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Blog entry by Halley Colvin

Bethesda's Starfield Is About Next-Gen Gameplay

Bethesda's Starfield Is About Next-Gen Gameplay

A week ago, an industry insider shared their knowledge regarding Bethesda’s plans to launch Starfield at the end of 2021 . According to a short post on ResetEra forums, the company was allegedly aiming at a 2021 release date as of a few months ago. These plans could’ve been impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively affected many titles that are being currently developed. The insider also added that the alleged 2021 release was being discussed at the end of 2020, which basically means that a lot could’ve changed since t

During an interview with Wired regarding Skyrim, Howard stated that procedural generation was used to create infinite quests. NPCs and enemies also used procedural generation when fighting or spawning into the world. It’s likely many of these aspects will appear again, but there could be some randomization in dungeon layout on top of t

That being said, Howard warns that it is still going to be a while until Starfield is finally treated to a proper public (or even private) demonstration. Moreover, the game doesn’t have a solid release date (as it's subject to change), so the team will only show off the space-bound RPG once Bethesda feels confident enough in it. This goes in line with a previous statement by Pete Hines, who said that the community would have to wait a while for a detailed reveal. Hines mentioned that Starfield would be worth the exhausting wait , though, which isn’t hard to believe considering the amount of work reportedly being put into the development of the ti

That made the potential Starfield screenshot leak this fall even more exciting, as it represented the first look at an otherwise mysterious project from one of the biggest game developers around. While their validity was called into question at the time, it now seems more likely that they were legitimate. That’s thanks to Bethesda managing director Ashley Cheng, who recently appeared in a montage from Develop:Brighton, where Todd Howard was accepting a Develop:Star Award. As spotted by Reddit user Rynderend , Cheng is seen wearing a Starfield shirt with a logo on the sleeve identical to the one shown on the character’s spacesuit in the leaked Starfield screenshot. The matching logos lend credence to the screenshot being real, as it would be quite the coincidence if Bethesda just happened to pick the same design for its Starfield merchand

The game's engine will be a huge leap forward in terms of visual quality and available features from past Bethesda games, as Howard claims that the upgrade will mark a more visible jump ahead in quality than even the huge technological gap between The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion . Apart from procedural generation, this engine will supposedly also improved animations, rendering, AI, and more. Speaking of AI, Howard specifically highlighted that NPCs will play bigger roles in future games, namely Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI . Addressing Bethesda's newly established partnership with Microsoft, Howard promised that both next-gen titles will be available on Xbox Game Pass at lau

Starfield was announced at E3 2018, and since then, next to nothing has been revealed about the game. The few scraps of information that Bethesda has made public since - like the fact that Starfield will be an exclusively single-player game - have come very recently. At its reveal, Bethesda said that there was still a long wait in store for Starfield, and there are no hints as to when that wait will be over yet. All that’s known on the subject is that Starfield crafting Guide|https://starfieldgalaxy.com/ is expected to launch before the long-awaited Elder Scrolls

Another industry insider, Skullzi , who is known for gaming investigations and reports, has shared a leaked screenshot allegedly taken from an in-development build of Starfield . Although the screenshot had poor quality, it nonetheless represented a huge leap forward in terms of improved visuals compared to other Bethesda’s RPGs. Realistic lighting, reflections, shadows, and detailed environments implied that Starfield could be a true next-gen title. In the bottom-left corner, the picture included the same piece of HUD that was present on previously leaked Starfield screenshots, which added a bit of credibility. But as the story was rapidly developing, Skullzi had to take down the post on Twitter since some users claimed the leak was fake. They pointed out a visible similarity between the alleged screenshot and environmental walking simulator Mýrdalssandur, Iceland . Skullzi's source (presumably from Bethesda) later confirmed that the leak was 100% f

christ-cross-god-jesus-religion-christianity-christian-religious-easter-thumbnail.jpgIn a recent discussion with Gamespot at PAX Australia, Bethesda's VP of Marketing Pete Hines spoke a bit more about both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI and explained why they decided to announce both games so far in advance. Hines acknowledged that while it would have likely been better to continue going down this route of announcing games only shortly before they're ready, he said that the aim with these two reveals was to be transparent to their f

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