Tag: Todd Howard

Every Time Todd Howard Has Talked About Fallout 5

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For years now, Fallout fans have been wondering when the next mainline sequel will arrive. Hype for the game most assume will be called Fallout 5 grew even larger last year after Amazon’s TV show made the post-apocalyptic franchise bigger than ever. And while Bethesda hasn’t formally announced Fallout 5, that hasn’t stopped the studio’s creative director, Todd Howard, from talking about it over the years.

Fallout 4 arrived on consoles and PC in 2015. Not long after its launch, people began wondering about Fallout 5. As a result, whenever Howard sits down for an interview, it’s not unusual for someone to ask him about Fallout 5 and the future of the franchise. Here’s nearly every time Howard has talked about Fallout 5, presented in chronological order. One thing to keep in mind before scrolling down is that Howard is very careful when talking about Fallout 5, so be prepared for comments that give you plenty to infer and speculate about, but little in the way of cold hard facts.

June 2018 – Fallout 5 will be a single-player video game

Technically, during a 2018 interview with German outlet GameStar, Howard didn’t say anything specific about a new Fallout game. However, when asked if all upcoming Bethesda games would feature multiplayer like Fallout 76, he replied that no, future games from the studio would still be single-player adventures.

November 2021 – Bethesda has a Fallout 5 “one-pager”

A few years later, during an interview with IGN, Howard spilled a bit more about the next Fallout sequel. He told the outlet that Bethesda has a “one-pager on Fallout 5, what we want to do,” but made it clear that the plan at the time was Starfield and then Elder Scrolls VI, seemingly confirming that Fallout 5 remained many, many years away.

June 2022 – Fallout 5 is next after The Elder Scrolls VI

The following year, in another interview with IGN, Howard said this about Bethesda’s future:

“Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while. We have some other projects that we look at from time to time as well.”

June 2023 – Fallout 5 might not be Bethesda’s next game after Elder Scrolls 6

A year after saying Fallout 5 would be Bethesda’s next project after shipping Elder Scrolls VI, Howard backtracked a bit and clarified that he simply meant that Fallout 5 would arrive after The Elder Scrolls 6, not that he wanted to confirm it as the next game. This confusing backtrack worried fans who now wondered if Bethesda had a different project in the works that could further delay Fallout 5. In this same interview, he argued that long gaps between sequels, while annoying for fans, have rarely hurt a game’s success or quality.

March 2024 – Fallout TV showrunners were told to avoid certain details that will be in Fallout 5

After causing a ruckus online by claiming that the Fallout TV show was “basically Fallout 5,” showrunner Johnathan Nolan clarified that he just meant this is the next story in the universe and not a replacement for an upcoming game. In fact, the show is actively avoiding some parts of the franchise because it would cause problems for Fallout 5.

“Well, there were some things where I said, ‘Don’t do this because we are going to do that in Fallout 5,’” Howard told Den of Geek.

April 2024 – Todd Howard dodges a question about Fallout 5‘s release after The Elder Scrolls VI

When talking to IGN, Howard was yet again asked about Fallout 5 launching after The Elder Scrolls 6. This time, he straight-up dodged the question, but did confirm that Bethesda is working on different projects. “I’m going to avoid putting dates on anything, I’ve learned that the hard way,” said Howard. “So, obviously, you know, our focus as far as new development right now is Elder Scrolls 6, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not making plans for other things.”

June 2024 – Bethesda is not in a rush to release a new Fallout game

During a 2024 interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays, Howard said that Bethesda didn’t feel the need to “rush out” a new Fallout sequel or spin-off, though he also acknowledged that the wait between Fallout 4 and Fallout 5 is growing longer and longer.

“Totally get the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game. And look, those things take time. I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things. We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do.”

October 2025 – Howard ends Fallout Day stream with a promise that more is being worked on

To celebrate Fallout Day, the day the bombs fell in-universe and destroyed the Earth, Bethesda held a digital showcase to announce a Fallout 4 update, reveal some Fallout 76 news, and not much else. Seemingly aware that this presentation would be disappointing to fans longing for Fallout 5, Howard appeared at the end to offer some hope, telling fans that the studio is “working on even more” and that Bethesda is “looking forward to the day” when all is revealed.

December 2025 – Howard confirms Fallout 5 won’t ignore the TV show

In an interview with the BBC, Howard was asked if the events of the Fallout show are being considered by the devs while making Fallout 5. Would the show and the game really exist in one world?

“In short, yes,” Howard told the outlet. “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening. We are taking that into account.”

December 2025 – Bethesda is still working hard on more Fallout

Speaking to Game Informer, Howard made it clear that Fallout is a very important franchise for Bethesda and that it has been working on projects related to the post-apocalyptic world for a long time.

“I will say, first, looking at 76, we’ve never stopped developing Fallout. We’ve had a full team on Fallout for a long time. So Fallout, as a franchise, is the one we’re still doing the most work in above anything. Now, the majority of our internal studio is on Elder Scrolls VI. We are doing other things with Fallout that we haven’t announced, and you know, there’ll come a time for that. I get the sort of anxiety from fans, like, ‘Well, what else? What else? Feed me!’ But, look, we’re working on stuff, and we do like to wait. And so, I think there’ll be a moment to talk about that, and we want to make those special moments for our fans.”

