In a recent interview, the designer of Starfield, Pagliarulo, expressed his thoughts on how religions will impact the game. As one of the starting points in the game, he explained the implementation of religion. He elaborated on the theological impacts of space exploration with game director Todd Howard and art director Istvan Pely.
According to Pagliarulo, religion will play a huge role in the game as it would affect the perspective of outcomes for the players depending upon the path they’re choosing. Even though the choices will be neutral in nature and won’t affect the morality of the characters.
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How has Religion been implemented in Starfield?
Bethesda is famous for developing RPGs with massive worlds and choice-rich backgrounds, letting players explore every opportunity in the game. Considering Starfield is scaled after a Universe, the developers covered various aspects like philosophies and subjects like religion in the in-game universe.
The designer of Starfield, Pagliarulo, explained how religions will work in Starfield in a recent interview. He talked about the various impacts and perspectives of this aspect and also spoke about the existence of God. They made two religions in the game with fundamental concepts. One is an agnostic group called the Sanctum Universum, which believes space travel has been made possible by God, and the other is an atheist group called the Enlightened.
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What did Pagliarulo say about religion in the interview?
Upon asking how the lore of Starfield becomes the story of Starfield, Pagliarulo replies,
“So there’s the Sanctum Universum, and they’re sort of the church where they believe that humans going through space and being able to explore the universe is a sign that God exists, and God wants us to be closer to him. And then there’s the Enlightened, basically an atheist church. They’re humanists; they’re just like, There’s nothing theological about this.”
The conversation in the interview mostly revolved around well-known cosmic films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar. Pagliarulo said, “And so we would have a lot of talks on our journeys, our theology. You know, what is out there?” and claimed to form ideas from these sci-fi movies.
Shane Liesegang, a Jesuit Priest in training, was responsible for writing about the Sanctum Universum. The development team handles the questions carefully to avoid offending anyone while dealing with sensitive topics such as religion.
“I’ve flip-flopped from agnostic to atheist probably five times in the course of making this game,” he said. “That’s why both views are represented in the game.”
The game itself won’t have a specific choice between Agnostic and Atheist, which leads players to their interpretations of the predicament. This decision was heavily influenced by the movies.
“Players have gotten other things before, the science, the exploration, meeting the alien race that wants to invade,” he said. “Those are all great. I love all those things. But we wanted to know if we could tackle a bit of a larger story in a game, something one of these great movies accomplished.”
Tracing religion so intricately in Starfield resulted in Pagliarulo re-evaluating his perspective regarding that matter while developing the game.
Source: Polygon
