Highlights
- Bethesda's upcoming RPG Starfield offers over 20 named characters that players can recruit as crew members for their spacecrafts, each with their own background and story to uncover.
- The ability to build and customize ships, optimize them for space combat, and alter the interior with selectable modules is one of the many deep systems in Starfield.
- Starfield promises a vast open-world experience with over 1,000 planets and 100 star systems to explore, making it potentially the largest RPG ever made.
Bethesda's imminent sci-fi RPG Starfield will offer over 20 named characters for players to welcome into their crew. Starfield, launching early next month, is Bethesda's first single-player RPG since Fallout 4 in 2015. The space-faring epic promises hours upon hours of space exploration across over 1,000 planets and 100 star systems with the assistance of procedural generation, making it potentially the largest RPG ever made.
Alongside being able to build settlements like in Fallout 4, one of the many deep systems Starfield offers is the ability for players to build and customize their own ships. Players can optimize these ships for use in space combat, and the array of selectable modules can also alter the rooms and stations on the interior of the craft. Perhaps most importantly, players will be able to staff said spacecrafts with crew members who can be found and recruited among the game's many cities and planets.
Pulling from a recent Starfield Q&A, Klobrille compiled a list of new information about the massive space RPG on Twitter. One of the tidbits highlighted in the post was the fact that there will be over 20 named characters that players can recruit as crew members on their spacecrafts. Each one of these potential crew mates comes with their own dedicated background and story for players to uncover. It's unknown whether these 20 characters can also be stationed at players' settlements or if they're only available for the ship crew. Nevertheless, there are sure to be a lot of varying personalities players will be able to welcome aboard during their voyage across Starfield's many star systems.
For players who enjoy companions in RPGs, it'll be interesting to know if any of these potential crew members will also be able to join the players' side in on-foot exploration and combat. As past Bethesda games such as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4 featured companions, Starfield will as well, with some of them being touted as playing integral roles in the game's main storyline. Still, the question remains whether some of Starfield's companions will double as crew mates and vice versa. It's also currently unknown if players will be able to recruit every one of the over 20 named crew mates at once or if there's a limit based on the size of the spacecraft.
With other deep features such as being able to live in any of the game's major cities, being put in jail for committing crimes or paying a fine to walk free, and each government having its own set of laws to abide by, Starfield is seeming increasingly like a life simulator in space. The idea of meeting interesting characters along one's journey and recruiting them as crew members can be an exciting prospect for many fans. As just one of the many systems and features Starfield has on offer, assembling one's spacecraft crew could turn out to be a fan-favorite.
Starfield is coming to PC and Xbox Series X|S on September 6.