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Zack Zwiezen

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December 26, 2025
Todd Howard On Fallout 76 Crossplay And Cross-Progression

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Fallout 76, Bethesda’s MMORPG set in the Fallout universe, is probably more popular today than ever thanks to Amazon’s new TV series. So it makes sense that in a recent interview, Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard was asked about Fallout 76 and crossplay. And while the ability for PC and console players to mingle sounds off the table, Howard at least seemed more positive about cross-progression.

Why Fallout: New Vegas Is Still Canon After The TV Show

Since the launch of the Fallout TV show earlier this month, all of the Fallout games have exploded in popularity. This includes the black sheep of the family, Fallout 76. The online-only spin-off is seeing more players than ever across all platforms. And as thousands of new players rush into the open-world post-apocalyptic MMORPG, they might expect—like most games in 2024—that Fallout 76 would support crossplay or, at least, cross-progression. However, if you play on Xbox you can’t play with PC players or PlayStation gamers, and all your progress is tied to that platform, too. And while crossplay seems unlikely, Todd Howard seems more open to a future where cross-progression is a thing in Fallout 76.

Kinda Funny

On the April 29 episode of Kinda Funny’s Gamecast, Howard talked about the Fallout franchise and the future of crossplay in Fallout 76.

“We keep looking into it, but [Fallout 76] wasn’t designed that way from the beginning. So obviously we get into server and database silos,” said Howard.

When asked about crossplay or cross-progression, he offered Bethesda’s opinions on the features that have become standard in 2024.

“Here’s what I would say, which is for us the the more the important thing is cross-progression than cross-play—and we do separate them—we’d love to have it all, sure. It’s something we are looking at but I will say it’s quite—the way that [Fallout 76] architected from the beginning—a technical lift. Not saying we are or aren’t doing anything, we are looking at it and seeing where that’s going to impact people.”

He continued: “I think going forward in the world we want to be in, I think it’s it’s very important and something that you know in our future games that we’re going to be really, really mindful about to make sure—in particular the progression—that where you pick up a game you’re able no matter what screen you’re on you’re able to just keep going with your character and what you were doing.”

Funnily enough, Howard did suggest that if employees are annoyed by something in their games—like no crossplay—it becomes a higher priority for them and they fix it.

“When we can’t pick it up and [make progression,] it does move it up the stack internally.”

So we just need some folks at Bethesda to get annoyed about Fallout 76‘s lack of cross-saves, I guess!

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Zack Zwiezen

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April 29, 2024
The Week's Best Gaming Tips, From Starfield Features To God Of War DLC

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You may not have a disembodied, talking head you can consult like Kratos does, but you do have us. This week, we’ll help you make the most out of your Stadia controllers, experience the features Starfield intends to implement in the future, and look back at all the PC gaming you enjoyed in 2023.

Read more…

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Kotaku Staff

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December 25, 2023
Starfield Dev Suggests Smaller May Have Been Better

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If, while exploring Starfield’s vast, planet-filled galaxy, you’ve felt at times that its size and sheer number of possible destinations may actually be too much for the game’s own good, well, it sounds like some folks who were part of the development team may agree with you. Hindsight is 20/20, after all.

Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build

Starfield has around 1,000 procedurally generated planets to explore. There are definitely some interesting areas to find, but much of that terrain feels largely empty. In an interview with MinnMax (thanks GamesRadar), former Bethesda employee Bruce Nesmith, who worked on Starfield as senior systems designer, talked about the decision to make Starfield’s galaxy so massive, as opposed to smaller and more focused in scope.

In the interview, Nesmith said that player expectations around the size of Bethesda’s open-world games influenced the team to opt for this approach. The argument was made that once the team had successfully established the foundation for the game’s design philosophy in one solar system, replicating those ideas across dozens more wouldn’t add that much to the workload.

“[Game director Todd Howard] pretty much pulled the number 100 for the number of solar systems out of thin air,” Nesmith said, “but the more we went on, the more it was like, ‘OK, so all core activity takes place in these two dozen in the settled systems and the rest of it is open space, but people love our big games. They love that open area to explore, so let’s go ahead and let ‘em have it’.”

Minnmax

Nesmith went on to describe how developing Starfield, like any other game, was about making compromises to the original vision, and that meant more crafted areas came at the expense of player freedom and exploration, such as allowing you to build your own spacecraft and traverse a huge, expansive galaxy. While the space is bigger, Nesmith says this may have come at the expense of more meaningful things to find within it.

“I think some of the exploration stuff didn’t come through as well as it could’ve because they decided to make other choices,” he says. “And never misunderstand this. In every game studio on the face of this planet, they know the choices they’re making. They know the things that are not going to be in there. They know what the players are going to moan about. But you got to make the hard choice.”

Hopefully whatever lessons Bethesda has learned in making Starfield will be implemented in the upcoming Elder Scrolls VI. Given that the series is in a fantasy setting, it’s likely to be somewhat less vast than Starfield, so maybe it can better capture that sense of exploration without it being so full of empty, inconsequential dead space in between all the good stuff.

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Kenneth Shepard

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October 27, 2023
Starfield, One Month Later

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Once a distant star on the horizon, Starfield arrived on Xbox and PC on September 6, with a five-day early access period for those who shelled out for the deluxe edition. It’s now been in the hands of gamers worldwide for a little over a month, with folks pouring over its vast world and searching every nook and cranny for loot, side quests, and more.

