Can Starfield Be Too Big For Its Own Good?

Starfield's gameplay was finally unveiled at the recent Xbox and Bethesda Games showcase, and one of the landmarks of its reveal was its map - specifically how huge it's going to be. With great pride, Todd Howard revealed that the game's map will be far more expansive than anything they've ever built.

(Photo : YouTube - Xbox On)
starfield trailer

However, some fans are already asking whether Starfield's map will be way too big for its own good. And they're making a lot of valid points.

'Worrisome' Scale

This is what Game Informer thinks of Bethesda's decision to implement Starfield in such a massive scale. To start off, know that the game has been advertised as having over 1,000 fully explorable planets. Not just specific spots on the planet, mind you: each of those planets can be explored in their entirety. Think No Man's Sky but Bethesda made it.

According to them, they're worried that Bethesda is going for quantity over quality with Starfield's map. And one can't really blame them - the studio's pedigree for creating amazing open words with depth is evident in their work on the Elder Scrolls series. For now, Game Informer is just worried that all of the 1,000 explorable planets in the space sim is going to be boring and uninspired. But one can't really know until the game comes out next year.

(Photo : Bethesda Twitter)
starfield

YouTuber Impressions

YouTuber BaileyPoints shared his personal thoughts on Starfield's map and overall scale. According to them, it would be too much of a technical challenge even for a studio like Bethesda to hand-craft all of those planets. That's literally what's causing another game, Star Citizen, to take ages to make. As such, they would've resorted to something called procedural generation tech - i.e. let the computer make things on its own.

They argue that procedurally generated planets will not be as interesting as, say, a hand-crafted planet where everything was planned by an actual human mind. This tech could help with increasing the breadth of a game, but could actually cost it depth. And in a story-heavy RPG like Starfield, that could be very, very troublesome. You might have over 1,000 explorable planets, but are they even worth exploring to begin with?

'No Man's Skyrim'

So many people are calling Bethesda's new game "No Man's Skyrim," and basically, they're not wrong. It has the massive scale of No Man's Sky (even though it's not even close) plus the RPG mechanics and overall gameplay loop of Skyrim. But for it to be truly successful, it actually has to blend the best of both worlds.

No Man's Sky started out as a very uninteresting game. But over time, developer Hello Games kept the game updated with massive new expansions, tons upon tons of new content, and everything else that basically kept it alive over the years. To say that it is one of the best redemption stories in gaming is a massive understatement.

For Starfield to even be at the same level of success that No Man's Sky has had in recent years, it will need to have a lot of depth to come up with all that breadth. That's it. Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Patricia Hernandez asked about the breadth vs depth argument, and asked this very pointed question, while also taking note of how Fallout 4 did it:

"If you can recruit people from the 1,000 worlds, how many of those people are going t have fleshed-out tories? And if they do, will they continue being meaningful in the settlements? Fallout 4 had unique interactions but also displayed clear, clear limits."

As for the Skyrim part, there's really just the depth coming into play once again. Skyrim's main quest has been largely forgettable because its open world was actually filled with so many meaningful sidequests that always got players sidetracked. If Starfield can even come close to the level of scale/depth balance that Skyrim had, then it might have a chance to be one of the best games out there.

A Potential Technical Time Bomb

Bethesda games have never been known for their polish. Let's be real here. Aside from the obviously great stories and experiences players have had with their games, the glitches are also what keeps people coming back because of just how hilarious they can be - and how iconic they've made franchises like Fallout or Elder Scrolls over the years.

Starfield's incredible ambition could very well be the one that dooms it, writes The Gamer. Creating over 1,000 fully explorable planets sounds good on paper, but the amount of work needed to achieve that technical feat is just hard to imagine. As such, you could expect that the game will have a myriad of issues (perhaps some of them game-breaking) at launch.