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Summary
- Starfield is Bethesda’s largest game, offering a massive space ARPG with over 1000 planets to explore across 100 Star Systems.
- Each planet has its own distinct feel, with options to harvest resources, recruit characters, and build outposts.
- While there are limitations to exploration, such as a set radius and the need for a landing cutscene, Starfield still offers an impressive scope and promises hours of exploration and immersion.
Starfield is Bethesda’s largest game to date, with the massive space RPG offering a wealth of environments to explore across The Settled Systems. A huge galaxy’s worth of exploration had always been heavily advertised as one of Starfield‘s main selling points, and with the title now in Early Access and its full September 6 release on the horizon, a better idea is forming of just how many planets and cities there are, and how exploring each location and star system works.
Several of these planets have their own distinct feel, from the aquatic Volii Alpha to the moon-less, flora-heavy Gagarin and there is plenty to do while venturing across them. Depending on which planets players land on, there is the option to harvest resources, recruit characters to join the protagonist’s crew, discover cities, or build outposts.
Starfield Has Over 1000 Planets To Explore
Starfield‘s map has over 1000 planets across 100 Star Systems, made up of a combination of handcrafted and procedurally generated worlds, with random number generator (RNG) based terrains being created as players approach a planet. Only 100 of these planets are habitable, however. Planets like Jemison are host to story-centric locations like the United Colonies’ capital city of New Atlantis, the headquarters for the Constellation, and are therefore very highly detailed and crafted specifically by the developers.
Prior to its launch, the promise of such a vast map in Starfield drew comparisons to Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky and its procedurally generated galaxy. However, while that title leaned far more heavily into procedural generation, even down to the randomized wildlife and terrain on its planets, it’s clear that Bethesda has focused on making its creatures specific to certain native locations making it a more tailored experience. For example, uninhabitable planets are more useful for collecting resources than interacting with wildlife. Whether habitable or not, players are still able to explore every planet alongside moons and exoplanets, making The Settled Systems Bethesda’s most expansive map by far.
There Are Limitations To Starfield’s Locations
As a result, despite Starfield having such a huge open-world map, there are some limitations to its exploration. While players can select a landing spot on a planet from space, this does limit players to a set radius in which they can explore when on the ground with them often tethered to their ship, The Frontier. If players venture too far, the message “Boundary Reached: Open the map to explore another region, or return to your ship” will appear. The game ostensibly only renders roughly a kilometer or two surrounding The Frontier. For this same reason, players are unable to seamlessly fly The Frontier anywhere on these planets, with a landing and launching cutscene playing each time. A trip into orbit is needed before landing in a new location, even if it’s on the same planet.
Despite this, the sheer scope that Bethesda has been able to produce in Starfield is incredibly impressive. Much like the studio’s other major RPG franchises, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, it seems like Starfield will offer hundreds of hours of sheer exploration and immersion for players across The Settled Systems.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