This Stylish Noir-Punk Side-Scroller Is Like Celeste With Guns

As expected, a game as massive as Starfield has a ton of stuff going on (there’s 1,000 planets, remember) so a month later, folks are still discovering all sorts of unique quirks, charms, and more than its fair share of weak points to point out, celebrate, and critique.

Read More: 28 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Playing Starfield

Whether or not Starfield will be as memorable as Skyrim or Fallout remains to be seen, but within its first month, here are some of the highlights.

Starfield earns praise, with some caveats

Following its announcement in 2018, the hype for Starfield was real. Promising a scale way beyond what Bethesda delivered with Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield would mark the first original franchise for the studio since the ‘90s and take the Bethesda RPG format to a place it’s never really been before: space.

Read More: Starfield Isn’t The Future Of Video Games, And That’s Okay

Since the highly anticipated game launched, the reactions have been largely positive, but there are some fair criticisms of its structure and the meat of more than a few of its premiere questlines. In Kotaku’s review of Starfield, I praised its scale, scope, and capacity for gorgeous vistas, but criticized a pervasive shallowness in the game’s settings, narratives, and woefully repetitive environments.

In general, Starfield really hasn’t convinced us that it’s a vision for the future of games, and in fact, it seems to be little more than an iterative improvement on what Bethesda has delivered before, for decades now at this point. But whether you see that as a reliable go-to experience of the kind we know from Skyrim and Fallout or a failure to improve upon a tired formula is what makes Starfield 2023’s gaming Rorschach test.

Read More: Starfield: The Kotaku Review

The game currently sits at a Metacritic score of 84, sharing similar ground with well-received titles like August’s Armored Core VI, but falls quite shy of bigger blockbusters like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Player reviews via Steam certainly have their knives out for this Bethesda entry though, often describing the game as “disappointingly average” and “wide as an ocean – shallow as a puddle.”

Starfield’s scale and scope finally in player hands

It was understood early on that Starfield would be enormous. Bethesda touted the impressiveness of the game’s scale and talked at length about how the survival mechanics wouldn’t bog down the fun of Starfield’s core experience. as they do in other space games like No Man’s Sky

Read More: A No-Fuss Guide to Starfield Space Travel

Starfield’s reception amongst those not in the industry and casual players has also been mixed. While many of us have found a calm, contemplative beauty in the game’s endless planet simulation, others have tested just how traversable Starfield’s galaxy really is, and discovered that fast travel is technically not mandatory; you can fly across a solar system if you’ve got literal hours of real-world time on your hands to burn. And you can speed up space travel with a mod if you’re so inclined.

The scale of each individual planetary zone you can land on, however, has brought up criticism from players concerning the jarring lack of vehicles. Bethesda explained that while it did consider vehicles, it instead wanted to prioritize the on-foot exploration experience. Besides, if you did have a space rover, you’d be in for a bumpy ride with all of the dead animals everywhere.

Read More: Starfield’s Fast Travel Cheapens Space’s Impact

Not everyone’s been sold on Starfield’s size and scope, or how it’s presented. That said, we have caught sight of more than a few interesting things out there in the void. From Star Trek vibes to Dead Space-esque scares, to a planet very familiar to Halo fans, to a galaxy spanning beer run, there are more than a few fun surprises to be found in Bethesda’s space sim. That’s in addition to stuff fans have created on their own, like this awesome selection of space ships from other sci-fi franchises recreated in Starfield’s ship builder. And if you don’t fancy yourself a ship mechanic, the game is more than happy to provide some pretty sweet space rides of its own, such as the Razorleaf, a reward for tackling the Mantis quest.

And don’t forget, Starfield has some neat watering holes if you’re looking for a break from all the space-faring adventures and just want to sit in a weird space bar with a weird space bartender.

Wacky physics, fun mods, and other shenanigans

Starfield’s engine has a wildly impressive physics simulation. Granted, Bethesda games have always had pretty cool physics, but Starfield’s seems to be a bit more realistic and lively. This has allowed players to engage in some credit theft, but also has inspired some pseudo Rube Goldberg shenanigans. You can also just pack your ship full of junk and potatoes.

Like almost every Bethesda game before it, modders have taken to improving the rougher edges of Starfield’s experience. We’re still collecting a list of must-install mods for the PC version, but at a minimum you should consider installing StarUI as it profoundly improves the experience of a game that’s already encouraging bad habits for the digital hoarders among us.

Read More: Starfield PC Mod Dramatically Improves Inventory Management

Starfield’s mod scene is still quite nascent, and we know proper mod support for Starfield is on the horizon. That said, if you’re willing to mess around with some of the less-than-helpful mods, might we interest you in the most useless modifications to toss into Starfield’s code?

In more interesting news, one Starfield modder has taken to putting their DLSS (Nvidia’s AI-powered super-sampling tech that was excluded from Starfield’s launch due to an exclusive deal with AMD) mod behind a paywall. Now, the debate over paid mods is worth having and is not within the scope of this piece, but when you slap DRM and threaten to sneak malware onto pirated copies of a mod…that’s kinda, well shitty.

Read More: Starfield Will Get DLSS Support, An FOV Slider, And More In Future Updates

Hey, at least DLSS is coming to Starfield via an official update down the road.

We’ve also seen a fair share of silliness via exploits. Yes, you can actually rob NPCs of their clothes with the right technique and, at least for a little while, the game featured a damn mud puddle that’d just make it rain credits (it’s since been patched).

