Xbox’s Summer 2023 Showcase brought lots of exciting game announcements and collaborations, but Starfield was rightfully the main event. It’s one of the most highly-anticipated Xbox exclusives in a long time, and its in-depth gameplay reveal during the lengthy Starfield Direct certainly didn’t disappoint.
RELATED:Xbox’s Games Showcase Blew PlayStation’s Out Of The Water
It’s been stated that Starfield is Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years, and it’s also the most ambitious. You can see the careful and intricate detail put into every aspect of this game to provide perhaps one of the most intriguing, exhilarating, andincredible space exploration games ever made. These are some details you may have missed.
10New Character Creation System And Explorer’s Watch HUD
As expected of Bethesda’s new RPG, Starfield has character creation but deviates slightly from the previousFalloutgames. On top of customizing your character’s features, which already look detailed enough to make a truly unique space explorer, you also have backgrounds and traits to select from.
Backgrounds combine class systems and backstories, offering three starter skills and a variety of options like Chef, Bounty Hunter, and Professor. Traits also come in three and are optional but add more flavor to the story, like potentially visiting your parents, being worshipped by citizens, or unlocking dialogue opportunities.
You learn that your HUD takes the shape of an Explorer Watch, akin to the survival watch fromStranded Deep, but much more technologically advanced. This watch is critical to navigating environments, unlocking doors, and learning about planetary conditions and completion status. It even hasa replica you’re able to wear with the collector’s edition.
9Companions And Crew Recruiting
You won’t be a lone space explorer like Returnal’s Selene Vassos and can have companions join you along your interstellar adventures similar toThe Outer Worlds. Whether it’s a main character you meet during the story,even a robot companionthat can help you in battle, or a stranger you rescue, they’re all welcome to the team.
RELATED:Best Companions In Video Games
Starfield allows you to have multiple outposts and pilot a ship, all needing crew members. Therefore, you can assign various characters you encounter to different outposts or your spacecraft. There’s also an allusion tohaving romance options and relationshipsavailable with the companions you get close to.
8Scanner Mechanic And Outpost Base-Building
Much like No Man’s Sky, you have a scanner equipped to examine data on the resources and species of alien life you’re interested in or to complete surveying objectives to gain rewards. The scanner UI shows how much of the planet’s flora and fauna have been explored and highlights your current creature in green while displaying its critical information.
Aside from scanning when you’re on planets,you’ll be able to build outpoststhat exhibit as much detail as the ships. The base-builder view is now top-down isometric in contrast to Fallout 4’s camera, where you join individual parts as you would in No Man’s Sky. And there’s lots of fantastic interior decorating to be done as well.
7Zero-Gravity Combat And New Weapons
The Starfield showcase revealed new gameplay footage of combat and weaponry that dives into the physics of zero-gravity shoot-outs. You can engage foes while floating in zero-G environments (in the first or third-person!), but certain weapons will launch you further and further back in the air as you fire on others.
Some of the new weapons that were introduced include the standard ballistic machine gun weapons, energy weapons, and high-powered electromagnetic weapons. But then there’s always punching and melee combat, which even applies to some of the tall extraterrestrial animal inhabitants.
6Dogfighting Mechanics And Ship Boarding
You can’t have a massive open-world space exploration game without some enemy crafts engaging you in outer space dogfights. And Bethesda really came prepared with the details in the Direct. Not only will there be plenty of dogfights left and right, but they have systems attached to them to make them more immersive and sim-like.
RELATED:Best Aerial Dogfighting Moments In Games
Your performance in a dogfight depends on how you allocate power across the engine for better speed, the shield and ballistics for strategic combat, and your Gravity Drive for a speedy escape. There’s also a skill for targeting the enemy ship’s specific components. After a dogfight, you may board your enemy’s ship and loot everything there, including the ship itself.
5Massive Star System World-Building
Starfield did promise that there were over a thousand planets to travel to, and now we see more about how it will be possible. The world-building goes way beyond the scope of The Outer Worlds, allowing you to travel through numerous planets of all different kinds of star systems located on the Star Map and some restricted by your current stats.
The Star Map allows you to examine the details of each planet the cursor hovers over, revealing their resources, any available quests, the flora and fauna to be scanned, and the overall completion of the area. Zoom out of the system, and then you can glimpse the neighboring star systems nearby and explore what their planets offer.
4New Biomes And Creatures
The planets didn’t just stop at the exterior UI of them on the Star Map. In the new gameplay, you can see the detailed biomes of just a few mysterious planets, with their lush terrain and native alien creatures. One instance saw gray spider-like beings like the ones fromThe Mandalorianand other giant insects like a praying mantis.
There’s a planet with blue foliage frequented by tall, furry, humped hybrid creatures with eyes on the sides of their heads, and another with dinosaur-like animals roaming the landscape. Then, you also see some of the more dangerous predators you’ll have to face. All of their designs look captivating and a nice blend of Fallout andStar Warsspecies.
3Comprehensive Ship Customization
Another critical reveal of Starfield’s mechanics is its ship customization, and it may be the best we’ve seen yet. There’s just so much you can add and change among its components on the outside. The development team in the Direct even showed examples of how creative things can get, such as making your ship into various animal shapes and enormous robots.
RELATED:The Best Video Game Spaceships, Ranked
Like the outpost builder, the ship-building is done in a similar isometric camera view along a grid, with the selected parts highlighted in green. Extending beyond the interchangeable parts, the ship can receive an entire makeover with desired colors for its body and your choice of room placements and stations within the interior.
2United Colonies And Freestar Space Civilizations
Starfield’s lore alludes to a colony war breaking out, as heard by the environmental storytelling when passing by a memorial on New Atlantis. New Atlantis is a sprawling hub in the Alpha Centauri System with some eye-popping architecture and is flooded with engaging NPCs. This settlement is also under the United Colonies (UC) faction.
The other faction is called the Freestar Collective, which had teases of its environments. The capital was revealed as Akila City in the Cheyenne system, and it’s pretty much a Wild West theme with cowboys, saloons, and duels. The second Freestar space location showcased is Neon, a hedonistic cyberpunk theme that echoes Night City.
1Constellation Story Details
And finally, some more story details have come to light for Starfield. The protagonist joins an order of space explorers called Constellation based out of New Atlantis in the United Colonies. The Constellation organization is after enigmatic “artifacts” that don’t seem to be of their universe, one of which you have come in contact with and brought for them.
The group’s primary goal is to explore the vast secrets of space, and you find potential companions among Sarah Morgan, the leader of Constellation, scientist Noelle, the overly excited theologian Matteo, space cowboys, former pirates, and a host of others. These characters already leave you wanting to explore more of their dialogue and storylines with their distinct and terrific personalities.
