A new behind-the-scenes video with Starfield game director Todd Howard has dropped, giving some insight into the background and hard sci-fi nature of the game. As per the gameplay reveal, Starfield is an expansive RPG where you can explore numerous planets and even fly a ship.

In terms of Bethesda RPGs and character interaction, on top of a detailed trait system and skill-based dialogue choices, we learn that Starfield features over 250,000 lines of dialogue. Compared to previous Bethesda RPGs, Fallout 4 featured around 110,000 and Skyrim 60,000. So yeah, from a pure narrative perspective Starfield is going to be huge.

Todd Howard also name-dropped a very old sci-fi RPG called SunDog: Frozen Legacy which was released for the Apple II back in 1984 as a point of inspiration. In that game, players flew a ship to different planets, something that will be a core part of Starfield. Though when it comes to science there have been some trade-offs to maintain playability.



“We were really into fuel and how the gravity drive works," Todd Howard says of Starfield. "I’m reading papers on quantum physics and bending space in front of you. You don’t actually warp you bend [and] bring the space toward you. And so we were playing that and it became very punitive to the player, your ship would run out of fuel and the game would just stop.”

Being stranded in space won't be an issue players will need to deal with, though Todd Howard confirms that Starfield will support mods. And that there's room to take the sci-fi concepts within the game even further by adding survival elements and things like having to monitor fuel consumption.

Starfield is out for Xbox Series X|S and PC in 2023.