In a new video answering questions about Bethesda's highly-anticipated Starfield, game director Todd Howard confirmed that the title will include thousands more voice lines than originally indicated, dwarfing the line counts of previous Bethesda games such as Skyrim and Fallout 4. Starfield, which is Bethesda's first major foray into space-faring, open-world sci-fi, is set to release in 2023, a delay from its initial release target of November 2022. Approaching the release of the game, however, Bethesda has started to reveal more about it, including details about the mechanics and setting.
Starfield is shaping up to be a massive game, already having been revealed to contain more dialogue lines than Skyrim and Fallout 4. The 2022 Bethesda Showcase, in particular, gave the game a strong showing, outlining mechanics like ship customization, base building, and space combat. While the long wait between Starfield's initial 2018 announcement and its first gameplay trailer in 2022 may have caused some to doubt the game's potential, promotional material s the game as Bethesda's most expansive and comprehensive RPG yet.
Executive producer and game director Todd Howard has expanded on previous statements in a Starfield won't have Fallout 4's controversial feature of a voice-acted main character, the dialogue system in the game seems like a return to form for Bethesda, with an infographic even comparing Starfield's 252,953 lines to Skyrim's 60,000 and Fallout 4's 111,000.
Starfield Will Have The Most Dialogue Of Any Bethesda Game
The video also shows off a snippet of the game's speech/persuasion system, with Howard explaining that it has players spending points to try and persuade NPCs, and praising the system as being more integrated into dialogue than past attempts at persuasion mechanics. Alongside the game's dialogue system, Howard also discusses Starfield's inspirations, which include retro sci-fi game Sundog and classic TTRPG Traveller. He also addresses whether or not the game qualifies as hard sci-fi; he thinks it does, though he defers to the judgment of players. Finally, Howard discusses the game's trait system, explaining that traits will have negatives to them, but can also be negated or removed through gameplay.
As more is revealed, Starfield, with its 1,000 planets, is shaping up to be Bethesda's biggest game yet upon its 2023 release. Size, however, doesn't always equate to quality, and given the long wait and delayed release, some fans may be wary of the scale that Bethesda is promising, especially with the developer's penchant for bugs in its releases.
Even with potential problems, Starfield represents a significant chance for Bethesda to bring a quality space-faring experience to the gaming industry. The game is clearly not short on ambition, as its extensive list of dialogue lines proves, but time will tell if Bethesda can use these lines and its considerable open world experience to deliver an enjoyable sci-fi game when Starfield releases next year.
Source: Bethesda Softworks/YouTube (via GamesRadar)
