Starfield has jail for space crimes, devs confirm in new Q&A

Emil Pagliarulo, the lead designer of Bethesda’s upcoming mega-RPG Starfield, recently revealed that the developers had a Jesuit priest-in-training advise them when creating the game’s religions. Shane Liesegang, the up-and-coming priest in question, actually served as a former writer for Bethesda who specifically worked on both Skyrim and Fallout 4. That former connection combined with Liesegang’s studies helped the team at Bethesda make one of Starfield’s original religions as authentic and believable as possible.

Bethesda consulted a former Skyrim and Fallout 4 writer, who's since become a Catholic priest in training, to help build out the RPG's two in-game religions.

We’re closing in on the final days until Starfield finally arrives. By now, you’ve probably read everything about the game (maybe even filled in your own unofficial character planner). However, did you know that the game was originally going to have a voiced protagonist?

In Polygon's recent interview with design director Emil Pagliarulo, it was revealed that Starfield very nearly had a voiced protagonist in the style of Fallout 4's sole survivor.

Bethesda Game Studios once considered giving the playable character in Starfield a voice. In fact, they got so far as to hire a voice actor. But ultimately, they decided not to go ahead with the idea.

Bethesda games have long had silent protagonists, even counting Skyrim's Dragonborn who goes from silently muttering sentences to Fus Ro Dah-ing companions off cliffs. Fallout 4 changed that with two voice options which, along with a watered-down dialogue wheel that never laid out exactly what you were going to say, drew backlash. Starfield took note.

Starfield lead designer Emil Pagliarulo has revealed that developer Bethesda almost decided to give its protagonist a voice. Pagliarulo spoke about the game featuring a silent protagonist in an interview with Polygon leading up to the release of the sci-fi RPG.

In the five years since Bethesda Softworks first announced Starfield, much of the conversation has been focused on the endless possibilities that await players within the game’s web of planets and choices. There’s complex character and personality creation, a spectrum of geography all tricked out with the latest lighting and physics technology, customizable spaceships and space teams from highly dimensional NPCs, and loads of other bells and whistles to take advantage of the current generation of consoles.

Starfield has a New Game+ mode, ensuring you can keep playing Bethesda's enormous sci-fi RPG even after you eventually roll credits.

As an enthusiast of both science fiction and driving long distances through empty spaces, I've been hoping that Starfield would let me achieve my dreams of becoming a space trucker. The recent Starfield dev Q&A brought equal parts good and bad news on that front.

Starfield has finally gone gold ahead of its release next month, indicating that main development on the game has ended and that it's ready to hit store shelves soon. As such, developer Bethesda has confirmed preload details for its expansive space-set RPG, with Xbox Series S/X receiving early treatment on August 17. Meanwhile, PC players on Steam can begin pre-installing the game in anticipation, starting August 30. Additionally, the game will be available to play for free to those who're subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, though access for them will begin on launch day i.e., September 6.

A Starfield Q&A has dropped to celebrate the RPG's pre-launch gold status, first taking place in a Discord server, and later kindly transcribed by user ninjabell on the Starfield subreddit. While it has some juicy revelations, such as the fact there'll be no full pacifist runs, I'm far more fascinated by its brief look into the game's main three religions.