Todd Howard: Starfield is Designed to be Played for a Long Time - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 October 2023 / 4,954 Views
Bethesda’s Todd Howard in an interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price on The AIAS Game Maker's Notebook Podcast said Starfield was designed to be played for a long time.
"This is a game that’s intentionally made to be played for a long time," said Howard via a transcription by VideoGamesChronicle. "One of the things we’ve learned from our previous games, like Skyrim, like Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time.
"How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural, and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that."
Howard was also asked about the need for developers to push themselves as technology evolves in the video game industry.
"I think it starts with the developers, It has to, right?," said Howard.
"I think it starts with technology. You’re seeing new hardware, you want to use it in new ways, you’re looking at game demos going ‘We could do this, we could present it in this way.’ The scale of games, I think, I’d have to go back and look. How big were things before?
"The one thing I have noticed is, that because more games are played for a long time, they’re ‘live, games’ the ability to update them over time creates games that people are playing right now that have been around for a long time, gotten years of updates, and that creates an expectation."
Starfield released for the Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Xbox Game Pass on September 6.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Modders will make that happen
That explains the unique design NG+ has in Starfield. Plus the ship building and outpost building. Although I wouldn’t keep that design philosophy for future games. Just make a great Bethesda game with absurd mod support. Mod support is what gives Bethesda games such insane longevity.
I totally agree with everyone in that the game needs more thought-through content, but this game is also a trailblazer in that there aren't a lot of open world space and exploration/building games out there. They definitely get my props for being one of the first, i might get this game in a few months, still hyped
Well for me this has been clear from the start, Todd even said so before release that they plan on this game being played for years. Clearly by that they mean people modding it etc. Beth has learned why fans love their games and they last years is thanks to mods and the playground they give them to make them.
Like people could make a mod in the future where you start off on like a Fallout planet where the world has been nuked you been playing this mod like fallout for awhile but than you find out the is a whole world off people up above and you take for the skys in one of the missions etc. OMG just thinking about all the things modders are going to do with this game has me so excited :-D
Edit this sounded a lot more epic in my head xD but still i think you get my point :-P
I can just imagine once they release the proper modding tools for the game. Modders will be litteraly able to make planets thats set around Fallout and around Elder Scrolls etc. Its going to be amazing and imo its why they have so many planets etc i mean this quote from todd pretty much explains that "How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural" in other words instead of having disjointed worlds etc like with mods from fallout and Skyrim this can all feel jointed. Visit a world it could be fallout for modders antother one could be skyrim etc etc. im drunk so not explaining this very well atm.
Looking back on my 160 hrs, i'd say most of the time was wasted on unnecessary stuff and loading.
I wish they'd get rid of this whole way of making games. I would have preferred a more streamlined nattative focused singler play game. Honestly every thing great I experienced in the game , could have fit in a single player 15 to 20 hr campain, with side quests.
All that outpost building stuff, item collecting, exploring planets that feel small and only contain a few types of flaura/fauna. For planets that have existed for hundreds of millions of years, as big and bigger than earth, yet so limited of a natural landscape and features. It breaks immersion. The fact that you can't even drive a rover on mars/ the moon, and experience what it would be like. No free roam orbit in space either, odd. For a space game, weapons feel limited in scope. Enemies are the same. No true interactions with space beings/aliens on a human level or greater. Graphics for the most part aren't great. Item crafting is pointless. It takes away the point of vendors. Just give us vendors with some personality to them that evolves over time as you interact with them more, would have been much better that time wasted on loot and modifcations. Even if you were to create something amazing, the ai/physics damage model and enemy reaction isn't that evolved to give it that special feeling. They are as basic as you can get.
I would love to see what ted price would have done with starfield if he was in charge.
So, you wish they would have made a different game?
The 2nd paragraph is basically you saying, you want it to be a complete different game and more akin to the kinds of games you enjoy. That's like me saying, I wish Forza Horizon let me get out my car and kill people so that's why I didn't like it.
I respect your opinion, but I also disagree with several of your critisms.
Such as?
The best parts of the game had nothing to do with the core framework design.
There is a lot that's in there that needs improving and can be done better.
That's why I feel some on as accomplished as ted price could have put out something better.
It's as though they they spent most their budget on the framework design and then passed it off to a sub contracting company to fill in the gaps with content.
I don't agree with your 2nd paragraph. RPG's are supposed to be grand and offer lots of stuff to do and I think trying to fit Starfield into a 20h game would take away from it. If I wanted to play a more focused experience, I would play a different game.
I have no problem with the game not having other intelligent life since they actually made an interesting universe and story without needing it.
I disagree about the graphics. NPCs can vary from ugly to good. Environments, interiors, and creatures look great.
The game has lots of weapons and I think a lot of cool ones at that. There are still weapons I haven't found yet.
