Update (Wed 7th Jun, 2023): With the Starfield Direct taking place this Sunday, we thought we'd give this feature a bump! We'll also throw our guide to the Xbox Games Showcase 2023 below, which the Starfield Direct will be a part of.
Original story (Fri 10th Mar, 2023): After what feels like an age, we finally have confirmation of two big Starfield events: the game's release date, and the next time we'll see Bethesda's RPG in action. The game is now set to launch on September 6th, and we'll next see gameplay at the Starfield Direct on June 11th.
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While we don't really know any specifics in relation to the Direct itself yet, we're expecting it to be Starfield's main blowout of information prior to the game's September launch. As a result, we want to see lots and lots of Bethesda goodness here.
We have reason to believe the team will deliver the goods as well. In their recent launch date trailer, Todd Howard himself said Bethesda Game Studios has "so much that we still have to show" about Starfield. Well Todd, here are six things we want you to show us.
Extended Starfield Spaceship Gameplay
We've seen bits and pieces of what Starfield looks like from the skies, but we want to see some real extended footage of spaceship gameplay at the Direct in June. How does dogfighting really work? How do you initiate combat with other factions while in your spaceship? What does the whole flying process look like from start to finish?
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A bunch of this was condensed into a sizzle reel of sorts within last summer's gameplay deep dive, but we want to see it uninterrupted this time around. Basically, show us how much chaos we'll inevitably cause while trying to move from planet to planet.
A Lengthy Look At Some Of Starfield's Huge Settlements
At this point, Todd & co. have made it known that Starfield will feature hundreds of planets for players to explore. And yet, we really want to see some of the major cities and settlements that are situated within these planets.
The team has shown off 'New Atlantis' a number of times within various gameplay clips, and it does look like it'll be one of the game's main settlements. Still, we'd love a full-on walkthrough of something on that kind of scale - maybe a different city on a different planet.
Just how many things you can interact with and how many folks you can talk to within these settlements should tell us a lot about how deep Starfield is beneath the surface. We know it has lots of planets, and now we want to know how dense the most populated ones are.
The Full Scope Of Starfield's World
Towards the end of last summer's gameplay deep dive, Todd took a moment or two to talk to us about the sheer scale of Starfield's world. "Over 100 solar systems" and "over 1,000 planets" are the numbers being thrown out there by the team.
While these numbers are very impressive, we'd like to see some reassurance that lots of Starfield's planets are actually worth exploring. It's okay to tout those sorts of numbers - we just hope that lots of these systems and the planets within them are worth venturing out to.
Some of the logistics behind travelling between all of these places would be nice to know about as well. Maybe a quick showcase of the game's fast travel system to show off those super speedy Xbox Series X|S storage drives would be a good shout?
60FPS Gameplay On Xbox Series X And S
Look, we know Bethesda titles aren't exactly known for their blistering console performance, but we've gotten used to 60FPS now and we want to see it in Starfield.
We understand this is a huge game and the visuals may need to take a hit for 60 — especially if the team can get those performance levels on Series S — but we just want to see that option available in some form.
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This is now a game under Xbox's banner and we'd hope that performance on its new consoles would be a big priority for all of the teams working on Starfield. A very pretty 30FPS mode would be nice as well, especially for the folks that want to see the stars at the highest detail possible!
A Look At Starfield's Combat Arsenal
A fairly hefty chunk of the gameplay released during last summer's Xbox showcase focused on a few gunfights after landing on a planet. While it was nice to see these extended combat sequences, at the time, things did look a little clunky, and the clips only showed off a few weapons and gadgets.
At this year's Starfield Direct, we think it's time to blow the doors open on Starfield's arsenal; open up that inventory and detail exactly what we're looking at when it comes to weapons, skills, abilities - the whole nine yards.
This would also be a good time to show off how far the game has come along since its last delay, and how the team's shooting mechanics have evolved since Fallout 4.
Starfield Quest Variety & Dialogue Options
Since its launch back in 2010, Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas has become a fan favourite Fallout title - in large part due to how developer Obsidian handled the game's branching storylines and player-driven dialogue options.
