Starfield Developer Had “Hundreds of Plans” for the Title That Didn’t Make it

The US Justice Department sued eBay on Wednesday for allegedly selling restricted pesticide products and devices that defeat motor vehicle emission controls.

Many are still reeling from the number of leaked emails that came out this week highlighting the “mindset” of Microsoft, Xbox, and one of its leaders, Phil Spencer, on various issues. The leaked emails, which sometimes spanned years, talked about all manner of topics within the gaming industry and without. But the one we wish to focus on right now is Baldur’s Gate 3. The game is one of the biggest hits of the year and one of the biggest surprises of the year in terms of success. It currently is the best-reviewed game of the year on Metacritic and has done very well sales-wise.

Given how Starfield cozied up to AMD, those who don’t use Team Red’s hardware may have had concerns about how optimized the game would be on Nvidia’s tech. Fortunately, when it comes to upscaling at least, Bethesda is launching official DLSS support. But until then, the mod community is coming to the rescue.

PureArts and Bethesda are partnering together for a figure in the form of Vasco, the robotic companion in Bethesda’s latest game.

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.

Yesterday (Tuesday, September 12), it was announced that the game engine Unity will soon begin charging developers a monthly fee based on the number of installs their games have, in a move that has left many indie studios upset and frustrated.

For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.

You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.

It's only been a week since Starfield fully released, but some players have experienced enough to share their tips for others just getting started in the RPG.

Starfield guide: Our hub of adviceStarfield console commands: Every cheat you needStarfield mods: Space is your sandboxStarfield traits: The full list, with our top picksStarfield companions: All your recruitable crewStarfield romance options: Space dating

Starfield director Todd Howard has spoken about plans for the game that didn’t make the final cut, including the idea for a very neat Fallout reference.