoctrinated. (And the game still isn't even out, so it could be a trainwreck and we don't even know it!) Starfield could blow us all away in- two years time at least, but I'm going to take the safe route and advise that people refrain from holding their breath quite yet. Little tidbits about procedural generation, jump drives and space fuel aren't exactly feeding malnourished Bethesda fans like it should be, and if we're supposed to care about these sleight info drops I think a better job needs to be done selling the game outright. That's all I really have to say, hopefully the next time Starfield is in the news, it comes along with a badass trailer.