It’s clear by now that the upcoming release ofStarfieldis nothing short of a flagship launch for both Bethesda and Xbox, and that both studios consider it a crucial element of their respective 2023 lineups. With the first gameplay showcase having provided the players with a taste of what’s to come, some have taken to poring over the shown footage to try and figure out how the game might behave in practice.
One particularly noteworthy detail aboutStarfieldcomes from Reddit user _eldrone, who decided to highlight the game’s character rendering technology. They posted a short GIF that zeroes in on one of the characters' animated skin folds, facial animations, and skin wrinkles to compare it with Bethesda’s previous mainline release,Fallout 4.
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Bethesda proudly announced thatStarfield’s character creator is its most ambitious implementationyet, but the buck doesn’t seem to stop at mere customization. As _eldrone rightfully pointed out, the game features the most advanced face rendering technology Bethesda’s had yet, which helps make the characters way more interesting and believable than they were in any of the studio’s previous RPGs. In comparison,Fallout 4’s characters look dated and have a general lack of fidelity, which isn’t particularly odd considering the game’s age.
What’s particularly noteworthy is that all the characters in any given Bethesda game are effectively created using the game’s character creation tools. This implies that the character fidelity boost is a baseline, systematic improvement that should apply to all characters across the board, including NPCs and player creations alike. It’s also going to be interesting to see how these advanced visual features are used by Bethesda’s modding community, asStarfieldwill fully support modsfrom the very start.
As well-animated as the game’s NPCs might be, role-playing fans should also make note of the fact thatStarfieldis going all-in on RPG elementsacross the board. To that end, not only will characters look and animate in a way that’s never before been seen in a Bethesda game, but players will also get to enjoy a wide variety of classic character creator features that were previously present in games such asOblivion, only to be removed inSkyrimandFallout 4.
There’s already beena substantial number of awesomeStarfieldrevealsfeatured as part of its first proper gameplay showcase. With the game slated to launch early in 2023, Bethesda and Xbox are bound to have even more footage to show off in the coming weeks and months, and things are looking good so far.
Starfieldlaunches in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X.
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