Starfield has been out for about six weeks, and as the dust settles on the honeymoon period, some players are finding that the spacefaring RPG just doesn't have the staying power of Bethesda's previous games, most notably Skyrim.
26.09.2023 - 16:35 / pcgamer.com / Todd Howard / Howard / Ai / Howard Says
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.
Todd Howard agrees that it was a bit of a pain to get right, as he said in a recent interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. "[Space combat] was way harder than we thought … We see a lot of space games where you're gonna have like, derelict ships or other things to fly around, just to get a sense of motion, so the smallest thing like 'what does the dust in space look like?' so you feel like you're moving and it's not too much, not too little."
This kind of game development craft does tend to fly under the radar of gamers—often, good mechanical design isn't noticed at all, it just produces a good feel. It's true that even the smallest of adjustments can change how something feels entirely. In terms of the nuts and bolts of ship combat's mechanical design—namely, power management—Howard brought up a few inspirations.
«I like the way [FTL: Faster Than Light] does some things with power allocation, you can kind of see that in the game. I really like MechWarrior, the old ones that I played a lot—where the pace of combat is a little slower, and you're looking at systems and power allocations … that part worked out pretty well.»
For Bethesda, the snags started happening when it came to designing enemy AI: «It's very easy … to make the enemies really really smart, forever we were just jousting [with them]. It turns out you have to make the AI really stupid. You have to have them fly, then they need to turn, basically like 'hey player, why don't you just shoot me for a while?' … [once we'd] settled on our pace, and how the enemies are gonna move, that's where it came together.»
Honestly, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was having some trouble keeping enemies in my crosshairs before I pumped some points into the targeting control systems skill. And that's with an AI that dangles their blastable hulls in front of you like a deer caught in headlights. I love a good FPS, but if you put me behind the wheel of a ship I'm likely to run into the first solid thing I see. Like a chunky metal moth to the sun.
Still, it's interesting to see the kinds of compromises dev teams have to make, especially when designing something completely out of their comfort zone. Given I quicksave before every skirmish (just in case I botch my energy management) I'm personally glad the game's pilots were built stupid on purpose.
Starfield has been out for about six weeks, and as the dust settles on the honeymoon period, some players are finding that the spacefaring RPG just doesn't have the staying power of Bethesda's previous games, most notably Skyrim.
Just before Starfield came out, the game’s reviews were dropped, and a consistent theme was seen within them. Specifically, these game reviewers kept talking about the amount of hours they put into the game overall, not just with the main storyline but within the whole game. Some of the reviewers had put in dozens of hours, and a few had put in over a hundred to two hundred hours into Bethesda’s new title! What that showed was that no matter what kind of gamer you were, you would have quite the adventure ahead of you. As we know now, that was by design.
Starfield director Todd Howard has said that Starfield was intentionally made to be played for a long time.
Bethesda Game Studio’s creative director, Todd Howard, wasn’t expecting our Starfield ships to be so damn cool.
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.
Starfield director Todd Howard says that Bethesda's sci-fi RPG was «intentionally» designed to be played for a long time and that he expects to still be working to update the game for the next five years.
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.
If you're tired of Starfield encumbrance, guess what: it's your own fault. Even director Todd Howard will tell you that you should stop picking everything up.
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.
Todd Howard has shared a surprising insight about Starfield.
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.