And in case you’re wondering, yes, Starfield has its share of bugs. I’ve seen a number of quest-breaking errors in my time with the game, while others are finding entire cities transported along with their ships. If my own nearly 200-hour playthrough of the game is anything to go by, save often, don’t rely on auto- and quick-saves. Starfield likes to break more often than it should.

Starfield is just getting started: DLC and more

Even after spending nearly 200 hours in Starfield, I’m still coming across new things. My opinion of it holds strong, but it’s nice to see such a large game continue to offer new experiences the more you play it.

As Video Games Chronicle pointed out, director Todd Howard stated in a recent interview that experience with previous games like Skyrim and Fallout has taught the studio to design with long-term investment in mind:

“This is a game that’s intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we’ve learned from our previous games, like Skyrim, like Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time. […] How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural, and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.”

The new game plus function is one of the most unique, and dare I say inventive, elements of Starfield. But Bethesda has indicated that certain elements of the game might change over time. We know that proper DLSS support and request features like an FOV slider are in the cards, but in the same interview, Todd Howard said that the studio might be looking at changing up how environmental damage works. In 2022, Howard also entertained the addition of a hardcore survival mode for those who desire a more punish-me-deep-space-mommy experience.

Read More: Starfield: Should You Rush Through The Main Quest?

How the future of Starfield evolves beyond just repeat playthroughs remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine the game will see the same kind of update support that No Man’s Sky has, but Howard has repeatedly stressed that this is a game that was designed to be played for a long time.

We do know, via the details in the premium version of the game, that a story expansion titled “Shattered Space” will arrive at a later date.

Hype and anticipation met reality when Starfield shipped universally on September 6. It’s more than capable of delivering a fun, can’t-put-it-down experience, though it has more than its fair share of problems and weaker points. The first month has seen a number of differing opinions flourish over Starfield and Bethesda-style games in general. But with promised new features, story expansions, and a growing mod community, Starfield’s story is far from over.

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Claire Jackson

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October 3, 2023
The Elder Scrolls VI Definitely Isn’t Coming To PlayStation

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Image: Bethesda Game Studios / Kotaku

Elder Scrolls VI won’t be coming to PS5 whenever it finally debuts. Though you might’ve already filed this news under “well, duh,” it’s now clear as day courtesy of official documentation from Microsoft.

This Stylish Noir-Punk Side-Scroller Is Like Celeste With Guns

Originally announced at E3 2018 (which Bethesda’s own Todd Howard thinks was perhaps a tad too early), The Elder Scrolls VI will mark the first single-player entry in the fabled Elder Scrolls series of big-ass open-world RPG romps since the undying colossal success that was 2011’s Skyrim. News on the TES6 front has otherwise been very quiet, and Bethesda only just released its other epic, long-in-development RPG, the space-themed Starfield. New reporting from Axios’ Stephen Totilo, however, makes it clear that TES6 will be an Xbox and PC exclusive.

The Elder Scrolls VI targets a 2026 release

PlayStation-owning fans of Bethesda jams have been holding out hope that despite Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda in 2020, Elder Scrolls VI might still come to a Sony machine. CEO of Microsoft gaming Phil Spencer has said as recently as September 6 that the company considers exclusives on a “case-by-case basis” and that it “wants to make sure that [its] games are available in so many different places.”

As per a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Stephen Totilo of Axios, Microsoft’s communications during the FTC case concerning its controversial Activision merger spelled out that The Elder Scrolls VI is coming to Xbox and PC only. In a Microsoft-confidential chart that saw release due to the legal proceedings, The Elder Scrolls VI clearly has a big ol’ red X in the “Released on PlayStation?” column.

https://x.com/stephentotilo/status/1703758480509661480

The same chart indicates that The Elder Scrolls VI is aiming for a 2026 or later release date. Given the size and scope of Bethesda games, they do take a long time to make. After The Elder Scrolls VI, Bethesda is expected to release Fallout 5.

So, sorry PlayStation Skyrim fans. But, hey, at least you got a head start on Baldur’s Gate 3. And given TES6’s likely release window, at least you’ll have enough time to save up for an Xbox or gaming-worthy PC? Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the messenger.

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Claire Jackson

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September 18, 2023
Starfield Isn’t The Future Of Video Games, And That’s Okay

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In the months (nay, years) leading up to Starfield’s September 6 release, the hype for the Bethesda RPG grew and grew until it was a heretofore unseen beast, a giant Kaiju of expectation that threatened to take down Sony, upend 2023’s GOTY race, and suck up all of gamers’ precious free time.

Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build

Ahead of its launch, game director Todd Howard and Xbox head Phil Spencer were a dynamic duo, showing up at Summer Game Fest together to expound on the awesome power that Starfield would showcase, the 1,000 planets you could step foot on, the bugs you almost certainly wouldn’t encounter. That same weekend, Starfield got its own 45-minute-long “Direct” presentation during the Xbox Showcase, and a physical version of the expensive Constellation Edition sat behind a glass case at the event itself.

Head of Xbox Creator Experience Sarah Bond joined in on the fun, calling Starfield “one of the most important RPGs ever made.” Bethesda head Pete Hines said it took him well over 100 hours to properly start Starfield. All of the hype whipped Xbox fans into a frenzy, and indirectly fueled the flickering flames of the console wars. Starfield’s scope, its potential, even made the then-unreleased game a talking point in the FTC trial regarding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard.

