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[MMaRsu]

Inside Starfield: How Bethesda's “NASA punk” epic became the biggest Xbox game in a decade

After buying publisher Bethesda Softworks for nearly $7.5 billion, Microsoft secured Starfield as an Xbox exclusive. But the team behind it didn’t just build a world, they built a galaxy – one that could turn the tide for a console generation.

www.gq-magazine.co.uk

Inside Starfield: how Bethesda's “NASA punk” epic became the biggest Xbox game in a decade​

Your quest begins, like in every BGS game, with a choice: who are you? An explorer charting distant worlds, maybe? Perhaps a space scoundrel greying the line between right and wrong?


From how you look to the skill traits and backstory perks you choose (like having parents on a distant world, or a parasocial superfan following you around), Starfield delivers BGS’ most immersive role-playing since 2006’s Oblivion. It gives you the flexibility and options to carve out a unique identity, and even adds a unique and exciting twist on New Game+ to incentivise continued and repeat play.

I see that same intricacy everywhere. New Atlantis is the densest city the studio has ever created. With bustling streets, shiny skyscrapers and distinct areas both above and below ground, I see barely any of it.

I get distracted by a museum, where I catch up on three centuries of human history: a devastating Colony War, the fate of Earth, and the mystery of the Terrormorphs, the game’s main alien threat. Within 45 minutes I have 12 new quests leading me off-world.

Another sends me to hunt space pirates in low gravity on the frozen plateaus of Europa. As I boost to huge heights using my rocket backpack, the combat has the responsive freneticism of something like Destiny rather than Fallout.

“We have this ability to affect a player on both an emotional and intellectual level, and you're constantly deciding which one to do,” Pagliarulo says. “Go too far down the emotional path and it can get cringy. Go too far into the intellectual and it becomes too pointy-headed.”

Because of the nature of spreading a universe across dozens of planets, exploration is both broader and more transient than the open-worlds of previous BGS games. Howard admits he’s not sure whether everyone will like the change in rhythm. “It’s not the same as dropping you in a world like Skyrim,” he says. “You wander totally differently.” But it’s in those moments of wandering where the game can be the most empty, and the most beautiful. All of the tech and art comes to fruition when I land on a distant world and step out of my ship. “I think that moment works almost every time,” Howard says, as a distant gas giant rises above the horizon. Every planet and moon in the game has its own time, orbiting their stars independently. “When you’re looking over the landscape and the star is setting. That’s all somewhat simulated. In this game it just happens.”

Todd Howard on TES6

Is there anything you can tell me about what you want to achieve with it?

“It’s like… I don’t want to answer, but I want to be polite. I will say that we want it to fill that role of the ultimate fantasy-world simulator.” He pauses for a moment. “And there are different ways to accomplish that given the time that has passed.”

A really great article I recommend everyone to read it

 

[Punished Miku]

"Todd Howard, the man responsible for creating several of the most successful RPGs in video game history, has realised that the protagonist’s eyes aren’t working properly. He is demonstrating this to me over dinner – tacos al pastor and sickeningly sweet passionfruit margaritas. He blinks quickly three times. Once slowly. Then, he closes his eyes."

Todd Howard is to games what Tom Cruise is to cinema. He cackles when I suggest this theory to him. Slight, boyishly handsome, sharp-jawed and tousle-haired, he has the look of classical antiquity.

Howard gets me to go into photo mode. “Zoom in on that a second,” he asks

The trick, he says, is to make that feel good.

This is the steamiest video game preview I've ever read and I'm still at the beginning.

 

[Fredrik]

Heh that’s certainly a special interview/preview/love letter, someone is in looove

 

[Chupanibre]

This is a game that I hope turns out to be great, but I don't really care if it doesn't.

 

[Raven117]

Gawd, the dunking on Todd Howard is going to be my favorite part of Starfield.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

This is the steamiest video game preview I've ever read and I'm still at the beginning.

