As arguably one of the most anticipated experiences of the year and a proving point for Bethesda following its acquisition under Microsoft, Starfield has an entire galaxy's worth of hype riding on the line. Little in the way of information exists about the forthcoming experience, but given the developer's track record, most expect the game to look and feel much akin to Fallout in space.
Given both its dramatic allure and the developer's loyal fans, Starfield is consistently open to myriad speculation. The question of whether players would have the ability actually to travel in space has remained rather uncertain - that is, until today. ResetEra user "Hevy008" relayed key internal details about Bethesda's next game on the online forum, words of which were captured via Imgur due to the entire post and the user later being deleted.
According to Hevy008, who identifies themself as a previous Bethesda employee, engrained space flight will be a major portion of the game. Given the fact that Starfield has long been touted as a deeply expressive space exploration experience, spacefaring gameplay only seems like an obvious integration, kind of similar to but on the same level as the much-maligned No Man's Sky.
In their own words, Hevy008 explains Starfield gameplay with slight positivity mixed with some intermingling woes:
"Starfield is looking good, weekly Thursday playtest since the beginning of the year, more and more stuff coming online. Shooting feels alright, flying is terrible atm imo just not fun for me. Lighting and stuff is looking better and better, tho it's not at the level of HFW or anything like that but still a good looking game."
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Of major importance here is the confirmation of spaceflight, despite the rather disparaging descriptions about its overall feel. Piloting ships, driving machinery, and operating any form of mecha in-game is always a tricky formula in development. Developers don't want the mechanics to feel too annoyingly realistic while also being as much fun as possible. If the experience has ship-based combat or even outer space races, you want it all to feel natural and organic, not on rails.
The leaker went on to detail other various points about Starfield's internal development, calling Bethesda's newly built engine for the game "a piece of crap," yet also describing Todd Howard, director, and executive producer under Bethesda, as "a charismatic guy." Howard has long been criticized for various issues, both external and internal, within the company, most prominently felt upon the release of Fallout 76, which he himself admitted was "not a high Metacritic game."
Beyond that, Hevy008 also detailed that the current Starfield release date, which rests on November 11th, probably isn't set in stone. While Bethesda has "an overabundance of content, probably too much," says Hevy008, "finding the fun and of course bug fixing is the big thing." It goes back to 2020's Cyberpunk 2077, which was mired by its own bug-riddled release that caused ample outward negativity toward the game and its developer, CD Projekt Red.
"It's a sexy date tho and you only get one of those, beta this summer, that's when the picture will become truly clear," the leaker concludes. Hevy008 later clarified that their final day at Bethesda was last Friday, Apr. 22. It's still rather unclear in what capacity the leaker worked for the developer, but Bloomberg's Jason Schreier did confirm their legitimacy and even theorized that Hevy008 was a character artist on the game.
Schreier also stated that he is unsure about the entirety of Hevy008's leaks, "can't necessarily back up everything they said," but reached out to other sources for potential clarification, only to be met with a resounding "Bullshit." Still, the info does seem somewhat believable. You have to wonder, why say so much and still remain as vague as possible? Schreier added that he hopes "the lawyers aren't going after them," which should speak volumes.
Given the outward scarcity of information on Starfield that currently exists, seeing that the game is at least in somewhat good hands is ideal for those hyped for the release. It not only has spacefaring gameplay, but good shooting will be promising for fans, and the avid Thursday playtests will hopefully ensure it has an energetically fun feel to it upon official debut. As Hevy008 themself relayed, the forthcoming summer-planned beta is now Starfield's only hope.
