Starfield is scheduled to release in the first half of 2023, and anticipation for the game continues to mount. The first new IP from Bethesda Game Studios in 25 years, Starfield promises to be a breathtaking journey through the cosmos as humans explore over 100-star systems and 1000 planets. Lead quest designer Will Shen recently shared that players will visit Earth and Mars. While fans are excited to learn the mystery of what happened to the Solar System, Mars may struggle to stand out with so many exoplanets to explore.
With conception dating back as early as the 2010s, Starfield was officially trademarked in 2013, with active development taking place since the release of Fallout 4 in 2015. While initially scheduled for a November 2022 release, its release date was pushed back to 2023 to allow for more work to be done on the project. Todd Howard, director and executive producer has stated that he is aiming for Starfield to be a platform bestseller and needed the necessary time to hammer out all the details.
Exploration in Starfield
According to Howard, exploration will be at the heart of Starfield, which wants players to immerse themselves in the game. Being developed by a team double the size of Fallout 76, the game will allow players to choose their paths in addition to the main story, which they can do at their leisure. With so many star systems and planets to explore, Howard was sure to emphasize player agency within the game, utilizing traditional RPG elements that have made Bethesda games popular.
Due to the nature of humanity to explore the unknown, Howard has revealed that Starfield will contain two step-out moments, incidents where players will be confronted with the awe of the surrounding universe. Howard likens this to actual life, as space is seen as the final frontier for humanity to explore. With the game set in the future, Howard has further detailed that there will be no super flashy, futuristic alien technology rooted in magic. Instead, the game will embrace a gritty realism that shows a natural evolution from the real world's current technology regarding space flight.
To capture that sense of realism and make it rife for exploration, Howard toured SpaceX. He spoke with Elon Musk regarding the logistics, technology, and physics of space, discussing space stations, ships, exoplanets, and other astronomical elements. Furthermore, Howard visited the Air and Space Museum to honor the technological feats of the past to ensure realism inspired the design for the game, its locations, and exploration.
The idea of humanity as a space-faring species is the intricate string that ties all the exploration elements together within Starfield. With exploration being a vital component of the experience, Howard wishes to use Starfield to explore the philosophical questions of what is next for humanity after achieving space flight, what its place is among the stars, and what its purpose is amid the wonders of the cosmos. While there are narrative threads that answer these questions, Howard wants players to sink countless hours into the game to discover its answers and their own.
What Happened to Mars in Starfield?
Starfield is set in 2310, in a region of space roughly fifty light-years from Earth and its Solar System called the Settled Systems. With over 1,000 planets, players will meet various factions, mercenaries, pirates, explorers, and corporations with their agendas and ideologies to be explored. Within Starfield's lore, two major factions - the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective - are in the midst of a Cold War.
While the player is independent of these factions at first, they are instead part of a group in Starfield called Constellation, which aims to explore and understand the Milky Way Galaxy. As time has passed, more information has been disclosed regarding locations outside New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies, and Akila, the capital of the Freestar Collective. A third city, Neon, will also feature prominently as a pleasure center. This information comes recently from Will Shen, the lead quest designer on Starfield.
Shen is well known to the Bethesda community, as he led the quest designs for Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC, which received critical acclaim from long-time fans and critics for its storytelling, length, and characters. Shen has emphasized that players will return to the Solar System to discover what happened to Earth, visiting the planet to unearth and learn more about certain artifacts tied to the main quest.
Shen detailed this information in an interview Bethesda recently released called Constellation Questions: Talking Starfield with Will Shen. In this clip, Shen dove into further detail, revealing that players would visit Mars and see an ancient Cydonia colony full of NPCs with their troubles and issues that need solving. Cydonia, built in the early days of humanity's space exploration, will also hold critical mysteries and may tie into what happened to Earth and why humanity left the Solar System for the Settled Worlds.
How Will Mars Stand Out Against Other Exoplanets?
Howard has promised over 1,000 explorable planets, with more possibly coming in future DLC installments or through the modding community. However, he was sure to note that many of them were handcrafted, especially those that would appear within a star system's Goldilock's Zone - Earth-like planets that can support life. While other planets will provide mining, resources, minerals, and other rare resources for crafting and building, many aspects will also feature procedural generation, along with procedurally generated quests.
With many exoplanets to explore, Mars may not stand out as prominently as some fans expect. While the Red Planet is a topic of intensity in actual current events, in Starfield, the planet will be in a Solar System which appears to have been abandoned en masse from most humans. The fact that Cydonia is described as an ancient settlement means that its overall appearance could be anti-climatic. Compared to the alien worlds players may find throughout the hundreds of other star systems, Mars may remain a red, dusty planet with gritty, tough NPCs living a rugged, industrial life.
Starfield releases in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.