Then, after a few days in what Bethesda dubbed “early access,” available to deep-pocketed players who shelled out big bucks for one of several premium editions, Starfield launched. It is surprisingly not buggy, and jam-packed with side-quests that offer a steady drip of serotonin. But it’s woefully inaccessible, its UI is daunting, and it is, ultimately, just a new Bethesda game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a stark reminder that hype trains are just marketing tools in a different font. Starfield is a good game, but it is not a groundbreaking one.

Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

Screenshot: Bethesda / Kotaku

Starfield and serotonin

Before I got a chance to dive into Starfield, I wondered aloud (and on social media) if the game would occupy a similar space in my life that Skyrim has held on more than one occasion. Skyrim never floored me and never lingered after I powered off my console, unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man’s version of Manhattan, or story beats in Mass Effect 2. But every time I dropped back into Skyrim, I fell into the same satisfying loop, emerging from a lengthy play session a little dazed, uncertain of the time, blinking to reaccustom my eyes to the real world outside of its pixels.

Every time I jumped into Skyrim I’d go off searching for some tucked-away relic or NPC in need of help and end up climbing to the top of a peak I saw in the distance, or scurrying through caves like a little gamer Gollum, furiously lining my pockets with shiny objects. I’d “just one more side-quest” myself into the wee hours of the morning, surreptitiously pulling tokes from a pre-roll resting on the table in front of me. No matter what I did, whether it was becoming a vampire or participating in a drinking competition, I was never blown away or taken aback by what Skyrim unfurled before me—I was, however, hooked.

I’m about 20 hours into Starfield and can safely say it is exactly like Skyrim in space. The steady serotonin drip of overhearing a conversation, marking the quest associated with that conversation on my map, completing it, then going back to the list and selecting the next thing is unparalleled. It is the kind of game that completionists salivate over, the kind that I find myself longing to return to and get lost in during my workday, on the train home, while finishing off a workout.

After progressing the main campaign a bit, I violently veered into side-quest territory, spending nearly four hours straight on the Blade Runner-esque planet Neon. I joined a gang, I helped Starfield’s version of Björk recover her music, I tried to console a grief-stricken widow in the shadow of a fish corpse. I paid for VIP lounge access at a bar, helped squash a squabble over a robot that had been vandalized, and rented a room in a hotel just to say I did. Starfield has hooked me in a way that only Bethesda games can, because it is so thoroughly a Bethesda game with a shinier coat of paint.

Image: Bethesda

Expectation versus reality

There is nothing wrong with Starfield feeling familiar—Bethesda’s formula works, and has for over two decades, so I’m not crucifying Todd Howard for refusing to reinvent the wheel. I am, however, noting that there’s a clear disconnect between calling a game “one of the most important RPGs ever made” and that game then reusing long-existing RPG gameplay mechanics and storytelling techniques throughout.

As Kotaku’s Zack Zweizen points out, Starfield is “still a Bethesda RPG. You can almost feel the ancient bones of Morrowind and Fallout 3 poking through bits of the scenery and menus as you play.” Companions still linger behind NPCs chatting you up, players are still almost always overencumbered, enemies still fall over like action figures when you send a gust of gravity their way that feels almost exactly like Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about Starfield, save for maybe its scope, which is possible largely because of the technological advances that have taken place within the last several years, and are now readily available in consumer-facing products like the Xbox Series X/S and modern PCs.

But as for Starfield bringing new ideas to the genre, or adding anything new to its well-worn formula…it doesn’t. Bethesda has been quietly moving its own role-playing goalposts closer to the more shallow end ever since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, narrowing the scope of what the player can actually influence, placing you in a world that feels perfectly carved out for you to slot into, its problems cleanly laid out for you to solve. Cian Maher’s quote from an Oblivion piece for TheGamer comes to mind: “I also don’t reckon Skyrim ever managed to carve out a portion of its world and imbue [it] with the necessary narrative significance for a conclusion to not seem like deus ex machina.”

Aside from extensive ship-building mechanics, there aren’t any shiny new gameplay additions in Starfield. Building an outpost is just Fallout base-building, leveling your lockpicking or melee abilities follows similar logic to Skyrim, and there are many eerie similarities to Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds. The most noted difference comes not in an updated role-playing system or deeper NPC interactions, but in gunplay—Starfield improves upon Bethesda’s infamous combat clunkiness, and it’s welcome.

But Starfield feels the same way Fallout 4 did, which felt the same way Skyrim did, and that does not make it “one of the most important RPGs” ever made. It just makes it a good Bethesda game, a game made by a studio that Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire. We’d do well to remember that, both as consumers and critics, going forward.

Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

Update 9/9/20-23 at 10:22 a.m. EST: Removed incorrect reference to No Man’s Sky shipbuilding, added relevant link.

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Alyssa Mercante

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September 8, 2023
The 9 Least Essential Starfield Mods You Can Install Right Now

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As is all-too-often the case, Bethesda releases its games with half-baked UIs, dodgy animations, and painfully slow menus, knowing that its community will clean it all up for them via mods. So as expected, over the weekend all manner of essential mods for Starfield have appeared that will clear up the game’s most immediate problems. Also there are these ones.

Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build

Starfield launched without DLSS support: modded. It has a clumsy, oversized inventory presentation, like all their games: modded. It doesn’t let you adjust your FOV, ffs: modded. But forget all that. We’re here to talk about what happens when you order the mods from lowest to highest popularity. These are the people who see a brand new game, and immediately learn how to modify it for the stupidest possible reasons. This is to celebrate the people who make the flashlight show Nicolas Cage’s face.

