Todd Howard says Starfield isn’t “hard science fiction”, it’s a video game

A new video from Bethesda gives us more details about starfieldThe studio’s first new original franchise in years.

On Tuesday, the studio launched a New video series called Constellation Questions, where various questions from fans are posed to game director Todd Howard. The video covers a variety of topics, from spaceflight, to dialogue options, and even themes.

First, Howard addressed the inspiration to starfield. He cited two games that had a special impact: sun dog For Apple 2, Atari ST, the passengerPen and paper RPG game.

This led fans to wonder if starfield Is it “hard” science fiction – meaning it’s more rooted in actual science – or not. Howard said Starfield is tough science fiction in his opinion, but that mileage will vary based on what fans might think. However, Howard was clear that this is still a video game about enjoyment, and so the team has retracted some of the potential frustrations a more realistic sci-fi setting might bring. For example, a player can originally run out of fuel in space, leaving them afloat. This has since been removed, and instead, player fuel and the type of gravity drive limit the distance players can reach at one time. Unreal, yes, but it’s definitely less frustrating for fans.

Howard then addressed the various features of the game, which offer both a positive effect and a negative trade-off. Here are some examples of themes featured in the video:

• Dream Home – You have a customizable home on a peaceful planet, but you must pay 50 thousand mortgage every week
• Extrovert – You use less oxygen if you have a mate, but more if you’re alone
• Freestar Collective Settler – Get special dialogue options and better rewards from certain factions, but higher offense rewards with others
• Worship the hero – Rando’s fan will appear to you to annoy you a lot, but he will bring gifts
• Introverted – More stamina while alone, less when you have companions
• Kid Stuff – You can visit your parents at their house, but 10% of your money will go to them automatically
• Neon Street Rat – Get access to special dialogue options and better rewards on Neon. Crime bonuses are increased with other factions.
• Enlightened High – You can access a chest full of items in House of the Enlightened, but lose access to another chest
• Globally Raised – Access a chest full of items in Sanctum Universum, but lose access to another chest

Crucially, players can remove these traits to get rid of their negative (and positive) effects by completing a task or activity. Players who make a bad decision early on will not need to restart the game just to recycle their character traits.

Finally, Howard talked a little bit about the dialogue system. Without getting too deep into it, there is now a point-based persuasion system where players can spend points to get a better score. In this section, Howard also revealed that the game currently has more than 250,000 lines of dialogue It aligns with 1000 planets.

Bethesda encouraged players to reach out with more questions via the hashtag #starfieldquestions on Twitter. Bethesda and Microsoft will be launched starfield Exclusively for PC and Xbox early next year.