While we understand that it can be hard to show off such systems within a gameplay reveal, we'd like to hear Todd touch on how Starfield will handle these aspects, and how the team is still making sure this is a Bethesda RPG at its core.
There's so much potential for some epic stories amongst the starfield, and we have faith that Todd and the team can deliver them. Let's see if they reward that faith in June!
These are just six things we'd love to see Bethesda Game Studios show off during its Starfield Direct on June 11th. There's less than a week to go until the big summer show... bring it on!
What do you think to our Starfield Direct wishlist? Anything you'd like to add? Let us hear it!
Comments 40
Honestly, all I want to hear, potentially, is info on 60fps target mode. Other than that, I know all I want to hear, I'll jump into this game day one.
Actually... there is one more thing I want to know about: details on any collector's edition with physical goodies. I would jump at something that includes a statue or something of the sort, I would not care for something with a toy smart watch.
Do they have space dragons? Is this ACTUALLY Skyrim in space?
I doubt it will be 60fps it's still using that crap outdated engine & they couldn't even make Skyrim run at 60fps on ps5 , atleast not without enabling a community made mod
60fps is a must in a shooter, you could somewhat get away with it in Fallout due to VATS and Skyrim was hack and slash.
60 fps or not. All I want is a great story.☝️
This has to have a 60fps option, we will be three years into this console gen by the time it comes out. Anything less would be unacceptable.
Howard seems to not care about framerate so I'm just assuming it's going to be 30 fps and hopefully we'll get surprised. It will get a lot of grumbling online but the sales will show majority don't care in the end so long as the game is great.
But i agree that 30fps should be illegal going forward
Nowadays I find 30fps to blurry and not smooth enough when moving and panning around the environment.
I play 60fps for every thing now with VRR on and it looks far better and smoother and less blurry.
I take a slight hit in resolution sometimes but the 60fps butter smooth and better panning visual quality wins easy.
I'm interested to see how vast the world is and how much variety and life there is on the various planets.
I want to know performance and graphics modes that will be available on XSX and XSS. And I really hope BOTH consoles can keep it from dipping below 30fps, ever. I'm ok with this running at 1080p and solid 30fps on XSS. I at least expect 4k at 30fps on XSX, and the option for a performance mode that runs about 60fps at 1440.
@themightyant at the end of the day it’s still an RPG, and missing or hitting (the enemy or the player) will at the end be all about stats.
Still hope for a 60 fps mode, but being an RPG it’s not as important as it’s on a standard FPS.
Really hoping to see keyboard and mouse support on Series X. Aswell as being it added to other Bethesda games.
The ability to run off external ssd for patches 🤣
I want to know exactly what kind of tech that the Xbox engineers assisted with to warrant the delay.
Will this be the game that finally puts the Velocity Architecture to work?
Microsoft put so much technology and rendering techniques into the Series consoles that I don’t think has been fully utilized.
I want to see the Xbox Series consoles actually being used “as intended”.
Starfield should really be that showcase.
I know that won’t be covered in this, but the technerd in me really wants that information.
I am expecting weapons to be the games weakpoint.
It's NASApunk theme makes melee weapons and wild scifi weapons unlikely. So it's going to be almost entirely ballistics in the usual configurations pistol/SMG/Shotgun/Assault/sniper/some sort of booms
Based on what other devs have said and the size of this game I’m thinking a lot of the delays were bc of series s. Double edged sword- bringing ppl into Xbox ecosystem while also holding series x back
@BrilliantBill The Coalition does crazy things with Unreal Engine.
I can't wait to see what they are doing because they have been working so hard with Epic to optimize UE5 for DirectX/Xbox that they might as well be considered a 2nd-party Epic developer along with a 1st-party Microsoft developer.
Gears 6 is going to look insane!
@Would_you_kindly Then you don’t have to worry about playing the game because of it’s crap engine. Many others will certainly enjoy the game. Now move along and go complain on Push that Starfield isn’t going to be on your beloved console. Oh, I am sure you could create a better engine as well.
Removed - trolling/baiting; user is banned
@Would_you_kindly No, not at all. Like I said before, I will be here to correct your off base, false and negative comments.
I stand by my desire to see Todd Howard present the showcase in a converse, jeans, printed tee and leather jacket.
