Yesterday, Bethesda head Todd Howard told us via the Washington Post that Starfield would be “like Skyrim in Space.” A big, open-world RPG that takes place 300 years in the future during a time when humanity has ascended to the stars. Get in a spaceship and go, with a “confident” release date of November 11, 2022.
Now we’re learning more details in an all-new interview with The Telegraph, and the Skyrim comparisons just won’t stop.
“It’s very big,” Howard told the UK publication, even going so far as to say Starfield will feature hundreds of hours of gameplay. It’ll also be “a bit more hardcore of a role-playing game than we’ve done,” added Howard, harkening back to some of Bethesda’s more classic RPGs.
“[Starfield]’s got some great character systems–choosing your background, things like that. We’re going back to some things that we used to do in games long ago that we felt have really let players express their character they want to be.”
It’ll be a while yet before we learn more about what those hardcore RPG mechanics are. Howard said that Starfield gameplay will appear closer to the game’s 2022 release date, “like we usually do.” But he stressed that the game won’t turn out to be a space exploration simulator and that it’ll follow in the footsteps of games like Mass Effect.
“This isn’t Star Wars or Star Trek, it’s kind of its own thing–and I think as we show more, hopefully, it’ll carve out its own niche.”
Starfield’s aesthetic has been dubbed “NASA-punk” by its lead artist, and although everything takes place in space, there will still be sound effects for when the player fires a laser gun–and yes, there are lasers in Starfield. You’ll also be able to play in both first and third-person, although Howard seems to think that first-person is the natural way to play.
Bethesda didn’t talk about The Elder Scrolls 6 during yesterday’s joint presentation with Xbox, but it might have teased some details for the upcoming fantasy RPG in the Starfield trailer. Take a look just after a minute into the trailer to spot a possible landmass that might appear in TES6.