“But after seven years of ‘Fallout,’ it’s a little nice to slip away to be working on something so new and fresh.” 'It had to be ‘Starfield.'”Ĭheng said the studio now has a renewed vitality due to “Starfield.” “I love ‘Fallout,’” he said. “There were no other names ,” Howard said. “Starfield” effectively germinated a few years before the name was trademarked in September 2013. “We’ve known for a while that if and when we do something else, it would be science fiction,” Howard said. ” A purely science-fiction game like “Starfield” took longer to come about, Howard said, because of the technical resources it demanded. Howard remembered when “Morrowind' was popular and Bethesda was looking at next big things, he really wanted to do 'post-apocalyptic, and that’s when we were able to acquire ‘Fallout’. I pitched a ‘Star Trek’ RPG at the time, which obviously we didn’t do.” We actually had the ‘Star Trek’ rights at one point and made some games.

There was going to be a space game called ‘The 10th Planet’ in 1997.

“There’s a game we put out called ‘ Delta V’ that was part of this ‘Traveler’ game. “Believe it or not, Bethesda long ago had the rights to ‘Traveler,’ when I first started in 94. RIGHT: According to Todd Howard, 'Starfield' is 'like 'Skyrim' in space.'īethesda has created space-oriented fiction at various times during its existence, Howard recalled. He got as far as creating characters and a title screen for his own interplanetary game when the computer ran out of memory. The initial idea for “Starfield” may well have begun when Howard was a teen trying to make games on his Apple II computer. These include histories, backstories, starship architecture, pretty much anything a fan (or an employee) would geek out about. The massive amount of “things” that are included in the game are stored in an internal Wiki at Bethesda, a library of all things “Starfield” to which many of the employees who work on the project have access. “Obviously, today I don’t want to spoil too many things.” When asked about a plant growing in the background of a spaceship shown in the trailer, he demurred. But with the space exploration RPG still 18 months away, Howard didn’t want to reveal all of the particulars. (Bethesda and Lucasfilm announced they were working a new Indiana Jones game in January.) In his answers, Howard was thoughtful, descriptive and at times, effusive. (Bethesda) Crafting a futuristic fantasyĭuring the interview, Howard sat at home in front of cherry wood bookshelves bearing a figurine of “Fallout’s” iconic Pip-Boy and an Indiana Jones idol and ark. In “Starfield” players will join an organization dubbed Constellation, the last group of space explorers. Altman, and whether the release date may still move for the company’s first new game over a decade. In a wide-ranging, hour-long interview, Howard and Cheng spoke about the merger, how Bethesda’s employees operated through the pandemic, the difficult-to-process death of ZeniMax founder Robert A. In addition to being the next major RPG for Bethesda, the game figures to be one of the first major must-play games for Xbox since Microsoft acquired Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax Media, for $7.5 billion earlier this year. Howard said its contents were a “mix of processed space food,” probably primarily potato. 'It all should feel lived in, even for a ship.” The environment in the ship isn’t fancy, as demonstrated by the curiously packaged Chunks, a kind of MRE, displayed in one of the trailer scenes. Even though it’s science fiction, your mind can sort of draw the line all the way back ,' Howard elaborated.

“ knows what all the buttons do on the ships. Istvan Pely, the game’s lead artist, dubbed the look of the game “NASA punk,” Howard said.

At the outset, players will choose their character’s background, with many options for customization that will impact how some things in the game unfold. According to Howard, in “Starfield” players will join an organization dubbed Constellation, the last group of space explorers.

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