Ryan Gosling Character Preset

We understand the situation you’re in. You’re a busy person, and with work and family you don’t have the time to play Starfield AND sculpt your character as Ryan Gosling. But cacon5 has you covered with the Ryan Gosling Character Preset. As this video shows, this modder dedicated their time and energy into crafting someone who…is also a human being.

NTD Modder RPG

Celebrity Flashlights

If that’s not enough Ryan Gosling content, then you’d better bloody believe we’ve got more for you. Because why not also have Dollar Tree Ryan Reynolds as a beaming point of light? That’s yours via the Ryan Gosling Blade Runner Flashlight from MozzyFX.

But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, we get the feeling this is something that’s only just getting started. Because there’s also the Nicolas Cage Flashlight Mod, which presents the actor like some sort of horrendous moon-face.

Or perhaps you’d like to show your eternal loyalty to our lord and savior, Todd Howard himself, via the Todd Howard Flashlight Replacer.

If your affections lay with even more senior deities, then you might want to opt for the Phil Spencer Flashlight.

Maquinaremos

Umbreon Ground Crew Helmet

This one perhaps doesn’t quite meet the remit of the article, because it’s honestly astonishing that Bethesda released the game without this already implemented. It’s the Umbreon Ground Crew Helmet, which replaces the ground crew helmet with one showing a picture of the Pokémon Umbreon.

“Truly the best mod ever created,” says fellow modder jetray1000, despite the mod inexplicably sitting in second-from-last place in Nexus Mods’ Trending list. (Last place is a widescreen mod that is flagged as containing “suspicious files.”)

A Massive Effect

How much would you like to see a crossover between Mass Effect and Starfield? Yeah, us too! Meanwhile, the John Shepard mod promises to add a player character who kind of looks like the lead character from Mass Effect—you know, the game which also has a character creator, that lets you make him (or preferably her) look like anyone you want. Well, we say “looks like,” but modder ctxrlsec hedges their bets, adding “probably not perfect because the character creation is kinda limited but it looks close enough.”

Hello Killy

Right now, at this early point in Starfield’s life, it’s not yet possible to apply skins to your weapons at will. For the while, it requires entirely replacing the game’s default skin, which is perhaps more cumbersome. Although we would argue, entirely worth it when it’s the Hello Kitty Laser mod.

Image: realadry / Nexus Mods / Kotaku

Entirely Ruin Starfield On Purpose

Sick of the game working properly? Frustrated by the way it won’t let you introduce narrative-breaking situations? Finally, there’s a solution for you. It’s the Kill Essential NPC mod, that prevents plot-vital characters from getting back up once you’ve knocked them down. (Yes, Starfield relies on that old Beth-gem!)

Rather excellently, in case installing this mod weren’t already obviously a spectacularly bad idea, it seems it also allows enemies to perma-kill essential characters, meaning ruining your entire game doesn’t even have to be by your own hand.

HowDragonborn

There. We hope this has proved completely useless for you, and we look forward to seeing even more ridiculous and unhelpful mods once the game is officially released on September 6.

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John Walker

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September 4, 2023
Starfield Pushes Baldur’s Gate 3 Off Steam Top Spot, And It’s Not Even Out Yet

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Though you still can’t play it, Bethesda’s massive spacefarer role-playing game Starfield recently beat out one of 2023’s biggest games, D&D RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, as a Steam top seller, GamesRadar first noticed.

The Week In Games: What’s Releasing Beyond Baldur’s Gate 3

Starfield, out in Early Access on August 31 and globally on September 6, has successfully dragged its 1,000 explorable planets and eager players’ mounting expectations to the number-one spot on the U.S. Top Sellers chart. It’s also the number one seller for a huge number of additional countries, including Australia, Switzerland, Norway, and Germany.

Most other counties, though, are concerned with neither Bethesda’s big space game nor Larian Studios’ big Dungeons & Dragons game. China, Denmark, Spain, Poland, and many others are still downloading free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which was initially released in 2012, more than anything else, making it the current worldwide top seller. CS:GO has been assuming different rankings on the Top Sellers chart for 577 weeks, or the full 11 years of its existence. How is there still anyone left who hasn’t picked it up already?

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out if Starfield has that kind of longevity, too. Director Todd Howard certainly hopes so, telling GQ in a recent interview, “[Starfield] takes [Bethesda’s oeuvre] all to a level that we weren’t sure even that we could do. This type of game is still unique. When it clicked, and we could play it, we realized we had missed it. No one still does this.”

“We don’t get many of these in our careers—we don’t get many shots,” he said.

For Bethesda, the developer behind Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Starfield presents another opportunity to catch lightning in a bottle. So far, we know that it is stocked with plenty of sidequest content, a silent, customizable protagonist to augment it, and, apparently, answers about God. Whether or not they are satisfactory, only spacetime will tell.

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Ashley Bardhan

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August 29, 2023
It Could Take 130 Hours To Really Start Starfield, Bethesda Exec Says

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Bethesda’s forthcoming space epic Starfield is apparently so long, it’s made the developer’s head of publishing Pete Hines lose all sense of time. At a Bethesda MainStream event during Gamescom 2023, Hines said he felt like the action role-playing game didn’t “really […] get going” until he took 50 hours to finish its main quest. That was after he’d already dropped 80 hours into sidequests.

Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build

“80 hours in, I went from doing one game to a completely different game where I started really focusing on the main quest,” said Hines, “and then I got so caught up in the main quest, that I spent the next 50 hours just doing that. […] I’m here to tell you that this game doesn’t really even get going until you finish the main quest.”

“Telling somebody, ‘Oh, I played Starfield for 40 hours’ tells you nothing about what that person has done,” he said.

130 hours is an intimidating amount to put into anything, let alone something that turbo-blasts blue light directly into your eyeballs and brain. But try not to worry for your ocular health yet—it might not take you as long as it took Hines to bring the game to max speed.

Read More: Starfield Leaker Booked On Felony Charge After Allegedly Trying To Sell Stolen Copies

In 2022, Starfield director Todd Howard estimated its main quest would take a player around 30 and up to 40 hours to beat. I suppose that isn’t much of a difference from 50, but at least you could have around 10 more hours to, like, go outside. Or play Crash Bandicoot.

Read More: Starfield Is An Xbox Exclusive, And Pete Hines Is Sorry

In any case, Hines maintains that Starfield will claim a huge portion of your time. In another Gamescom conversation, this one with IGN, he said, “If I’m being honest, there’s really not an amount of time that I’m comfortable enough [with saying] ‘Now you’ve played enough Starfield to get what this game is.’ Because, like, I’m at 150, 160 hours on my current playthrough, and […] I haven’t even come close.”

Start clearing your schedule, then. Premium or Constellation Edition buyers can play Starfield in Early Access starting September 1, and the game is officially out for everyone on Xbox Series X/S and PC September 6.

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Ashley Bardhan

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August 25, 2023
Microsoft Doubles Down On More Affordable But Weaker Xbox Series S

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Ever since Baldur’s Gate 3 exploded in popularity after its August 3 release date, the fact that it’s not coming to Xbox Series X/S the same time as PS5 has reignited the controversy around Microsoft’s console strategy and its commitment to a policy that seems like it will become increasingly unworkable in the years ahead.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

Baldur’s Gate 3 supports local co-op splitscreen, and developer Larian Studios has been very public about its struggle to get that feature working on the less powerful Series S. Microsoft requires games to launch with the same modes on both Series X and S, and despite Baldur’s Gate 3’s popularity, no exceptions were made for the critically acclaimed Dungeons & Dragons RPG until now.

Larian director Swen Vincke said the studio had arrived at a solution after meeting with Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming’s CEO, at Gamescom this week. “Series S will not feature split-screen coop, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series,” he tweeted, with the games now confirmed to arrive before the end of 2023.

Spencer was asked about the apparent Series S conflict in a Eurogamer interview earlier this week. “I don’t see a world where we drop S,” he said. “In terms of parity, I don’t think you’ve heard from us or Larian, that this was about parity. I think that’s more that the community is talking about it. There are features that ship on X today that do not ship on S, even from our own games, like ray-tracing that works on X, it’s not on S in certain games.”

It’s unclear if Spencer means that split-screen gameplay in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t a requirement on Series S. Kotaku reached out to both Microsoft and Larian Studios to clarify the situation. What is clear is that the company doesn’t plan to abandon Series S support for games in the near future. “We’re going to learn from this experience as well because we don’t love that [Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t on Xbox yet],” Spencer told IGN in a separate interview. “But I don’t think it’s something that’s a fatal flaw in the system. It’s partners prioritizing their time, us listening and being a good partner to them.”

Image: Larian Studios

The Series S has been raising questions from the very start. As Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier pointed out on August 24, even prior to its 2019 release there were concerns from game developers that the difference in performance could make realizing their full “next-gen” ambitions more difficult on Xbox. Anecdotal reports from Gamescom are that developers there have been privately sharing frustrations about the challenges presented by the Series S as well.

Spencer noted to IGN that games like Diablo IV work fine across both platforms, and reiterated that Microsoft wants to open up gaming to more people, and sees the Series S’s low price as a cornerstone of that strategy. At $300, the less powerful console is the same price as the Nintendo Switch and $100 cheaper than the disc-less PlayStation 5. Over the recent holiday period, it was briefly marked down even further to $250. And the option to subscribe to Game Pass means Series S owners can access a huge library of games, including new blockbusters like Starfield, without shelling out hundreds more.

The popularity of the Series S for players might also be what makes it that much harder for Microsoft to leave it behind. “I also wouldn’t expect and don’t think it makes sense for Microsoft to drop Xbox Series S support or have some titles only ship on Xbox Series X,” tweeted Niko analyst Daniel Ahmad. “The primary reason being that Series S makes up a significant part of the Xbox Series X|S install base and people did indeed buy it to play ‘next gen’ games.”

Don’t expect big price drops

As laudable as the goal of an affordable next-gen console is, we’re already nearing the three-year anniversary of the Series X/S, traditionally the halfway-point in a console’s lifecycle. If there are already rumblings of some games struggling to support certain features on Series S, it seems likely to get worse by 2024, especially for timed exclusives getting ported directly from the PS5. That would be the same year in the Xbox One’s lifecycle that Microsoft released the Xbox One X mid-generation refresh that aimed to offer 4K resolution and higher framerates. A similar new console has already been ruled out this time around, however.

Spencer told Bloomberg in June that he doesn’t feel an “imperative” to release a more powerful version of the Series X, and reiterated that at Gamescom. We’re focused right now on the increased storage Xbox Series S,” he told IGN. “But no, like I said, we’re kind of at the end of the beginning in my mind. So I think we need to let devs settle on this hardware and get the most out of it.”

