‘There’s no fire’ and why ‘Starfield’ had to have ten planets

Surveying the chaos of The Game Awards this year, there was an impressive debut from Hello Games. It will be like that Light Without Firea game that uses the core technology and features of No Man’s Sky for a new interpretation, reduced down to a single control world that can be explored, live, conquer or just survive.

Another awesome project from Hello Games that first tried to create an infinite universe with No Man’s Sky, it over promised that, then spent more than a decade adding processes to it. be better. Now, even though one planet is “small,” the amount of detail may be stronger, given what we’ve seen, and the goal is to make a planet full of accidents that spread the best “inhabited” planets of. No Man’s Heaven.

I know this is an interesting connection with Starfield, something that compares to No Man’s Sky since the first time we found out that Bethesda sent us to 1,000 different planets in 100 stars to explore. And yesterday, YouTuber NakeyJakey released a rare video about Starfield in particular, and how he believes it further strengthens Bethesda’s game design date in 2023. And how it could be that way. for ten years.

Even as a Starfield fan, it’s nice to watch his video and think about his thoughts, most of which I agree with. Basically, one of the things he is most right about is how research has changed. Although the big worlds are detailed and unique (even though they are full of your installation), but go out to “explore” the planets, you have lost a game like Fallout or Skyrim, the idea might be you are traveling towards a main quest through. accidents or other obstacles along the way.

It’s just that…it doesn’t happen the same way in Starfield. Most missions will put your ship down and walk straight to something on the horizon. If you’re lucky (10% of the time) you’ll be on a planet with creatures. Maybe 10% of that, they’ll be a good beast that actually wants to fight you.

If there are any “obstacles” here, things like enemy locations or abandoned locations are pinged on your radar. And while there are many unique settings in these things they… have their limitations. Near the end of the game, you can memorize down where the last boss and box will be. There was very little deviation from this throughout the game. No random dragon attacks, no secret caves leading to some kind of big outdoor game.

The problem here is scale, and bigger isn’t always better. Bethesda went for “real” here to a certain extent, where your star is in this universe possible travel to 100 star systems and 1000 planets and 900 of those planets will have almost nothing on their proper. And half of the planets where life is probably nothing more than some butterflies, palm trees and beaches. Moons or cold “alien” planets seem like they should be interesting to explore, but there are only a few metal structures and one small game that you play 40 times per game.

It feels like in trying to keep up with No Man’s Sky and its endless, recurring series, Bethesda lost something on the research side. Now, looking at what Light No Fire plans to do with a single, flat planet, I wonder if Bethesda would be better off making ten more detailed planets to explore instead of 900 dead planets and space pirates and 100 living. planet with aliens and … robbing spaceships. Something to welcome the one thing, despite the janky management (which is largely improved by Starfield!) and the dynamic dialogue (which is not there), the study and the feeling of the experiment revealed by his past games in many ways, are not here. Or at least it can quickly disappear beyond the first ten planets you might find. Sometimes, you fall down a really fun rabbit hole, but I can understand why most players don’t. With such a large universe a lot of it comes down to … luck, and it’s not a very interesting design.

While I’m still enjoying my time with Starfield, it’s easy to see how it could be better. And I agree with Jake that this is one of them. I’m very curious to see what the Fireless Light might do running the other way from here.

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Find my science fiction the Herokiller series and The Universal Triad.