Todd Howard Doesn't Want Starfield to be Like Cyberpunk 2077

The idea of Bethesda developing a sci-fi RPG sounds exciting, but what can we expect? Todd Howard, the big man behind Bethesda Game Studios, shared their plans, including a mention that he doesn't want Starfield to be like Cyberpunk 2077.

Howard recently spoke with GamesIndustry.bizs James Batchelor, at the Develop: Brighton Digital 2020 event. The interview, stretching a little over an hour, covered topics ranging from Elder Scrolls Online, The Elder Scrolls VI, and Starfield.



Before now, we knew virtually nothing about Starfield. The studio revealed the game at E3 2018, but that was nothing more than a title card. We later learned that it wouldn't be for a while, but that was otherwise it. This interview, however, gives us a little more information about the title and what we can expect.

Like with most Bethesda games, it will feature an improved upon version of the creation engine. Howard explains that they are making incredible improvements on the engines rendering, animation, AI, and procedural generation abilities. This has been a mildly controversial decision over game generations. Some folks believe that the studio is clinging to a flawed and out of date engine, while others have faith that the ongoing improvements will only result in a more refined and enjoyable engine for future games.

They also intend to utilize procedural generation more for the game world's design. So while the environment won't be completely random, it will make it easier for developers to create even larger worlds. World size seems to be an ongoing focus for the studio, with Starfield expecting to be much larger than Fallout 76's world, which was already four times larger than Skyrim's.

Speaking of which: potential players can rest assured that Starfield will be completely single player, with no multiplayer aspects involved. Concern for this is more or less unfounded, since Bethesda said from the start that the multiplayer spin-off Fallout 76 was a one time experiment and not indicative of the studios franchise plans as a whole. It's worth mentioning anyway, though.

So what does all this have to do with Cyberpunk 2077? I promise that it wasn't just a clickbait title. Howard explains that it's going to be a while before Starfield is released. The game could still be delayed and he did not want to give more information than he was comfortable with. He compares his plans to Cyberpunk's, which was revealed early on and teased over a long time. Howard doesn't want to follow that same path and would rather keep things low key until the game is nearly ready for launch.

Starfield will release on next gen consoles at some point in the future.