Todd Howard Says Starfield is “Still a Long Way Off”

Director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, Todd Howard, has spoken on Starfield finally. The bottom line? Starfield is still a long way in the distance and won’t be released any time soon.

Starfield has an enormous amount of excitement and hype surrounding it. Starfield is a game that looks like it could offer something a little different usually reserved for indie titles—with the quality of a AAA title. The space-based game was teased with a short trailer at the 2018 E3 event, so it’s easy to see why fans are getting a little antsy waiting for a release date. Todd Howard has defended the decision to announce the game way before it was ready, commenting: “We wanted to make sure our fans knew ‘here are the things coming up’. We knew at the time that these things were going to be a ways off, but it still felt better to engage and say ‘here’s what we’re making’.”

Bethesda, at the time, were working on the multiplayer RPG Fallout 76 and the mobile-based The Elder Scrolls: Blades. These were two very different games and Bethesda wanted to let fans know what was in the works while they waited.

Todd has said that “it’s going to be a while” before Starfield is far enough through the process for Bethesda to reveal anything concrete. Todd has divulged the basics of the new RPG in the Develop: Brighton conference, but fans shouldn’t expect a release date in the near future.

Why not share some in-development footage or screenshots? Todd says he prefers to wait for the final product to be ready, saying “when we show it [we can] really be able to show what the final product feels like and looks like, and we’re closer to release so that we’re 100% confident in ‘here it is, here’s what it does, and here’s when you can play it’.”

He also notes that “preparing trailers and demos and assets, they take time away from development […] and I’d rather just spend all that time focusing on the game.” Which is fair as fans most definitely want the game to live up to expectations.

When it comes to the development of Starfield, Todd let a little more slip. He has confirmed that Starfield will contain procedurally-generated content, possibly similar in execution to No Man’s Sky. Todd described that Bethesda have “been coming back over time.” He says, “The stuff we’re doing now, we’re pushing procedural generation further than we have in a very long time.”

Along with this comes a hint that Bethesda is working on an engine overhaul. Todd says that, “It’s taken us longer than we would have liked, it’s going to power what we’re doing with Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, and I think when people see the results they’ll be hopefully as happy as we are.”

Are you hyped for a procedurally-generated space exploration RPG from Bethesda?