As the studio’s leading man since the early noughties, he has become a semi-mythical figure to gamers, who hang off his every word. Now 52 years old, the only real sign of him being flesh and bone are some faint bags under his sea-blue eyes. He is reserved but not at all shy, talkative but never all that forthcoming – especially about his life outside of games. And, like Cruise, he is innately, intensely curious about the creative process.

Someone's cruching hard, lol

 

[Punished Miku]

I do wonder what he means about Elder Scrolls. AI NPCs maybe? The only thing that time passing really would be referring to is advances in technology. Who knows.

It is pretty awesome that he still is actually directing. So many of the famous people on this level transition to producer.

 

[adamsapple]

The trick, he says, is to make that feel good.

 

[mansoor1980]

“Go too far down the emotional path and it can get cringy. Go too far into the intellectual and it becomes too pointy-headed.”

 

[Hudo]

Todd's gonna neural net the fuck out of TES6, I guess.

 

[Diseased Yak]

"sea-blue eyes" Just kiss him already!!

 

[MMaRsu]

I do wonder what he means about Elder Scrolls. AI NPCs maybe? The only thing that time passing really would be referring to is advances in technology. Who knows.

It is pretty awesome that he still is actually directing. So many of the famous people on this level transition to producer.

Probably that standards do tend to get higher the longer you wait

 

[AJUMP23]

Gentlemen play the Elder Scrolls.

 

[Matt_Fox]

There's a museum in the game?

To start out I'm really going to play Starfield slow, enjoy exploring, looking at everything, talking to every NPC, interacting with the whole starting city as thoroughly as possible. Deep dive time...

 

[Raven77]

“Go too far down the emotional path and it can get cringy. Go too far into the intellectual and it becomes too pointy-headed.”

Team flat-face all the way.

 

[NeoLed]

I do wonder what he means about Elder Scrolls. AI NPCs maybe? The only thing that time passing really would be referring to is advances in technology. Who knows.

It is pretty awesome that he still is actually directing. So many of the famous people on this level transition to producer.

Or maybe the Mundus time lapse. The empire has crumbled and we will build a new one

 

[Fools idol]

Fucking Todd man... I love and hate the guy in equal measure.

He's like the kid at school whos super fucking annoying but parents always give him a bunch of money and he buys you candy. You cant help but like him for that even though you want to kick him in the balls for being an annoying little shit.

 

[Ammogeddon]

“Starfield delivers BGS’ most immersive role-playing since 2006’s Oblivion.”

Uhh is this GQ’s opinion or has it been objectively tested that Oblivion is more immersive than Skyrim and the Fallout games?

 

[Banjo64]

Biggest in a decade? Halo 3 came out in 2007.

 

[NEbeast]

This is why most mainstream reviews can't be trusted. Is this a review, or a fucking love letter to todd Howard? I have no doubt this is going to get a massive game , but there ain't no way the shooting feels like Destiny 2.

 

[Ozriel]

This is why most mainstream reviews can't be trusted. Is this a review, or a fucking love letter to todd Howard? I have no doubt this is going to get a massive game , but there ain't no way the shooting feels like Destiny 2.

You read the thread title, read the OP and came away with the impression that this was a review?

And your ire is with the interviewer’s personal opinion about the shooting in what he played?

Is everything OK?

 

[Chukhopops]

The biggest part of this is the Indiana Jones involvement, game suddenly becomes a lot more interesting.

I do wonder what he means about Elder Scrolls. AI NPCs maybe? The only thing that time passing really would be referring to is advances in technology. Who knows.

It is pretty awesome that he still is actually directing. So many of the famous people on this level transition to producer.

It’s weird that he’s putting so much pressure on TES6 when the “competition” in open world RPG hasn’t made any big push anyway.

Biggest in a decade? Halo 3 came out in 2007.

I think the reference is Halo 4 (2012) which was bigger than Halo 3 revenue wise (300M USD first week).