Todd Howard has suggested that Starfield is "five or six" games in one during an interview after the extensive Direct focusing on the latest Bethesda RPG. A Starfield Direct followed the Xbox Games Showcase on June 11, and it gave Bethesda fans more of an idea of what to expect from the next title from the studio, and Howard has dropped even more details.
Prior to the June 11 Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, Bethesda has kept fairly quiet about its next big RPG to rival intellectual properties like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. With so little known about the game prior to the event, the gameplay shown off was full of mechanics and features for fans to learn more about ahead of the game's September release. During a panel after the Starfield Direct, Todd Howard revealed several more things like how well the game works on the Xbox Series S and has confirmed even more during a sit-down interview with IGN.
While discussing many things that make Starfield stand out in comparison to Fallout and Skyrim, Howard revealed just how much work Bethesda made to expand player freedom and creativity. According to Howard, Starfield is like "five or six" games in one, noting the spaceship simulation, ground travel, dialogue system, outpost building, and crafting elements of the game that come together in one package. Not stating whether Starfield does some of these elements better than other Bethesda games like Skyrim, Howard emphasized how much work the developer put into ensuring a proper game flow as players move from one type of experience to another.
As Howard explained how the various elements come together in Starfield, he clarified that they don't come off as different games to players despite how much development has been done to distinguish each system. As there are different ways to play Starfield with these various features, Howard also confirmed that he's testing as many aspects of the game as he can, with the latest focusing on spaceships. Given that previous Bethesda games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim have included similar mechanics like dialogue and crafting, Howard may just be suggesting that Starfield just has a little more to it than the others.
Because Starfield has experienced a few delays since Bethesda announced it, each of the different types of games under its umbrella may have benefited from the extra time. Given that some activities are related to things in other Bethesda games like crafting in Skyrim and settlement building in Fallout 4, some players may see overlap with the older titles as they explore the universe of Starfield.
Starfield releases for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6.