Removed - flaming/arguing; user is banned
This should blow the doors off when it comes to graphics, This is aimed at next gen consoles and it should be expected that this game needs to show off the power of the Series S and Definitely the Series X. If they bounce on Graphics then that's not a great look at all. This needs to be Thier Xbox beast.
I miss the days when consoles launched with that one must have title that you always went back to play. Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic, the OG Xbox had Halo but the last couple generations haven't really had any must have launch titles that you would always go back to play. I hope Starfield is that title for Xbox. Xbox needs a big successful blockbuster that gives people a reason to buy Xbox.
Given this one a bump ahead of Sunday's event!
Feel free to continue the discussion below
Going away on a stag do on friday till monday so wont see anything until tuesday maybe wednesday, hopefully we get to see a decent amount of gameplay and what its all about, this is my most anticipated game this year
I am not remotely expecting it to be 60fps considering the ambition and scale of the game, but of course it would be great. More important to me is the freedom of exploration, variety of factions and environmental storytelling on different planets
I’m totally not cool with 30fps. I wish I could say it makes no difference (and I get the fact that some people don’t care or can’t see the difference) but for me 30fps makes my eyes hurt to the point of being unplayable.
Always happy when developers include a choice in the graphics options to favour performance or graphical fidelity to suit individual taste.
I'm all for the smoothest gameplay experience possible, but will 30fps be such a big deal breaker for a game like this? I could understand if it had multiplayer content, then 60fps would be beneficial. But considering it is single player only, I don't think 30fps would be a bad thing.
Really needs 60fps. I'm pushing myself through Zelda at 30...it hurts so much. I've actually started playing it on my old non-OLED Switch to avoid the 30fps stutter/flashing that I thought was a limitation of my monitor, but the SWOLED does it as well....just how engines render 30fps on fast displays and it's grotesque. 30fps is simply not compatible with computer graphics on modern fast displays, full stop.
@Tharsman (necro) "at the end of the day it’s still an RPG, and missing or hitting (the enemy or the player) will at the end be all about stats."
(Snicker's in the general direction of any FFXVI conversation ever.... )
Every gameplay video of Starfield is in 30fps, I don't think it's reasonable to expect 60fps. Which is fine by me, I prefer 30fps, more cinematic in my opinion.
It must be 60 fps no excuses whatsoever and the showcase must deliver this year
@Amigator if course its reasonable on the xbox series x
This game will have horrible sales numbers.
Not being a constant 60fps it's well documented only 10% of today's gamers can play that fps. Anything less apparently their eyes are unable to decipher as well as run risk their skulls exploding.
The interaction with characters you come across has to better than Red Dead Redemption 2. That game is amazing, you can interact with pretty much anyone and you develop a reputation, people remember you and react accordingly. If ya a nice person people will. Say hi, welcome you, offer you a drink. If you’re a bit of a ***** people will avoid you or scowl at ya, even start trouble with ya. I also hope there is lots of variety in the planets you visit. It needs to feel like i’m in a new world. Simply changing colours of things won’t do it. The game sounds too good to be true, if they can pull this off this could be right up there with Playstation exclusives. Might even get Xbox first GOTY award.
I hope that Starfield incorporates astrophysics in space travel and ship combat. If you've ever seen The Expanse (or read the source material) or read the Three Body Problem trilogy, you get what I mean.
@Lastatopiny The games media had TotK preordained for GOTY 2023 long before it released. Regardless, it is just a title. I hope Starfield is amazing.
@theduckofdeath i think Spiderman 2 will challenge TOTK, hopefully Starfield will too.
@Lastatopiny I think the biggest advantage (as a selling point) of Spider-Man 2 is the Spider-Man license. (It will sell well while being exclusive to PS5 this time.) Then there are the previous games, which are well regarded. In a GOTY race, that may be a disadvantage as it is a known quantity. Do we really believe there will be anything new gameplay-wise? Elements outside of set-pieces and QTE sequences.
@theduckofdeath like you say the previous games were great an Insomniac are saying this is the best game they ever made. Saw MK1 gameplay last night sn that looks incredible, maybe MK1 can win it!! I doubt it tho!!
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