Starfield has more talking than Skyrim and Fallout 4 combined
Todd Howard says its points-based persuasion system is his favourite
It’s been months since we’ve heard much from Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield, but studio director Todd Howard has been answering some questions about the game in a new video series. You can watch Howard chatting about the make-believe space programme below, where he covers if Starfield is hard sci-fi (not really), the game's traits system, and dialogue. It seems that Starfield RPG's are incredibly chatty, with many times more dialogue than Fallout 4 and Skyrim.
Starfield is making a return to what Howard calls “classic Bethesda style dialogue”. Comparing the game with other Bethesda RPGs, Howard said Starfield has passed 250,000 recorded lines of dialogue, which is more than twice the amount in Fallout 4 and more than four times Skyrim’s chatting total. We got to see some of Starfield’s points-based persuasion system in action, where your character has a set number of turns and persuasion points to plonk down for their speech choices. Waving his hands around a bit, Howard said it “feels natural, not like I’ve entered some other mode where we’re not… doing regular dialogue”. Sorry, Oblivion.
Howard also touched on how Starfield isn't an entirely hard sci-fi game where you "die in space, cold” (because running out of fuel in space is only fun in Elite Dangerous), and gushed about Starfield’s trait list, which he called “super fun”. The video showed a list of these, ranging from Alien DNA that increases your starting health and endurance, to the daft Dream Home, which grants you ownership of a “luxurious, customizable house on a peaceful planet” that comes with a hefty 50,000 credit mortgage – due weekly.
We would’ve been just a month away from Starfield’s release, but the game was delayed into the first half of 2023 back in May. The last we saw of Starfield was during June’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, when a fifteen-minute video showed quite a lot of a very grey moon.
Starfield launches into the vastness of our hard drives at some point in 2023. The game is coming to Steam and the Microsoft Store, and will be on PC Game Pass from release day.