Highlights
- Bethesda has released three animated shorts for Starfield, the first marketing efforts since the June 11 Starfield Direct event.
- The shorts provide glimpses into different locations in the game, including Akila City and Neon, highlighting their unique features and dangers.
- While one of the shorts details the story of a courier pilot seeking adventure, it doesn't reveal much new information about the game's lore, but does state that the capital of the United Colonies is considered the most desirable part of the settled systems.
Bethesda published three animated shorts revealing new lore details about Starfield. This is the first occasion on which the company shared information on its upcoming game since the June 11 Starfield Direct.
That event offered plenty of new gameplay footage, revealing details about Starfield companions, skills, and PC hardware requirements, among other things. However, some fans were also expecting that the mid-June showcase will mark the start of a months-long marketing campaign leading up to the RPG's early September release. While that hasn't come to pass, it would appear that Bethesda is now finally ramping up its Starfield marketing efforts.
Namely, the company today released a trio of animated shorts with a combined runtime of just over eight minutes. Each promo features a different protagonist and is seemingly looking to provide the fandom with a glimpse at a small slice of life from some of Starfield's 1000+ planets. One of them is set in Akila City, the capital of the Freestar Collective that hasn't yet been prominently featured in Starfield promos. That short, titled Where Hope is Built, suggests that the largest city on the planet of Akila is a fairly dangerous place, as underlined by the fact that its idyllic atmosphere is often interrupted by raider attacks.
Meanwhile, The Hand that Feeds promo takes place in Neon, also known as Ocean Planet's "pleasure city." The short confirms that this particular location will be primarily inspired by the cyberpunk genre, which Bethesda already hinted at when it released the first description of this Starfield city back in 2021. The same video also reveals that Neon hosts a strong presence of Ryujin Industries, a shady corporation that seems to be up to no good. Despite its clear cyberpunk influences, Neon still appears to be a fairly unique setting, not least because the city is built on a giant fishing platform, with the end result being somewhat reminiscent of an afloat version of Rapture from BioShock.
The final Starfield promo released today by Bethesda is called Supra Et Ultra, which is Latin for "above and beyond." True to its name, the short details the story of an United Colonies courier pilot seeking the thrill of intergalactic adventures beyond New Atlantis. This particular video doesn't yield much new information about the game's lore, but its description does reveal one interesting tidbit, stating that the capital of the United Colonies is widely considered to be "the most desirable part of the settled systems" within the game's world.
Starfield launches September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.