Starfield was the title that was supposed to be the savior of the Xbox Series X/S console lineup. And while the title did reasonably well in the eyes of reviewers, it was not the messiah for Microsoft’s console lineup, as it was hyped up to be.
It was not helped by the fact that Starfield failed to impress the voting jury at many of the most prominent awards in the gaming fraternity. In an interview, Todd Howard, director and executive producer of Bethesda, talked about the title and how it was challenging to develop.
Todd Howard Talks About Starfield and Shares the Struggles That Were Faced by Team Bethesda While Developing the Title
Bethesda is a studio known for excellently developing role-playing experiences that are second to none in quality and immersion. The studio has been responsible for Fallout, Doom, and more.
All in all, the studio has made a name for itself in the industry. After Bethesda was acquired and branched into the umbrella of Xbox Game Studios, many of the studio’s titles were added to Microsoft’s subscription service, Xbox Game Pass. When the announcement about the studio’s latest, Starfield, only gracing the consoles as part of Microsoft’s next-gen lineup and PC was made, fans were overjoyed and were boasting the game’s exclusivity.
In an interview with IGN done well before the game’s release, the studio director, Todd Howard, talked about the game’s much-anticipated launch, its delay, and more. Howard shared the studio’s thought process and how it conceptualized a title as rich as Starfield.
Talking about the title and how it was the first new IP from the studio in more than two decades, Howard shared that:
We have put so much into this game, and it is, as you said, our first new IP in over 25 years…It’s our first major release in about eight years. So for us, we have just put so much into it that we’re just doing everything we can to make the best game that we can. Hope that everybody loves it.
The title had mixed reactions from users, and players had opinions that were most certainly polarized. Some praised the title, but others couldn’t see why it was all that great.
Speaking of the stakes that were higher as the title was about one of the biggest console exclusives ever since Bethesda’s acquisition by Microsoft, Howard stated that:
...we feel we’re on the right track and we’re really fortunate, I think, with some of those things you said, to get the attention. And we know there’s a lot of people out there looking forward to it, and we just view our jobs as, hey, just do the best job we can do…
Howard also talked about most of the studio’s games being locked at 30 frames per second and the graphical fidelity, which is almost always a priority for the studio. He also talked about the delay seen in the title and how it was related to ensuring that a polished experience was put forward. The delay was also expected because of the sheer scale of the title and its offering; creating something so expansive is not easy but a mammoth task. On this, Howard said:
…about halfway through the project, you realize this is why nobody tries to make this game. When you do these things and you take some risks and you’re really ambitious, that can be a very windy path sometimes…But it is true to the vision we had for… [a] role-playing game set in space
Starfield was most certainly an ambitious project that was filled with Bethesda DNA. However, it came in and left without making a lot of noise. At least not as much as it was expected to. Despite that, it is worth noting that the game does have a lot to offer, and while it might not be on the level of other console-exclusive titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarok, it is by no means a bad game.
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