Bethesda 'talked about' using the Fallout version of Earth in Starfield, Todd Howard says

Starfield director Todd Howard has said that Starfield was intentionally made to be played for a long time.

Starfield director and Bethesda’s Todd Howard has talked about how so many triple-A games these days incorporate light RPG elements into their design, and what this meant for how the team approached its newest game.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard reckons many games are some sort of RPG nowadays, which is partly why Starfield doubles down on the studio's classical role-playing style to stand out in the crowd.

If there's one thing I love in this world, it's trinkets. Tchotchkes. Doodads and thingamajigs. Nothing enables this desire for collecting crud more than a good old-fashioned Bethesda game. Forks, mugs, spoons, bowls—you name it, it's probably in my inventory.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard says Starfield was designed and built for longevity, even more so than RPGs like Skyrim or any of the modern Fallouts, with the studio already considering how the game will evolve for years and years to come. 

Starfield was extensively playtested by Bethesda devs often working from home, and Todd Howard says this approach worked so well that the studio's going to apply the method to its future games, with the studio's next confirmed, albeit far-off project obviously being The Elder Scrolls 6.

I've walked on nearly 200 different planets in Starfield in environments ranging from frozen tundra to baking infernos to toxic atmospheres. And in all that time I've only suffered one affliction that I felt a need to rush to a doctor to fix: I contracted a lung condition that eventually got so bad it made sprinting consume my oxygen supply in a matter of seconds, and I didn't have the meds to cure it myself.

Bethesda is known for making big, blockbuster RPGs—but Starfield's space combat was a totally new frontier for the team. I've personally found a decent bit of fun in zipping around and knocking pirates out of the sky, even if it's clearly not the game's main focus. I don't envy the devs saddled with the task of balancing dogfights in space.

If you are bummed that planet exploration in Starfield is not as challenging as expected, Bethesda originally planned to make the system much more punitive, according to the game's director.

Starfield's planets were originally supposed to be much more punishing for players, that is until Bethesda "nerfed the hell out of it," reveals Todd Howard.

Do you think Starfield takes place in the same Earth as Fallout? Do you think it should have been officially so? As it turns out, this was a key decision in Starfield’s development.

Earth is an inhospitable wasteland in Starfield. Sounds familiar, aye? Nuclear war ravaged our little floating rock in the Fallout series, leaving much of the planet a smoking radioactive desert. However, the two games aren't connected, but Bethesda did consider setting Starfield in the Fallout universe at one point during development.