Perhaps the biggest single nugget revealed is that we now know the next two RPG projects from Bethesda following Starfield, with Howard outright stating “The Elder Scrolls VI is in pre-production and we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that.” So, taking into account the pace Bethesda works at, get ready for more post-apocalyptic fun around 2029 (if we’re lucky). Returning to the subject of Starfield, one of the big headlines coming out of the gameplay reveal was that it will feature 1000 explorable planets. Of course, that immediately raised the question – is Bethesda handcrafting these planets? Or are they falling back on procedural generation, as would be obvious? It seems it’s mostly the latter. Howard outright admits that many of the procedurally generated planets in Starfield may not be particularly fun to explore, but they still wanted them to exist to create a feeling of scope. And if you get bored surveying the outer reaches of the galaxy, there’s still a meaty handcrafted core campaign to return to. In fact, he said Starfield features the most handcrafted content they have ever made, and it will be fairly obvious which planet has handcrafted content and which is procedurally generated. Howard also reveals that seamlessly flying from planet to planet and landing ala games like No Man’s Sky isn’t a feature of Starfield. Flying around certain sections of space and exploring planets are largely separate experiences, as making things seamless was “just not that important” in Howard’s estimation. Starfield launches on PC and Xbox Series X/S in the first half of 2023.
