Todd Howard: Bethesda Could Not Have Made a Game Like Starfield Before Now

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.

Starfield is the biggest Bethesda RPG to date, so of course features, mechanics, and ideas either got cut, reduced, or changed during development. This natural part of the development has been highlighted by Starfield director Todd Howard, who’s explained why a more in-depth planetary affliction system was cut down in favor of other mechanics.

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.

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.

In an interview with Famitsu, Starfield lead and Bethesda frontman Todd Howard stated that the game's mod support «will be available next year» (obtained via machine translation), which likely refers to Starfield's equivalent to the Creation Kit modding tools for Skyrim and Fallout 4.

After finding out that Starfield completely omits any ground-based vehicles for your avatar to ride on, many players have wondered exactly why Bethesda made this design decision. Fortunately for those players, Bethesda executive producer and Starfield director Todd Howard recently addressed the matter in an interview with Bloomberg. You can find the interview posted further down this article, where you can skip to 3:00 to hear Howard’s response.

Starfield is officially out, and modders have been working hard creating helpful add-ons, from useful, quality-of-life mods such as revamping the inventory UI to unofficially adding support for DLSS. Others have added more cosmetic things like reskin in-game clothes. And then there are some people out there who keep modding Bethesda's Todd Howard into the game.

Bethesda's Todd Howard and Xbox head Phil Spencer have been on the interview circuit for the launch of Starfield, as part of which the pair granted an interview to Bloomberg Technology. While the questions have a more general business focus and veer into things like Game Pass and the Elder Scrolls 6 (no new info), the show starts with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow rather starkly putting an audience question to Howard: «why did you not optimise this game for PC?»

Bethesda exec Todd Howard has claimed that Fallout 76’s troubled launch ultimately helped the studio’s developers become better judges of when their games are actually ready to be released.

All eyes might currently be on BigOl'Spacegame, but there's plenty more happening behind-the-scenes at Bethesda, one of those things obviously being MachineGames' Indiana Jones project — which, depending how you choose to interpret four words from Bethesda's Todd Howard, might just be gearing up for a proper reveal next year.