Starfield has had an odd first year. It hasn’t set the world on fire in the ways Skyrim and Fallout 4 did, and has fans looking more critically at Bethesda’s game design than ever, but it’s far from a failure.
“We were really proud of Starfield,” says lead creative producer Tim Lamb. “It’s been a great release for us”.
That, however, doesn’t mean that Bethesda isn’t aware of the criticism it’s faced.
“I understand. We listen to the community, we hear the feedback,” says Lamb. “There's justification to that. But for us, we're our own toughest critics. So, we hear what the community says, we're looking at what we're interested in, and we have plans going forward.”
Related
Fallout 76's Creative Director Talks Ghouls, Map Expansions, And Players Being Too Nice
Fallout 76 creative director Jon Rush chats to us at Gamescom, going over the MMO's past and present, and what this means for Fallout 5.
1
Part of those plans is Shattered Space, Starfield’s first major expansion. As Lamb and I speak at Gamescom, Bethesda is going all in on promoting this expansion; revealing a new trailer, and at long last, a release date - September 30.
From what we’ve seen, this is going to be a very different experience than the base game, responding to some of the criticism about its space-faring exploration.
“It's a pendulum shift,” explains Lamb. “You have this giant galaxy, hopeful optimism, and traveling worlds and experiencing different cultures [...] and now you have this more secluded, focused, mysterious location.”
This is quite the change of pace for Starfield, but it’s one that excites the developers.
“I think during development there's always conversations that ebb and flow. And it's like, what resonates with the dev team, what gets us excited? What is something we feel that would be a shift, something different?
“That really excites the team. And when the team is excited, that's when we do our best work,” he continues. “There's something about spending so much time in one location that attaches you to it, [...] The base game of Starfield is jet-setting. You're going from here to there. And [in Shattered Space], everything happens in this location.”
We want to continue to support the game for a long time.
Shattered Space is far from the only expansion Bethesda has planned for Starfield. “There's always several ideas floating through the course of development,” says Lamb. “We have future plans.
“We've spent the last year since release trying to do quality of life updates every couple weeks or so. And then, at the end of the year, we get the REV-8 and Shattered Space. So that's exciting. It's a big impact and a big change to the game.”
When I ask Lamb if there are enough plans to live up to Bethesda and Xbox’s dreams of making Starfield a multi-year game like Skyrim, he’s optimistic.
“I hope so”, he smiles. “We do plan to support our games for a long time. So we always have ideas going around in various levels of completeness, but we're always working on something.”
Xbox's Phil Spencer has previously expressed his hope that Starfield will be a "12-year game".
What these somethings are, Lamb isn’t willing to share. “I don't want to over-promise, but we did a bunch of updates this year in quick succession. So, I’m not prepared to talk about future plans, but there are things that are coming.
“We want to continue to support the game for a long time, and I hope that we're able to bring as much joy as I feel like I'm seeing with Shattered Space and the REV-8.”
Bethesda's Take On More "Hardcore" RPGs
As for more specific game design touches going forward, we touch on the resurgence of more hardcore RPGs, particularly with the success of Baldur’s Gate 3. This hasn’t escaped Bethesda’s notice.
“There is always an internal debate of, like, I don't want to call it hardcore, but that was one of the things that we had heard,” says Lamb, referring to this call for more RPG mechanics in Bethesda games. “We loved the idea, and it fits the theme of the game.”
However, Lamb tells me that the team still wants its games to be “easily understood”.
“How much do we have to teach the player? How much of this makes sense?” says Lamb. “Starfield has a lot of systems to sink into, but we support all of it. Players direct themselves in a way that's like, do you want to do this? You can dive deep into that. But most of the time, we're not requiring you to go deep in any one place. [...] We give you a lot of tools.”
As for what this means for further instalments, Lamb doesn’t have much to say: “I don't want to speak for future games, but we like to give the player a lot of options”.
Starfield Fans Are Already Modding The Latest Update
It’s not long before Starfield’s modding community comes up. When we spoke at Gamescom, the REV-8 had only been in the game for a few hours - and had already been modded.
“If people are having fun, even if it's from a different angle than just simply playing the game, there are more ways to interact with our titles than ever,” he says. “Please keep doing it. It makes me smile.”
Of course, I have to ask if he’s played with mods. “Certainly,” he admits. “ I saw one posted, and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna check that out. Again, it made me smile.”
Now, Bethesda has much more to smile about. A thriving modding community is a great sign - it’s what’s kept its older releases so relevant long after release. As of July, fans have had access to the official mod tools, making the game much easier to mess around with. We’ll have to wait and see if Shattered Space wins back the players who were underwhelmed by Starfield’s base game offerings, but in the meantime, it will always have those dedicated enthusiasts who race to turn Bethesda games into something else entirely.
9 Images
9 Images
Starfield
4.0/5
Starfield is the first new IP from Bethesda in a quarter of a century, launched for the next-gen Xbox Series X|S and PC. Taking place outside our own Solar System, you play a member of the Constellation, a collective of explorers set on discovering new worlds.