Image: Microsoft

Sony, meanwhile, appears set to launch a PS5 Slim within the next year. While it’s not clear if that console will have meaningfully different specs than the existing ones, it would still be a significant iteration on the hardware, especially if reports of a standalone attachable disc drive for the PS5 are also accurate. Microsoft hinted at the new console in a Federal Trade Commission court hearing in June, and footage of what’s believed to be the case at a manufacturing plant in China recently leaked as well.

Whatever new console or hardware refreshes arrive in the years ahead, Spencer warned players not to expect prices to significantly drop like they have in previous generations. “You’re not going to be able to start with a console that’s $500 thinking it’s gonna get to 200 bucks. That won’t happen,” he told Eurogamer. “It’s not the way it used to be where you could take a spec and then ride it out over 10 years and ride the price points down. It’s why you see console pricing relatively flat.”

In fact, prices have been going in the opposite direction. Microsoft raised the price of the Xbox Series X/S abroad, following in Sony’s footsteps from a year prior. Even the Nintendo Switch, released over six years ago, remains the same $300 today that it was then. The Mario maker has now sold over 125 million units. So far at least, Microsoft doesn’t seem on track to hit even half of that. It’s currently at 21 million according to a presentation slide that leaked earlier this summer, with hardware sales slowing down instead of speeding up.

Starfield could change that when it arrives on September 1. Director Todd Howard says he plays it almost exclusively on his Series S and it works just great on the cheaper console.

Update 8/24/2023 11:59 a.m. ET: Added new information about Series S version of Baldur’s Gate 3.

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Ethan Gach

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August 24, 2023
Xbox Head Phil Spencer Is Probably Playing Starfield Right Now

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Starfield isn’t out until September 6, but Xbox head Phil Spencer already appears to be playing the massive spacefaring RPG.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

Read More: Starfield’s Most Expensive Version Has A Fancy Space Watch

The Xbox app has a section called “popular with friends” that shows you the games your buddies are playing. It can be a handy little tool for bothering your friends about their progress in Diablo IV or needling them over their refusal to stop playing Overwatch 2 (it’s me, I’m that friend).

But based on a picture shared on Reddit, it looks like at least one person has early access to Starfield: Phil Spencer. The screenshot shared shows Spencer’s Xbox profile picture, an Xbox Avatar version of him (notice he’s also wearing a t-shirt and jeans, so it’s lore-accurate) against a purple background, underneath both Starfield and Exoprimal, a dinosaur shooter from Capcom that came to Xbox Game Pass on July 14.

While Spencer playing Exoprimal checks out as the game just launched, his apparent access to Starfield is interesting. It makes sense, though—Spencer and Todd Howard have worked closely together to promote the upcoming Bethesda RPG ever since Microsoft bought Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax in 2021. At Summer Game Fest, they sat down for a press presentation alongside the head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, and head of Xbox’s gaming ecosystem, Sarah Bond. If you’re the head of Xbox, you can have a little Starfield early access as a treat.

After several delays, Starfield is finally dropping this fall. The “irresponsibly large game,” as Pete Hines called it during his FTC testimony last month, boasts space combat, extensive ship customization, 1,000 worlds and over 250,000 lines of dialogue, as we learned during the massive Starfield Direct from Summer Game Fest.

Based on the Reddit post, it seems like Spencer was playing Starfield on July 14, the day the news dropped that the FTC failed to pause Microsoft’s $69 million purchase of Activision. Maybe he was celebrating the lengthy battle by hopping from planet to planet in Starfield, his mind finally free from fretting over whether Microsoft would get another jewel in its gaming Infinity Gauntlet or not. In space, no one can hear you gloat.

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Alyssa Mercante

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July 17, 2023
Todd Howard: Starfield Locked At 30FPS On Console For ‘Consistency’

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Since Starfield was revealed, fans have been wondering what framerate the sci-fi RPG would run at on console. In a new interview with IGN, creative director Todd Howard confirmed the Xbox Series X/S version would remain locked at 30fps to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the game.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

“I think it’ll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for,” Howard told IGN after the Starfield Direct today. “Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It’s 4K in the X. It’s 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don’t want to sacrifice any of it.”

Read More: Starfield Gets The Gameplay And Story Reveal You’ve Been Waiting For

The longtime Bethesda game designer added that the game is “running great” and even sometimes at 60fps. “But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you’re not even thinking about it,” he said. It’s also apparently performing well on the less powerful Xbox Series S where Howard said he plays most of the time since his kids monopolize the Xbox Series X.

Higher framerates, something players on PC with higher-end gear have long had access to, were one of the big selling points for the “next-gen” consoles. Recently, however, some big blockbusters have struggled to hit that mark. Gotham Knights was locked at 30fps on console, and Arkane Austin’s Redfall, an Xbox first-party console exclusive promoted with 60fps gameplay footage, won’t get a 60fps mode until sometime in the future.

But given Bethesda’s past track record with sprawling open-world RPGs at launch, a stable 30fps will probably be a pleasant surprise for most fans.

Kotaku is covering everything Summer Game Fest, from the main show on Thursday to other events happening throughout the next week. Whether you’re into larger-than-life triple-A games or intimate, offbeat indies, you can keep up with all things SGF here.

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Ethan Gach

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June 11, 2023