Starfield E3 2021 reveal exclusive: How Todd Howard spent 25 years creating his 'NASA-punk' space RPG
Pen-and-paper RPGs, around the world explorers, and Elon Musk have all played in a role in shaping in 2022's most anticipated game
So, Todd Howard, what do you do in the game?
“Well it's coming out next year so there'll be a lot of time to show actual gameplay – and we'll do that closer to release, like we usually do,” he explains with impeccably practiced patience. “But I will say this: it is a first person and third person game, like our other ones. We like that style of gameplay. First person for us is still our prime way of playing. So you can see the world and touch all those things.
“It's also a bit more hardcore of a role playing game than we've done. It's got some really great character systems – choosing your background, things like that. We’re going back to some things that we used to do in games long ago that we felt have really let players express the character they want to be. So I think when you see it being played, you would recognise it as something we made.”
Previously Howard has spoken about Starfield being infused with Bethesda Game Studios’ DNA. What does that mean to him, and how has it informed this game specifically?
“Well, we like to put you in a world where we're not dragging you by the nose and saying you must do X, Y and Z, and that it's okay for you to want to test the [game’s boundaries]. You know, can I read this book? Can I pick this up? Can I do this? What if I do this? What if I do this? And the game is saying ‘yes’ a lot.
“And it has large scale goals and storytelling, but that minute-to-minute feels rewarding for you. And if you just want to pass the time and go watch the sunset and pick flowers it's rewarding in that way too. The quiet moments feel really really good.”
There are alien races too – although Howard won’t disclose how they tie in to the game’s realistic grounding (“There is a way we approach it, I will say that”) – and planets to explore. How challenging is it to design an open universe versus an open world? The worlds of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout are large but relatively self-contained. The universe is, by its very nature, infinite.
“Not necessarily…” counters Howard. “I don't want to set any crazy expectations for that. You know, we have cities and we build them like we built the cities we've built before. And we have lots of locations that we're building like we've built before. And we want that experience of you exploring those to be, you know, as rewarding as we've done before.
“There are some different spins on that given the subject matter, but we like that about games. We want to point in a direction and walk and have our curiosity be piqued, and hopefully rewarded.”
Lot more at the link -
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/feat ... -25-years/
