With less than three weeks left of Starfields release, I thought I’d give my own personal take on what might come of it.
I’m a huge space nerd. Love Space games, and love it in real life. KSP is one of my favorite games. No Mans Sky was what I dreamed of, and then on release…it was a mess. Tried to get into it now, and I WANT to like it. It’s clearly had effort put into it. But the core problems are still there. The main one being: Procedural generation.
No Mans Sky feels like a mile wide and an inch deep even now. The planets lack variety. It’s pretty much a single biome across the entire system. The outposts look almost the same. Landmarks are the same. Creatures are the same. It makes no sense. Of course, that’s due to the procedural generation. And it shows. I could go on about how the story and side quests are uninteresting and frankly, lazy. But that’s besides the point. Even if it’s a core issue. I would rather have two or three massive, full scale solar systems with a couple of planets that are hand crafted and have a TON of work done to them. With, you know, actual biomes and some dead ones sprinkled in.
Thing is, Bethesda has been experimenting with radial quests and procedural generation for over a decade now. They have shown they care about detail and substance. They know what players look for. They’re not gonna implement a half baked system and do what NMS did. Because we all know how that turned out. And to me, it sounds like they clearly believe this system is ready now. After all, while the radial quests in Skyrim were not perfect, (Dark Brotherhood Forever), they were pretty good in moderation. And that was on 7th gen hardware. In any case, we’re still getting a full scale solar system (or at least a couple?) that are in fact, hand crafted. It’s exciting to say the least.
So while I don’t think Starfield is going to change the industry, and I fully expect bugs, I do think this is going to be the best example of procedural generation going forward and what it CAN do for future titles. Whether from Bethesda, or other developers. The main thing here I’d like to point out is that Bethesda isn’t looking at procedural generation as a core mechanic. They see it as a TOOL. And that’s what it should be across the board. I fully expect players to not go full on exploring towards other star systems until late in the game which will take a bit. Hand crafted is still the most important aspect as it should be. But if done right, I believe it could serve well for replayability for years to come.
People give a lot of shit to BGS for Fallout 76. But remember this. The game was fixed. And every game before it has been acclaimed. Fallout 4 was a bit disappointing for most and I agree, but I do think the mods made up for it and the combat was a big step up versus Fallout 3. It was the weakest title, for a BGS game. Sure. But even then, it was VERY good compared to what was out at the time. They obviously still know what they’re doing unlike other developers now.
No. It’s a static universe, and there are only so many systems (they’ve mentioned how many but I can’t remember).
They mentioned there’s HUNDREDS of procedural planets. I didn’t say or imply it was infinite.
The real issue is how much of that procedural generation can be explored? It’s one thing to be a nice piece of randomly generated set dressing but another to be interacted with by players.
You’re right that Bethesda has over a decade of experience with procedural generation but they haven’t done anything with it in any of their games except modify loot tables and create weather. What evidence is there that they will make explorable worlds that can be landed on anywhere? So far Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, and Star Citizen have attempted it and only NMS has the ability to land anywhere on any plane then, get out and explore.
Pete Hines confirmed you can explore planets in their entirety on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/1693878589303738591
So I don’t see why you COULDN’T land anywhere, but yeah…I guess that remains to be seen. We know there is a loading screen between landing and taking off but that was implied heavily anyway, and ultimately not a big deal to me. I suspect someone will “try” to make a mod that does this.
You know what? That’s fucking great and hype worthy. I’m now interested to see what happens with Starfield but, ultimately, I don’t trust Todd Howard to fulfill his promises. He’s spoiled fallout by making grand promises and then undercutting those expectations. There’s no reason to think he won’t do the same to Starfield.
Fair, but a lot of the promises he made in Skyrim were fulfilled. I think we’ll see some promises come to fruition in Starfield while others are sort of half promises.
He’s not a flat out liar like the internet makes him out to be.
In that regard… Most terrain in games is already procedural. They don’t hand craft every dip and rise of the terrain, or hand place every rock, shrub and tree. They use some procedural generation for most of that and then tweak what they need by hand. If you’ve ever messed with the toolset for Skyrim or Fallout and added more landmass, that’s likely what you can expect with Starfield. Just, more.
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