Exploring Starfield's lack of seamless space flight, its impact on gameplay and player expectation

With the gameplay reveal footage airing from the Xbox Bethesda Games Showcase, Starfield has been a focal point of hype among fans. Space RPG, in the works at the studio best known for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, is one of the flagship titles coming out of the Xbox stable next year.

In an interview with IGN right after the gameplay reveal showcase, Bethesda’s director and executive producer, Todd Howard, talked about the space flight element of the upcoming game.

Starfield won't allow players to fly seamlessly from space to its 1,000 explorable planets. He added that the feature is "really just not that important to the player" to justify the developmental resources that would make it a reality.

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Starfield won't do seamless planetary landings, which is fine because it’s not a space sim

Talking about this aspect of Starfield, Howard mentioned,

“People have asked, ‘Can you fly the ship straight down to the planet?’ No. We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you’re in space it’s another reality.”

We have already seen seamless planetary landings being a reality in games like No Man’s Sky, Elite Dangerous, and Star Citizen. However, fans should remember that these games are space sims, and the idea that players are exploring a single, gigantic open space is a unique selling point for these games.

Being an RPG first, Starfield is likely better off allocating developmental resources to other gameplay aspects than trying to mimic some niche technical aspects of space sims.

Todd Howard mentioned,

“If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you’re just spending a lot of time [on something] that’s really just not that important to the player. So let’s make sure it’s awesome when you’re on the surface and awesome when you’re in space, and those realities look and play as good as they can be.”

The Mass Effect series has done it in the same way as Starfield. Players would have to go through a transition screen as they would go from the Normandy spaceship to a planet.

That didn't take anything away from the player experience; hopefully, it won’t detract from the experience in Starfield either.

Starfield is slated for release on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass in the first half of 2023.