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The release of Starfield is only half a year away now.
As the launch of Bethesda's first new IP in 25 years looms, no gameplay trailer is yet in sight. However, the fan community grows larger in its absence, teeming with hype.
A brand-new Bethesda Game Studio original franchise, which has only one other, means the developers have an excellent chance to re-invent their formula. This, aided by the fact that Bethesda has been drip-feeding its fanbase with glimpses of the art design and the game world, means that there is speculation aplenty.
Naturally, one-half of it is the speculation about new and improved open-world gameplay features.
Five loved features Starfield might implement from community wishlist
1) Seamless ground to space transition
Many different elements make an open world click gameplay-wise. But for a game to truly feel immersive, it needs to replicate the cohesive way players experience consciousness.
In other words, an open world feels believable if it is materially portrayed as such, which is why the golden chalice of immersion is the complete removal of 'loading doors.' This is also why arthmoor's 'Open Cities' is one of the most popular immersion-related mods from Skyrim.
Starfield's setting will take gamers across various star systems, and for it to truly feel like an open world, seamless ground to space transitions as the player pilots their spaceship is one of the biggest asks from Bethesda fans. Such an addition may sound very simple in theory, but it offers a significant layer of belongingness to the world.
For example, readers only need to look at No Man's Sky or Outer Wilds.
2) Grand scale
Arguably, Bethesda's biggest breakout series that has given them their identity in the gaming industry is Elder Scrolls. Its first entry, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, was released in 1994.
In a golden era of RPG already dominated by the Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Arena did not do much to deviate from the established party-RPG formula.
By Bethesda's own admission, their attempt to set themselves apart was not through any innovative new game mechanic but sheer scale. In a 2001 interview, one of Arena's lead designers, Ted Peterson, quipped:
"We weren't doing anything too new. We just did it bigger. Much, much bigger."
These early procedurally generated open worlds by no small means prop up Bethesda's entire pedigree as an RPG developer. Daggerfall, Arena's successor, was famously compared to the real-life UK regarding how long it takes to traverse its total landmass in real-time.
This reputation has been gradually lost to the ages as Bethesda embraced a more hand-crafted approach to open world design. With Starfield, though, the company has the chance to reinstate themselves at the top of open-world size tier lists, one-upping the likes of Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Thanks to its outer space setting, the scalability of Starfield will have interesting design implications. Here's to hoping that Bethesda makes good on it.
3) Expanded settlement building and property ownership
Numerous leaked pictures from the 2018 build of Starfield surfaced on the internet earlier this month. If this bundle of images from a work-in-progress alpha build is any indication, there is a good chance Starfield will have base-building.
The build-you-own-home concept was something Bethesda first materially explored in the Heartfire DLC of Skyrim. Fallout 4, however, was the game that really turned it into a separate system with its own UI and mechanical interactions.
Although only a part of Fallout 4 playerbase originally utilized the settlement-building feature, its reception has slowly become unanimous over the years. It only makes sense for Bethesda to port this mechanic to Starfield.
4) Meaningful interaction with deep factions
Bethesda's first occasion of dabbling with factions was in The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Subsequently also utilized by Daggerfall, their adaptation of the system was in line with its gamified foundation in the RPG trends of that era.
The warrior's guilds, mage's guilds, thief's guilds, and the like were primarily vessels for users to find quests and equipment that fit their class.
Nevertheless, these factions also played their part in world-building, especially the more bespoke and occult sort, like The Dark Brotherhood. Bethesda really improved this element in Morrowind and then Oblivion, granting each faction their distinct ideology, personality, and unique schticks.
However, similar attempts in Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 were not as successful.
With Starfield, the developer has a fresh start and a shot at making a believable spectrum of factions known not only by their ideological differences but also by how uniquely they interact with player action and karma.
With the Fallout 4 DLC, Far Harbour's, acclaimed writer William Shen in the lead, Starfield may finally upend Bethesda's disrepute for inconsistent writing.
5) 'Manual space flight' and driving
The possibility of 'manual space flight' has been subjected to heated contention within the Starfield community. For one, the very idea of a next-gen open-world sci-fi RPG in space necessitates some form of space travel. But not everyone else is sold on the idea of the ability to pilot a ship in a Bethesda game.
Manual space travel in Starfield boils down to a relatively simple mechanical implementation by today's AAA gaming standards. Bethesda Game Studio products, however, are infamous for never featuring vehicles. The horses in Elder Scrolls are as close as they get.
Yet, the elusive possibilities of the new Creation Engine 2 may remove the technical hurdles that kept the vehicles at bay in Fallout. Not only may Starfield be the first game to include functional vehicles in the beloved Bethesda exploration-combat-pillaging loop, but it also represents the opportunity for more mechanics like manual asteroid mining.
Note: This article reflects the author's views.
