Just Another Space Odyssey? Is Starfield Bethesda's Giant Leap or Next Small Step?

Everyone can apparently see what Starfield is. But for some reason, I’m convinced that Bethesda has never before promised players so much – while revealing so little. To my own surprise, I miss all those beautiful-sounding slogans with which the golden-tongued Todd Howard inundated us before the release of his greatest blockbusters; "See that mountain? You can climb it…” Though in this case, the rest of that sentence goes: “I recommend you wait two more generations and buy the fourth remaster of that game, so you don't get nausea by just looking at the textures resolution..." or something like that.

God(d) Howard

We can complain about Howard, but he effectively prods the imagination of players and allows us to believe that the anchoring point of our narration will actually be reflected in the game itself. However, about Starfield, aside from a few promises thrown around at presentations as well as the information repeated hundreds of times about 1000 planets available in the game, we really don't know much. Considering the enormous scale of the production (and let me remind you that we're talking about the game from a developer whose whole purpose of existence seems creating the largest possible emergent worlds saturated with emergent elements) we REALLY don't know much.

Space exploration is a pretty fresh topic that generates quite a bit of excitement. Over the past 10 years, we have already seen attempts to grab a small piece of this cake, but no team has so cheekily said to everyone else: "I'm not taking a piece, this whole effin cake is mine," which Bethesda undoubtedly plans to achieve. The upcoming cosmic RPG neatly dodges competition, carrying under its arm a box with said cake and only leaving us with "This party is moving to my place.” Well, how can you not be intrigued by such cheekiness?

Stafrield, Bethesda Softworks, 2023

I've been wondering for a long time whether Starfield is closer to No Man's Sky or Star Citizen, which increasingly seems only form and no content. Every internal dialogue, however, led me to the conclusion that this game doesn't intend to be just a star in this constellation, like the titles above. It wants to be something completely different; a whole, new, undiscovered galaxy.

For the record – I wouldn't describe myself as an "opponent" of these productions. Quite simply, keeping in mind the vastness of games produced by the American studio, it's hard for me to compare the new opus to a game, whose main thrust is splitting all sorts of rocks with a laser on the next planet. Not to mention Chris Roberts’ tech demo, because I have a feeling that another nine years will not bring any breakthrough in this matter – unless we’re talking light years. Okay, enough of these jibes, because soon I will indeed become in your eyes, dear reader, an advocate of the messiah of the video game industry, i.e. Starfield.

Make my day, (NASA) punk

Just over a year ago, Istvan Pely and Rick Vicens, who served as the lead designer and animator, respectively, at Bethesda Game Studios, explained the term "NASA-punk" to a wide audience. So as not to bore you, I will sum up everything at the speed of a hyperspace jump: the studio, creating their vision of the future, wanted to underline in it the heritage of our, no longer so green, planet. You know – to indicate that what the successive generations of artists have wasted their lives on has survived, and, at the end of the day, even with the tremendous development of civilization (if we consider intergalactic travel as such), it still matters.

I hope that the developer doesn’t forget all the grime, stench and burdens that we have brough upon our cute little planet – and which are here to stay for future generations to enjoy. The concern here is that Bethesda is not Rockstar nor CD Projekt RED, which have accustomed us to tackling topics usually avoided by video game producers out of prudence. The Rockville-based studio may have crossed many boundaries across the history of its productions, but not necessarily in the areas touched by the Polish or British studios.

Stafrield, Bethesda Softworks, 2023

I'm not saying that we should be given the opportunity to embark on a career of an interplanetary sex trafficker and set up branches of an escort agency system after system, but I sincerely hope that the PEGI/ESRB rating doesn't just refer to a standard mix of violence, severed limbs and rather random, vulgar verbiage.

Well then, let's leave the most controversial, edgy issues, because I understand that not all "widely recognized" video game developers want to tackle certain topics – but it's a pity in its own way. For a long time now, games have been more than carefree pixel run on the screen. Let's go back for a moment to this whole promised punkness of Starfield, which I have a whole range of expectations for.

