Starfield has boring planets because so does real space

You can visit 1,000 planets in Starfield, but they won’t all be super exciting.

Starfield is said to feature a galaxy with over 1,000 planets. We can all visit them, but of course the question arises: Are they all exciting then? The short and simple answer: no. There will also be just plain boring ice planets in Starfield. According to Todd Howard, that’s okay because there are boring ice planets in real space. But don’t worry, you’ll also get plenty of exciting, hand-crafted content that isn’t meant to be boring or procedurally generated.

Starfield also has boring ice planets where nothing is going on

What’s the matter? When it was announced that there should be 1,000 visitable planets in Starfield, most of them should have already realized that they can’t all be handcrafted, sophisticatedly designed and blessed with exciting story content. Now there is confirmation that many planets are based on procedural design and we can also face boring ice planets. Which goes very well with my colleague Eleen’s column:

Procedurally generated worlds: In Starfield, while there is a main story that takes us through specially designed areas, there is also a lot outside of it. Many planets are said to have been procedurally generated, at least in part. In plain language, this means that not all of these 1,000 planets are necessarily worth visiting, as Todd Howard explains.

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“If we look at space, we know there’s a lot of chunks of ice in space. That was a big design question for this game: what’s fun about a chunk of ice? And it’s okay if a chunk of ice isn’t makes – it is what it is.”

(via: IGN)

This means that while we can land on one of those rather boring planets, explore it and maybe farm resources there, or maybe even build our own base if we like the view. But we might as well decide after a few minutes to move on and look at the next weird planet (or story quest).

This is what Starfield looks like in action:

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Starfield – Now finally check out 15 minutes of gameplay and lots of battles and planets

There should also be enough exciting content and a “golden path” in Starfield

More handmade than ever: According to Todd Howard, in addition to the procedurally generated planets, there will also be enough content in Starfield that was made individually and by hand. If you deviate from the path of the main story, you will also see a lot of other things.

“We handcrafted more content for this game than any game before it. We’ve got over 200,000 lines of dialogue, so we’re still doing a lot of handwork, and if people just want to do what they’re used to in our games and follow a main quest, you will see roughly what is expected of us.”

“But then we also have this whole other part of ‘oh, I’m just going to wander this planet and that’s going to have gameplay and random content and stuff like that’. Sort of like Daggerfall was if we go way back. “

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(via: IGN)

The underlying philosophy be easy to say yes to the players as much as possible. Anyone who wants to pursue the main quest can do so. Those who prefer to take detours will also find something there. Speaking of the main quest: There is already a rough guideline as to how long we will be busy with the story of Starfield:

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Starfield Playtime:

The story is said to be the longest of any Bethesda game to date

More about Starfield:

When is Starfield coming? Unfortunately, that is not yet certain. In any case, the original launch date of November 11, 2022 was canceled and postponed. Starfield is now scheduled for release in the first half of 2023. It then comes to Xbox Series S/X and PC.

How much would you like to land on a boring lump of ice?