What's going on with Starfield?

Is there anyone out there?

Ever since Bethesda announced their very special 'policy' when it comes to truncating marketing so that games release only a few months or weeks after announcement, it really has been a crapshoot trying to guess when it is that Starfield is heading our way. Early 2023 is an optimistic bet, and I really hope that's what it's aiming for; (They kind of already promised it was coming before E3 2023) but I find it hard believing any company promises now days. Especially when the recently passed Game Awards would have been a fine time to show off Starfield, a game which was even mentioned as one of the most anticipated upcoming games during that show. But instead we got... literally nothing. Microsoft were ghosts in the auditorium, present but non-corporeal and thus unable to mention a single thing about any of the dozens of games they're supposedly juggling.

My bet? I think Starfield is due for a big media frenzy that Bethesda are waiting for until the lead-up weeks. Typically I would assume a big presentation, but we technically already got that presentation last year so I'm assuming it's just going to be a barrage of marketing materials until you're literally sick of seeing the game everywhere you turn around, just like with FF XV. I was a total fanboy obsessive during the lead-up to the Final Fantasy XV launch, but even I had to admit that the daily trailer releases in count-down for the full game grew tedious after the first ten. They just ended up recycling footage from larger trailers near the end, they couldn't even drum up enough new content. But you know what? It got me thinking constantly about Final Fantasy XV which was the point all along...

But that isn't to say that Starfield hasn't at all been mentioned by Bethesda, in fact they've been squeezing out little deep dive videos answering burning fan questions over the year that have touched on a bunch of pressing topics. Some topics obviously got a deeper look than others. For example, we've had double confirmation of the existence of aliens within this universe, but it's treated so dismissively that I can only assume Bethesda are wantonly ignoring the fact that such a question is obviously referring to sentient life and not the dozens of tropical space slugs that I'm sure are slithering around the computer generated cave systems. But we've also had a more in depth reveal of the new conversation system coming into the game which borrows the 'minigame' concept from Oblivion but attempts to make it... not terrible. Which is certainly a tall order. (The Oblivion talking minigame was really terrible, afterall.)

These little stabs at the meaty pie which is the, somehow still enigmatic, Starfield are the little confirmations of life that keep the blood pumping and speculation building. If you allow the pot to cool down entirely it takes all that much more effort to heat the thing back up, but if you keep it on low simmer, than the jumpstart comes easy! I imagine that's the idea with Starfield, which would also be the reason that even though we're not currently in the middle of the media storm around the game. Currently, Bethesda refuses to even entertain the topic of The Elder Scrolls 6. Not only is it too far away to bother talking about, it's a topic that takes air out of the room for their carefully balanced marketing schedule on Starfield. At least, that's my idle speculations as to why Todd Howard is avoiding making easy headlines by merely saying something innocuous like; "Khajiit will finally have eight nipples in The Elder Scrolls 6." (The improvement we've waited two generations for!)

We've learnt how Starfield intends to attack factions throughout the universe, and thankfully it won't be in the reductive Fallout 4 fashion that really watered the various parties down into factions with main quest involvement rather than independent entities. In Starfield they will have their own questlines with stakes tied to their various interests and hopefully strong narrative resolutions that we'll think back on fondly. This means short and full narrative questlines that tell the story of a faction and yet are still satisfying to play through independently and reminisce on. (So basically any questline that isn't The College of Winterhold standard of writing.) What I personally hope for is an evolution of the fundamental playstyles influenced by these factions so that we have meaningful roleplay opportunies within these different factions. Such as how there were the dynamic thievery missions in Skyrim's Thieves Guild, or even 'The Companion's bounties. (Although I do think those bounties were extremely unrewarding and underdeveloped. At least the Thieving built off of a solid framework.)

We've also had a little bit of information on companions and how they are going to work for Starfield. They're specific characters again, like in Fallout 4, instead of hireable mercenaries. This makes for stronger potential individual stories of these characters, but is a roadblock for modding to overcome. (Hopefully the years of navigating Fallout 4 has helped elucidate the community how to manipulate these systems a bit more freely when Starfield rolls around.) Also, bizarrely, companions seem to be living on the player's ship, which draws into question just how customisable our home ships are going to be. Clearly there's going to be some sort of immutable base shape to the ship that cannot be altered, or there'll be strict limits about who can fly with you at a time depending on the ships we make. Can't say I'm loving what I'm hearing, but I'll take it as it comes.

And finally there was talk about the radiant quest system, which sounds oh-so-very familiar to those who have been playing Bethesda games ever since Skyrim. There's an overarching AI that places quest items in random places across the playspace and we get to go find them. The only difference I'm seeing is in vernacular; the team are saying that this AI creates radiant 'locations', which implies pop-up strike bases spawning on the otherwise barren worlds that make up Starfield's universe. I'll be honest; I actually think that has serious potential. One of the problems with the radiant system in the past has been the fact that it makes us revisit places we've treaded through a thousand times before; dynamically generating new buildings could really change up the expectation. But there is a condition; there has to be a powerful generation algorithm in place that can consistently create play spaces that have gameplay value that aren't too generic or repetitive. Bases that play on verticality, choke-points maybe even stealth routes if we're focusing on 'gameplay choice'. If this system is going to shine, it's going to have to be with the attention of diligent system designers who are allowed to fully realise the latent potential here; otherwise this is going to drag more than any other radient system has before in a Bethesda game.

Slowly the petals of Star Citizen are opening up to us the insane proposition of what this game is meant to be slowly presents itself. I thought Todd mad when he first announced Starfield, and though I still very much think that to be the case; I admit that he may have half a tortured idea bouncing around in his head too. However if I'm being utterly honest, Starfield still strikes me as the kind of game that's going to be disappointing on launch but a playground of creative insanity a year later, and I'm kind of okay with that. Unfortunately, I'm more interested in this game for the lessons that the next Elder Scrolls will learn from it then I am for the game itself, simply because I don't buy the blind optimism we've been sold. I'm too much of a realist for that. All the more reason why we need one more serious showcase to squash doubters before the drop date.