The Elder Scrolls series and the Fallouts released after 2001 can, and should, be criticized for many things, but it's hard to deny that they perfectly create a sense of complete immersion, if only we want to be endlessly absorbed by them. We could feel it when going around the Red Mountain in Morrowind with every speck of the corrosive dust bled into our lungs; we could feel it when we first traveled through the post-nuclear Washington DC Wastelands. At that time, Bethesda showed that they can present a great vision of the United States devastated by war, but also made us realize that they simply "can't handle Fallout," which unfortunately was confirmed with its successor a few years later.

Alright, let’s leave the Earth, especially when it’s such a rotten land nowadays. Let's return to the pleasant zero gravity state.

More Solaris than Stellaris

Void.

Space.

Worn, leather upholstery of the pilot's seat in a wrecked ship.

I can only afford a rusty piece of junk, but as long as it flies, it will buckle under the weight of all the illegal and banned substances and equipment that I can lay my hands on. Money don’t grow on trees, and sometimes I want to be a space scoundrel. Just like I was in Elite Dangerous.

From Starfield, I expect allowing me to be a bit of Dirty Harry and a bit of a gnarlier version of Han Solo, who blasts '2000 Light Years From Home' by The Stones and combs through the black market to find out where to earn the most money for new gadgets and hedonistic pleasures. By the way, I would give all the credits of the galaxy to hear a licensed soundtrack based on 60s classics in Bethesda's new game. Memories of social revolutions, the smell of napalm in the morning and the British invasion all evoked during the annihilation of space pirates – me and my Ramones jacket are primed for it like a coiled spring.

The original Alien flaunted the memorable tagline: "In space no one can hear you scream,” and just like Starfield's marketing campaign, the marketers of that movie took skillful advantage of economy in media communications. The sentence is foreboding, concerning and at the same time explicit, immediately telegraphing the vastness of loneliness in space. Will this be the main feeling accompanying us during the many hours of Starfield?

Stafrield, Bethesda Softworks, 2023

Or maybe, after Ijon Tichy from Lem's Star Diaries, we'll make the endless space our colorful home, filled with bizarre companions? I definitely prefer to be that lone wolf who doesn't let anyone past the doorstep, but if Todd's gang has finally cooked up well-developed side characters, then who am I to disagree? However, I don't need a walking, indestructible bullet shield, but a real companion of flesh and blood (or copper and silica) – with the potential for creating a duo like Kirk and Spock.

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads

I know that there's a lot of excitement surrounding the still unexplained issue of a thousand planets to explore. How many of them will be procedurally-generated? How many were actually crafted by a team of talented developers, polishing by hand down to smallest details? I deliberately didn't highlight this topic, because going over the same question again and again won't make us learn anything new. The same goes for the recently revealed information that we won't have access to a galactic car powered by offshore uranium in the game, which could make the exploration of said planets more fun. To be honest, it doesn't surprise.

I understand that, unlike previous games from Bethesda, the scale and setting of Starfield gave us hope for functional ground vehicles, but both the TES series and the "modern" Fallouts have somehow accustomed me to explore everything on foot, and I believe that any rides planets’ surfaces would be constantly interrupted with continuous "pit stops" to see this or that corner of the map – so what do we even need a car for?

During the breaks between writing the next lines of this piece and filling up the portafilter with another portion of ground stimulant, I saw one headline. It suggested that the Milky Way could potentially be home to no less than four alien civilizations, all capable of wiping our planet off the face of cosmos. And just as I'm not in a position to judge whether anyone is actually pointing lasers in our direction (but, you know, The Truth is Out There), it's also hard for me to conclude at this point whether Starfield will be a revolution or merely an evolution of the Bethesda formula.

In times when the electronic entertainment industry is fixated on generating the highest profits and blowing the marketing balloon, it's hard to tell the difference between empty promises and genuine intentions of the developer.

I have repeatedly emphasized that I have certain hopes, or perhaps even expectations for Howard's new child. I hope that this time he won't make the same parenting mistakes as before and that Starfield will grow into a "a serious man." It doesn't even matter whether the company finally improves the quality of the main storyline, or maybe take better care that the engine, which remembers the times I was wearing diapers, is able to pump all the juice that’s still left in it. For you and for gaming in general, I wish that the title coming out this fall will be more than just another platform that will be mostly used by modders to show off their prowess.

Let's just hope that Todd and company have enough rocket fuel in the tank to actually deliver all of this in the end.