There may have already been some big releases this year, with highly anticipated titles like Elden Ring finally making their way into the hands of players, but many gamers are still holding out for Bethesda's Starfield. The sci-fi RPG has ignited a lot of hype, especially considering its status as Bethesda's first original IP in two and a half decades. Starfield hasn't revealed many of its secrets since it was announced in 2018, and the developers have been remarkably tight-lipped regarding the details of its narrative. With the launch date inching closer, Bethesda has started to speak more and more about the upcoming Starfield, detailing its systems and settings just enough to pique player interest.
There has been a lot of time for players to speculate the ins and outs of Starfield since it was officially confirmed, from how space travel will work to what combat systems will be in place. However, one aspect that gamers have wondered about – a popular feature of many RPGs as well as most of Bethesda's previous titles – is character creation. Being able to create a character from scratch in a detailed system helps to imbue an RPG with the proper amount of personality, adding layers to the game that a standard characterization might not be able to achieve. While Starfield has confirmed some intricate elements with which players will be able to shape their characters, it doesn't look good for any gamers wanting to play as an alien.
The World Of Starfield
Bethesda has been clear that the emphasis of Starfield is exploration. Players will have the chance to uncover The Settled Systems – the area surrounding the Solar System extending outwards for fifty light-years – as a member of an organization of space explorers called Constellation. There will be other factions within Starfield, including the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective who are the most prominent groups and until recently have been involved in a violent Colony War. While not much has been revealed about Starfield's society other than a handful of factions, the picture it paints is of a diverse, nuanced, and stratified world that players will no doubt find challenging to navigate.
Starfield is looking to bring a large dose of realism and authenticity to its design. Starfield's NASA-punk aesthetic will exist alongside Bethesda's attempts to make NPCs and environments as visually impressive as possible. This goes hand in hand with a complex character creator, where players will be able to choose their background, faction affiliations, and personalize their origin story. This is an exciting feature that should allow gamers to engage fully with the world of Starfield and individualize their playthroughs. However, even if some aspects of Starfield's character creation seem in-depth, it doesn't appear as if players will be able to choose their race and play as anything other than human.
The Inclusion Of Aliens
Humanity are discovering new frontiers in Starfield, but that might not necessarily mean they are discovering sentient alien races. In other popular sci-fi RPGs like the Mass Effect series, aliens make up the majority of fans' favorite characters. While players may not be able to play as another race in the Mass Effect games, the existence of aliens and their complicated relationships with humanity helps to create an in-game world that is as interesting as it is expansive. Interactions between warring human factions can be fascinating, but the way that different races engage with each other could be a fundamental part of a game's narrative and drive the majority of its conflicts and challenges.
While it's true that players still know relatively little about how Starfield's vast space exploration will play out or how its systems will be set up, glimpses of the game so far haven't hinted at any significant human-alien interactions. Bethesda's whole realism focus appears to move away from the inclusion of extraterrestrials, and instead keeps humanity at the forefront. While this doesn't mean that the game will lack a strong narrative or interesting elements of adventure, some players will undoubtedly be disappointed to miss out on one of the stalwarts of sci-fi games if other sentient species aren't included.
That's not to say that they have explicitly been ruled out yet, either. The E3 2021 trailer for Starfield included the line: "that's why we're here... To discover what's out there." With Starfield's focus on discovery and exploration, it's perfectly possible that sentient aliens could be encountered at some point in the game. However, that does unfortunately rule them out as a playable race, or perhaps even as companions for players as well.
Humanity In Space
Every look at Starfield that players have been given so far seems to focus on a handful of core features. Chief among them is the game's preoccupation with how humans could survive and thrive in space. It questions what human colonies would look like, what factions would inevitably spring up, and how humans would quench their need for exploration. Starfield wants to put humans front and center, and their struggles in space and their continuing journeys of discovery do make strong narrative focal points, as well as offer up strong gameplay opportunities.
Previous Bethesda games have really benefited from a variety of playable races, like the Elder Scrolls series, which let players choose to experience the game as anything from elves to Khajiits. Different races allowed for a wider variety of builds, with players able to tailor their character to certain environments, as well as equip them for specific challenges. While this can be a popular element, it seems very unlikely Starfield will follow suit. The story doesn't seem to be about how already established races interact, or about creating a unique character whose race is an integral part of how they navigate the world.
Starfield seems to want to see how humans could conceivably live among the stars, as well as how they could tackle exciting new frontiers while still working out how to manage resources and interact peacefully with each other. Living in outer space is enough of a culture shift that there are still many interesting ways for Starfield's story to play out. Some of the greatest sci-fi narratives of all time don't feature a single alien, after all.
Starfield releases November 11, 2022, for PC and Xbox Series X/S.