Enemy reaction to damage is decent. Shooting different parts of the body have varying reactions depending on where they are hit.
Insomniac hasn't made an RPG so to say they could make a better space RPG than Bethesda is a weird thing to say. I recognize Insomniac as very talented and Spider-Man as a great game, but it's still consisted of filler content and activities. If you don't think a space RPG from Insomniac would be void of filler content, the same thing you don't like about Starfield, then I'm not sure what to tell you.
The graphics are hit and miss. At best they look like a really good last gen title, which is a good thing. The majority feel entry level last gen stuff and some parts generation before.
i don't mind grand side content, but a lot of what I experienced feels basic, done before, and not fleshed out for a next gen experience.
I still have a laddiction for the game, but i'd call it a bad one. It"s the idea of being in space that i'm going to discover something great, a journey im hoping for that doesn't come to fruition.
What are you playing on? On Series X, there are some parts of the game that look fantastic like ships and other interiors. Outside areas are a bit of a hit or miss, but mostly look good. Sky boxes look good and varied, which is important for a space game.
I disagree about it not seeming like a current gen game. It might not be the most visually impressive current gen game, but there is no way this game would run in any kind of playable state on last-gen consoles. The game is doing a lot on a technical level that past hardware couldn't handle.
Overall, I've enjoyed the majority of the missions I've completed. I'm steering away from those basic busy work quest you find on a computer mission board for certain factions and sticking to the random encounter quests and main missions.
Drop a shell of a game and wait for modders to fill it out over time. I guess that's a business model.
Really, I've mostly heard positive things about the base building. Do people not like that it's completely optional or something? I guess they could have it be more implemented into the story in some way but I don't think it should be forced on people if they don't want to do it.
I haven't really touched on that aspect of the game myself yet but I've seen some impressive creations from people online.
It requires people to use their imagination and explore and having a discussion on the choices they make in the game especially with faction and side quests..the number of ways U can approach these things is amazing. I have yet to go further then the first story mission but I have spent 75 hours of doing all faction quest except for crimson fleet and 80ish side quest. The stories that I have found form books and letters have been a good read
I know outpost will be improved with updates down the track but I was referring to the faction quests and sidequest U pick up along the journey . I only set one up for the sole purpose of getting achievements😅. Take earth planet as an example. It's dead empty and a desolate m why is that. Then U randomly encounter the earth colony ship that has been drifting for 200 years. The people on the ship are the last remaining earth population!. U get to learn why is that , what brought them here and what happened in the last 200 years in earth. U then get to help them. So many ways U can do it ajd one can lead to the very entinction of earth! Not just that but the books and notes U pick up and U get to read them and learn about lore that the planer provides or a book that leads to a side quest. U can be good guy in playing, U can absolutely corrupt where U bribe , extort , lie , steal to get your way but there are consequences attached to it. Sure the planets are mostly empty but in real life planets are empty like that but very in terms of atmosphere and temperature lol. That's just a tiny snippet of what the game offers. Sure the main story may be average but it's the lore and how it's written and explained that makes it interesting . Plus the combat mechanics is pretty good and responsive and easy lol.
Every game has repetitive nature. Just take Spiderman as an example. Most of the buildings and enemies look the same minus cos play differences but the sidequest are same thing copies and paste in all districts..how U tackle main campaign follows the same formula throughout and repeated
Starfield has been out for a month and is still the 3rd most played game on Xbox (ahead of many multiplayer games in spite of being a singleplayer game that can be beaten in as little as 21 hours if you rush the main story) and 10th most played on Steam over the last 24 hours (even with PC Gamepass pulling potential Starfield players from Steam). I've never seen any singleplayer game hold a spot in the top 5 Xbox most played games this long in the past, holding at #3 for a month as a singleplayer game is an incredible feat. To put into context just how good #3 most played on Xbox is for a singleplayer game, there are only 5 other singleplayer games on the top 50 most played games on Xbox right now, the next highest ranked singleplayer game on the most played list right now is Cyberpunk 2077 at #20, which recently got it's final big update, 2.0, and it's big story DLC, Phantom Liberty. The others are Farming Simulator 22 at #35, Skyrim Special Edition at #36, Fallout 4 at #42, and Elden Ring at #49.
As for mod support, it is already ranked at #15 for most mods on Nexus, with 3.5k mods made for Starfield so far. By the time it hits about 7k mods in a few months probably, it will be in the top 10 for most mods. Right now 7 of the top 10 games with the most mods available are Bethesda games. Games it has already passed in mod count include: Elden Ring, every Bioware RPG, Sony's Spider-Man, Monster Hunter Rise, Baldur's Gate 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V, and many more.
I think it is safe to say that people will play Starfield for years to come, just like every past Bethesda Game Studios game.
