Is Starfield the last hope for story-driven space exploration games?

Starfield is an upcoming story-driven space exploration RPG game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and is set for release in November 2022. While the anticipation surrounding the game is quite high, there is no doubt it is probably the last hope for the aforementioned genre.

Weaving together a great story, space, and exploration, is quite the challenge that the developers have undertaken. This has raised doubts as to whether the game will offer a complete experience that does justice to all three themes.

Starfield is going to try to achieve something that many have either partially done or failed at completely. This makes for an interesting experience that players will want to keep an eye out for when the game finally launches in November.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the views of the writer.

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Starfield has lofty ambitions, but the pressure to deliver is probably even greater

Starfield definitely has ambitions that no other game has been able to achieve in the past. The whole story-driven space exploration ideology with rich RPG elements is something that is extremely hard to achieve.

Old Mass Effect games and Halo have done it to some extent, but not so extensively. Mass Effect Andromeda is an example of an overambitious title that tried to do too much but ended up disappointing.

While games like Destiny do have a story focus, exploration is out of the question. Others like No Man's Sky provide immense potential for exploration but have no story to drive it.

Of course, there are fans who love these games for what they are, but what Starfield is seeking to achieve will take a lot more than what these games have delivered so far.

Bethesda Game Studios is no stranger to RPG games, with masterpieces like Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout, and many more under their belt. These games have deep and intricate exploration, rich RPG elements, and brilliant stories for players to feel and breathe.

However, the binding factor for these titles is the rather dense maps that they feature over a smaller area. It is always easier to create an interconnected story that can tie every region within a continent and add exploration elements without losing out on the depth of the game.

With the scale extended to space and planets, the same task becomes infinitely harder. Giving each area a purpose gets more challenging as the sheer size of the traversal area is expanded by several folds.

This means that the developers now have to create unique stories for every planet, provide each of them with its own unique identity, and add a lifeform that has its own way of surviving while also providing a strong reason for the players to come and explore the planet.

In a space exploration game that promises a deep story with RPG elements, one will need to have multiple layers that finally connect to something bigger in order to keep players interested. This is a task that is extremely difficult and, to some extent, impossible to do.

As mentioned previously, Mass Effect Andromeda tried this to some extent but failed. Others simply skipped one aspect to ensure that the quality of their game did not falter. Therefore, Starfield needs to keep a balance between all of them so that the quest to "answer humanity's greatest mystery" does not end in disappointment.