The news that starfield will contain more than 1000 planets to explore has caused quite a bit of controversy in recent days among fans, convinced that it was impossible to create all those planets entirely by hand and that therefore they will be created through procedural generation.
The confirmation came from Todd Howard himself who revealed to IGN.com that the planets will be procedurally made, but that they are a larger amount of “handmade” content compared to previous games.
Obviously, creating 1000 planets will involve procedural generation for much of the content, but that doesn’t mean Bethesda hasn’t modeled much of the content anyway. The team pointed out that there will be a good balance between the procedural elements and the “handmade” elements.
Todd Howard also points out that he wants to be even clearer about what it means exactly procedural generationnoting that players can use these mechanics to their advantage to choose how they approach the experience.
I would also like to add that we made more content by hand [in Starfield] than in any other title we’ve ever made – said Todd Howard.
We’ve been given over 200,000 lines of dialogue, so we’re still creating a lot of content by hand, and if users just want to do what they’re used to in our games, follow a main quest and related quest lines, you’ll see what you expect from us.
But we also have another part where the player can say “I’m going to explore this planet”, and that will bring more gameplay, casual content and such situations. Just like Daggerfall would, back in time.
To stay on topic, we remind you that Todd Howard revealed that the main mission will last 30-40 hours. Starfield will be available on early 2023 on PC and Xbox Series S/X.
- Starfield features more content made from scratch than any other Bethesda game (ign.com)
Source: Lega Nerd
