Towards the end of last month, Bethesda released three videos narrated by design director Emil Pagliarulo, each focusing on one of the cities which will appear inStarfield. The studio’s upcoming space-set RPG seems to be leaning towards hard sci-fi, with no alien playable races, a focus on NASA-style function over form spacesuit designs, and in Pagliarulo’s own words, exploring a setting which in parts attempts to be a “true reflection of the future of our world.”
Despite the game’s apparent hard sci-fi leanings, the recent city highlights, as well as some older concept art, have led some Bethesda fans to compareStarfield’s planet design to one of the most famous sci-fi series,Star Wars.Star Warsis known for planets having just one biome: Tatooine is the desert planet, Hoth is the ice planet, Dagobah a swamp, and so on. There are reasons following this design pattern could be a problem forStarfield.
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Starfield And Open-World Planets
Bethesda is well-known for its open worlds above all else. Although there are plenty of RPGs that have tighter, more character-driven stories than the main questlines in most Bethesda games, it’s harder to find an RPG developer which can match the scope and seamless nature of Bethesda’s in-game worlds. It seems likely, however thatStarfieldwill buck the trend, and will have far less of an open world thanprevious Bethesda RPGs.
The reason for this is simple — it would be incredibly difficult rendering a seamless in-game world which spans multiple planets. Instead, it seems far more likely thatStarfieldwill let players visit multiple planets but will limit them to a small area of each of those worlds. Beyond the fact that this is the design of many other space-setRPGs likeMass EffectandThe Outer Worlds, there’s particular evidence thatStarfieldmay be going down this route now that the city highlight videos have been released.
Starfield’s Planet Design
In the video spotlighting the city of Neon, for example, Emil Pagliarulo makes several statements which suggest that players will only be exploring a tiny fraction of the planet the city is on:
“What you’re looking at here is thepleasure city of Neon. The Xenofresh Corporation built a giant fishing platform on a rather nondescript aquatic world. They wanted to catch fish until they discovered a fish with psychotropic properties. They could make way more money selling a drug than they could fish. That drug is Aurora and is legal only on Neon. People come from all over to experience it and everything else Neon has to offer.”
The fact that Neon’s planet is otherwise “nondescript” makes it seem very likely that players will only be accessing a single part of the planet — the city of Neon itself. This in turn has implications for the design of some of the otherlocations revealed inStarfieldso far.
The video covering Akila City, for example, mentions that beyond its walls are dangerous aliens resembling a mix between a velociraptor and a wolf. It seems likely that players will be able to access Akila City and a part of the surrounding area, but that the total explorable area on the planet will be far, far smaller than the map ofgames likeSkyrim.
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Starfield’s Star Wars-Like Planets
The description of Neon as an aquatic world has some interesting implications forStarfield’s planet design, suggesting that at least some of the game’s worlds will have single environments in the style ofStar Wars. The fact that players are unlikely to get to explore the entirety of each planet, however, also means that when visiting planets which are more environmentally diverse, players will likely only be exploring a single ecosystem on that planet.
It’s possible that United Colonies capital New Atlantis will be on a planet with as much environmental diversity as Earth in the story. It seems likely, however, that players will only explore the city and the forested area surrounding it, seen in the recently released video. This also makes it seem more likely that each area will be under the specific jurisdiction of one ofStarfield’s factions, further risking each planet feeling like its own isolated island.
This could risk makingStarfield’s in-game galaxy feel surprisingly small for a Bethesda RPG. InSkyrim, players could travel seamlessly between several different biomes, even if most of them were inspired by different parts of Northern Europe. They could travel from the forests of the Reach through to the grasslands ofWhiterunHold, all the way to the frozen wastelands around the College of Winterhold.
IfStarfield’s environments are more clearly divided between each of the game’s planets, players may find that exploration feels less organic, especially if there are loading screens and space travel mechanics between the player exploring different planets. Each planet risks seeming like a theme park, a brief summary rather than a truly organic world. There are plenty ofStar WarsRPGs that have found success despite the series planet formula — most notablyKnights of the Old Republicand its sequels.
BioWare, however, does not have the same reputation for building seamless open worlds as Bethesda. Not only that, but Bethesda has often prioritized its open world design at the expense of its story writing. This is a bargain many fans of the studio are happy to take, but ifStarfield’s explorable map feels divided into small pieces with their own distinct biome and the main story remains as light a focus as it is in Bethesda’s other games,Starfieldcould find itself taking on the worst of both worlds.
It’s possible, however, thatStarfield’s spaceflight systemwill be immersive enough that travelling between worlds does feel genuinely seamless. Time will tell, but if nothing else, Bethesda is certainly taking on a big risk by taking on a genre that poses such big challenges for the large open worlds that the studio built its name on.
Starfieldis set to release on June 07, 2025, for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
