It is a truth universally acknowledged that Morrowind is the greatest game ever created. At least, acknowledged by me, and that’s all that matters. That weird sideways step in the Elder Scrolls series took the action away from wide procedural generation in Daggerfall to a smaller, more focused approach – with incredible success. Recently things have been going the other way, though, with Starfield containing an especially large galaxy to explore. Bethesda head honcho Todd Howard has spoken about why its games are getting bigger, and how it tries to balance that with fun.
“We cut very little from our games at Bethesda,” Howard says, speaking about Starfield in a recent Bafta interview. “Which is why the games are so irresponsibly large. And it really comes to the whole team, you know, putting a lot of creativity into the game. It’s obviously not just me, and I think that’s what makes them special.”
It turns out that this approach of including as much as possible has its fair share of downsides too, as the developer of the space RPG found out when it came to building the actual universe. “We pushed ourselves in every part of the game” Howard explains. “But the biggest challenge was first, how do we generate these planets? Is that even a good idea? Ok, maybe at the time, no, but we made it work.”
With the newfound ability to create planets under its belt, Bethesda had to look at the actual experience of playing the game and what players would be doing on those floating space rocks. “With games it’s putting you in that world, and having it react to you, having it pique your curiosity,” Howard says. “And that when you have this curiosity for what’s over that hill, the game rewards it.”
Despite that approach, planetary exploration has remained one of the most criticized aspects of the game. Even the most ardent fans admit that after a while there’s a limited appeal to continuing to explore Starfield planets, coming across the same points of interest repeatedly with little variation.
That said, with the upcoming Starfield Shattered Space DLC release date coming very soon, the expansion may fix some of the repetitive issues around exploration. This is due to it looking to harken back to earlier Bethesda games like Morrowind, complete with a smaller, more hand-crafted experience.
Starfield Shattered Space will launch on Monday September 30. If you’d like to check out this DLC for yourself, head over to Steam to get the full lowdown.
For those looking to expand their base game without paying a penny, our guide to the best Starfield mods will get you all the modding goodness you need. Our best space games article will also help you aim for the stars, if you want to explore the cosmos in a different way.
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