Bethesda Director Todd Howard went on record to explain why Starfield will be a "modder's paradise," as well as the next step in the company's comprehensive community content strategy. His insights into the highly anticipated game arrived as part of a recent Q&A that also saw Howard confirm the exact number of romance options in Starfield.
Following the June 11 Starfield Direct, Bethesda started a full-fledged marketing campaign in preparation for the early September release of its space-fairing RPG. As part of those efforts, Howard appeared on the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Xcast to reveal the percentage of Starfield planets with life on them, among many other details about the upcoming game.
One of those tidbits of information came in response to a question about Bethesda's plans for Starfield's mod support, which the studio originally confirmed a year ago. Elaborating on that feature, Howard labeled modding as part of the developer's "DNA," adding that he fully expects the upcoming game to be a "paradise" for modders and serve as a culmination of Bethesda's two decades' worth of community content support. With Starfield, the studio doesn't intend to stop with releasing official modding tools, but continuously facilitate fan-created content to such a degree that modders can approach it as "not just a hobby but a career," Howard explained.
Between that ambitious promise and the fact that over half of the top 10 largest modding communities on both Nexus Mods and Mods DB—the two biggest website in the niche—revolve around Bethesda games, there's little doubt that Starfield will enjoy a massive influx of unofficial content from the moment it hits the market. The modding floodgates are expected to open with simple weapon and equipment additions, as well as bug fixes. Regarding the latter, some veteran Bethesda modders have already confirmed plans to release a community patch that will address any major bugs in the initial version of the game.
Such unofficial patches have historically been viewed as critical for an optimal player experience in many past Bethesda titles. That notwithstanding, Microsoft Studios Head Matt Booty recently said that Starfield will have the fewest bugs of any Bethesda game ever, hence suggesting the upcoming title might break with that trend. Regardless, the current general feeling among the fandom is that the game's very premise promises to lend itself well to community-created content, with many fans believing that planets could be a huge boon for Starfield's modding scene.
Starfield launches September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.