Most of the hardcore Bethesda RPG fans who’ve invested thousands of hours into Skyrim and Fallout 4 can't wait for the release of Starfield.
Some have been passing the time until September by creating tabletop RPGs that allow people to take an early trip into space, getting ready to make some mods for it, or getting way too invested in the philosophies of its factions.
Thankfully, for those who’ve been desperately hoping for more information about the game to dig into following the release of a timeline detailing the history of its world, a developer Q&A session on Discord has just delivered a bunch of interesting nuggets.
Which of these new details about Starfield do you find most interesting?
As part of the session, two of the game’s developers, Lead Quest Designer Will Shen and Studio Design Director Emil Pagliarulo, both answered to 16 hand-picked questions submitted by fans.
Some of their responses simply confirmed key mechanical details about the game, such as that you can recruit “over 20” named companions to serve in your crew and be sent to jail if you’re caught violating the law. Meanwhile, others provided some more in-depth background on aspects of the game we hadn’t gotten much info on prior to the session.
For example, the pair painted a very interesting picture of the beliefs held by the major religious groups in The Settled Systems, including House Va’ruun, a mysterious sect that worships a huge interstellar snake. Regarding their origins, Pagilarulo explained:
“The gossip among the guards is this: a colony ship sets off for a new world, making grav jumps along the way. After one of the grav jumps, one of the passengers claims he spent that time communing with a celestial entity known as the Great Serpent. What was a few seconds for everyone else was... much longer for him. And he brought back a mandate, which is basically, ‘get onboard, or be devoured when the Great Serpent encircles the universe’.”
In response to a question about combat mechs, which have proven to be a major area of interest among fans over the past few months, the developer revealed that those in the game won't be usable, instead being ruined leftovers from the colony war described in the recently released timeline.
“Both sides, United Colonies and Freestar Collective, had mechs,” said Pagilarulo, “but the Freestar Collective really mastered them. The United Colonies had mechs, too, but they also relied on the controlled alien beasts from their Xenowarfare division.”
If you’re keen to read through all of Shen and Pagliarulo’s answers, the Reddit post below helpfully contains a full transcript of the session.
Regardless of whether you’re now dissecting every word they typed to further your knowledge of Starfield, make sure to follow us for lots of guides to its world and mechanics, as its release creeps ever closer.
You can also check out our latest mods of the month for some impressive works for other Bethesda games that might help tide you over until it arrives.