Bethesda has released a 45 minute deep dive video on Starfield, and.. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff covered in 45 minutes.
So much so that I decided to (quickly) summarize a number of points that the GGN readership might be interested in. I’m going to keep it brief, quickly pointing out things I learned from the deep dive that I’m sure you’re curious about as a reader of this site. Let’s get into it.
Starfield is more of a space opera than Star Citizen; that’s not a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind.
Cities/worlds seem to adopt a pure culture rather than a diverse one.. You’ve got the Firefly city, the Cyberpunk 2077 city, etc.
Of course it starts out with you waking up a-la New Vegas.
Starfield’s character creator: They still can’t do hair/beards right.
Hero Worshipped.. Holy shit, it’s Oblivion’s adoring fan. I am not even kidding, they are bringing the adoring fan back.
Skills is interesting, utilizing ranks like Skyrim, but also integrating challenges to unlock ranks not unlike Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s class unlocks.
Looks like it actually DOES have a stealth system (including classic pickpocket skills)! It’s a lot like classic Bethesda-style stealth, too, which can be a good thing.
Dialog plays out a lot like Fallout, with choices based on your skills/traits/etc.
Exploration and whatnot also seems to borrow from No Man’s Sky.
It’s not going to be as detailed in mechanics as Star Citizen, but it’s not intended to be: It’s not a sim game, and is designed to be approachable.
Ship customization is cool. You can buy a base ship, customize/upgrade it, hire a crew, etc. They are modularly designed, and you can upgrade systems, or deep-dive and really, REALLY tweak the ship design. Very much a snap together modular system, and you can go crazy with it.
There are crafting mechanics.
Companions have skills and whatnot, and you can romance them as well. You can assign them to your ship/outpost, and they can come with you in the field too.
Space fighting includes power system management. A bit more detailed than Star Citizen in some ways, but also simpler in others. Power to engines speeds you up, for example.
Unlocking skills improve your ship combat abilities too, like being able to target subsystems.
Looting isn’t as immersive as SC in space, but it’s designed to be easy.
You can board enemy ships, too, and capture the ship, which means having multiple ships in your fleet.
Can trade with or pirate other ships.
With planets, you can land anywhere, scan planets for resources, etc etc.. It mixes procedural design with some hand-crafted environments and locations. There are over 1,000 planets, apparently.
You can build outposts on planets wherever you like, too. These outposts can harvest resources and be a hangout for you and your crew. This includes decoration. Operates on a mix of top-down designing as well as Fallout 4 ground-level placement of stuff.
Outposts can also be used for crafting and research, to unlock new stuff (including weapon parts; there is a lot of weapon customization a-la Fallout 4).
Zero-G mechanics look pretty good; ballistic weapon recoil can even affect your zero-G movement.
Of note: Ballistics aren’t as detailed as to include bullet drop, so keep that in mind.
Those are my thoughts, folks! Here’s the full video if you’d like to take a look yourself.