• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Bethesda boss says he's put 150 hours into Starfield and "hasn't even come close" to seeing everything

Draugoth

Gold Member
F354KIkWAAAq8lW.jpg

Asked about the length of the game on today's official Xbox Gamescom stream, Hines says, "There's not an amount of time that I'm comfortable enough [to say] 'now you've played it enough Starfield to get what this game is'. I'm at 150-160 hours on my current playthrough, and I haven't even come close."

That kind of hour count isn't just a 'how long to beat' number - director Todd Howard said last year that the main quest alone would take around 30 to 40 hours - but it does indicate the sheer breadth of content in the space game.

"There's so much stuff I have intentionally not done. We try and tell everybody how big this game is, and the folks that are playing it, one of the few things they will tell us is 'yeah you weren't kidding. I can't believe how big it is.' No matter how you wanna play, there is so much for you to do in this game."

It feels when you're playing it almost like there are a bunch of different games inside one game," Hines says, "and I get to decide how much time I want to spend, in a way you haven't really seen in a Fallout or Skyrim. Those things are still 'I can spend all my time picking flowers in The Elder Scrolls', but it doesn't feel as wholly different as the entire space game that exists, the entire 'live on a planet,' the freeform exploration, the combat, which factions, taking sides. It's just amazing to see how it all comes together.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Well, in a game that will have areas that are procedurally generated, how can anyone claim to see everything? ;)
I don't believe this game is randomly generating content for each player or anything like that.

We are all getting the same game.
 

Maestr0

Member
It's been 9 years since Star Citizen has come, and we're still not seeing the end of the game..... working as intended
 

splattered

Member
This is one game where i'm going to beeline through the main quest first and then do a second playthrough for side stuff (the 'forever game' part). Otherwise you might never finish the story.
That's what I did with fallout 3... I played like over 80 hours of the game and pretty much all I did was wandering around finding side quests and doing DLC stuff. I think only completed like three or four hours of the main story? I never even went back and beat it
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
This is just like Skyrim and Oblivion. You can finish the main quest in 30/40 hours if you want, and there is a huge amount of side content to explore if you want as well (factions, sidequests etc)
Yeah, I know, haven't played those tho... But such a huge amount of content in general feels more overwhelming than exciting to me. I'll probably try this game even tho it's not much of my thing, if it clicks with me I'll probably put a lot of hours into it anyway... I'm 40 hours into FF15 right now and it's supposed to average at 30 hours for most people anyway
 

MMaRsu

Banned
Yeah, I know, haven't played those tho... But such a huge amount of content in general feels more overwhelming than exciting to me. I'll probably try this game even tho it's not much of my thing, if it clicks with me I'll probably put a lot of hours into it anyway... I'm 40 hours into FF15 right now and it's supposed to average at 30 hours for most people anyway
Their games can be overwhelming at first but just remember you can play entirely how you want to play
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
It's been 9 years since Star Citizen has come, and we're still not seeing the end of the game..... working as intended

I mean i still haven't seen every part of the Stanton system. But What Phil is saying is a bit of a non argument. I mean No man Sky players with more hours haven't even seen 10% of all the worlds in the game.

1000 planets, 150 hours...sure you haven't seen everything....
 
Last edited:

saintjules

Member
If this is one of those 150+ hour games then I will find myself retiring early from it and never go back.

The most I put into a game was Persona 5 at around 108 hours. I could never find myself playing games like that a second time.
 
Last edited:

DryvBy

Member
F354KIkWAAAq8lW.jpg

Asked about the length of the game on today's official Xbox Gamescom stream, Hines says, "There's not an amount of time that I'm comfortable enough [to say] 'now you've played it enough Starfield to get what this game is'. I'm at 150-160 hours on my current playthrough, and I haven't even come close."

That kind of hour count isn't just a 'how long to beat' number - director Todd Howard said last year that the main quest alone would take around 30 to 40 hours - but it does indicate the sheer breadth of content in the space game.

I thought Todd just played Madden, Fortnite and cell games?

Mdrpjcr.png
 
I don't doubt it's long, I think if you try to 100% Oblivion or Skyrim--as in, play every quest, major, minor, and unmarked--they are like 400 hours each. I don't doubt Starfield is that big.

For me, though, I just don't want to devote that much time to one game. I'll play the main quest and whatever side quests I stumble onto and call it at that.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
This will be a game where you have to purposefully make time management choices instead of playing for max completion on everything. No one goes to a solar system and says theyre going to see every inch of every planet. There are hundreds of planets youll never even likely land on at all just there to fully make the scale feel believable.
 
Murdering Spacecrabs in random Spacecave #937 for 100+ hours. That's going to be the reality of this game.

Bethsoft games are an inch deep and a mile wide. People shit on Ubisoft for making the same open world game over and over but Todd and Co. just take 5 times longer to do the same thing and it's hyped to fuck for some reason.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
I don't believe this game is randomly generating content for each player or anything like that.

We are all getting the same game.
I could be proven wrong, but my understanding is there are handcrafted sections that get inserted into procedurally generated landscapes. So if one player lands on the north pole and another lands on the Southport, they could potentially run across the same dungeon.
Edit: again, I don't claim to be any authority on this. This is just how I perceived the messaging.
 
Last edited:

xX4thmanXx

Neo Member
I'm sure I'm not alone in saying this.....but bragging about how massive a game is these days just isn't a selling point anymore. Ubisoft cops shit for this all the time. Probably in the minority, but gaming is a 'pass the time' hobby, not an all day career for a lot of us and there's no way you can commit to playing this all the time before another big title comes along and takes that attention away. Why not split this up into seasons or DLC? Re-ignite the hype each time. We already know Bethesda has no qualms about reselling the same game over and over again :)
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I'm sure I'm not alone in saying this.....but bragging about how massive a game is these days just isn't a selling point anymore. Ubisoft cops shit for this all the time. Probably in the minority, but gaming is a 'pass the time' hobby, not an all day career for a lot of us and there's no way you can commit to playing this all the time before another big title comes along and takes that attention away. Why not split this up into seasons or DLC? Re-ignite the hype each time. We already know Bethesda has no qualms about reselling the same game over and over again :)
It's what their actual fans want.
 
Top Bottom