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[Draugoth]

In a Game Maker's Notebook interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price, Howard weighs in on the discussion about the ever-escalating scale of games, which was amplified by Baldur's Gate 3 launching back-to-back with Starfield. Price asks if games really are getting too big and wonders who's driving this "need for more complexity."

I think it starts with the developers," Howard responds. "It has to, right? I think it starts with technology. You're seeing new hardware, you're wanting to use it in new ways, you're looking at demos going 'we could do this, we could do this, we could present it in this way.' The scale of games, I think, I'd have to go back and look. How big were things before? The one thing I have noticed is, because more games are played for a long time, they're 'live,' the ability to update them over time creates games that people are playing right now that have been around for a long time, gotten years and years and years of updates, and that creates an expectation. When I'm going into something new, how does this compare with a mature game that I've been playing for a while?

Howard describes the scale of Starfield as "irresponsible," partly owing to its setting. The team was "always trying to fill it given how much space is in space." And to the surprise of no one, just as he's done for the past several years, he also revisits Skyrim.

"Even a game like Skyrim – which if you look at it at launch was still a really, really big game – if you look at it today with add-ons and mods it's a much bigger game. It's still a game that's played 12 years later in large numbers for us. I think if you look at your audience, they get used to a game and they usually want to plus-one it. They want to add XYZ, and the developers, we usually do as well."

Howard reiterates what Bethesda's teased in previous Starfield updates: the studio's actively looking to polish and add features in response to player feedback. But even compared to Skyrim's legendarily long tail, Howard says Bethesda is in it for the long haul with Starfield, both with updates and mod support.

"This is a game and it's intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we've learned from our previous games, from Skyrim, from Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time. So Starfield, I would say, was the most intentional, going into it, that this is a game people are going to play for a long time. How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural – and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.

 

[EviLore]

Banking on years of paid DLC to recoup the hundreds of millions lost by releasing it on GamePass.

 

[StereoVsn]

I mean obviously it was since we all need to get new computers. Todd knows!

 

[Roberts]

Played it for 120-130 hours and need a break but I will definitely come back. Especially if they add new stuff via DLCs.

I kind of understand people who were underwhelmed by the game and it has flaws, alright, but holy moly it’s the most immersed I have been playing gane in what feels forever. The world is so huge and the possibilities are basically endless so I’m glad they will keep on supporting it.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I'm sure people will love playing a loading simulator and visiting the same copy-pasted mining facitlies and whatnot for 5 years. Todd can fk off and his Starfield.

 

[Bry0]

The way NG+ works is great. Definitely adds to the replayability.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Played it for 120-130 hours and need a break but I will definitely come back. Especially if they add new stuff via DLCs.

I kind of understand people who were underwhelmed by the game and it has flaws, alright, but holy moly it’s the most immersed I have been playing gane in what feels forever. The world is so huge and the possibilities are basically endless so I’m glad they will keep on supporting it.

This is my issue though ...the possibilities feel really limited outside of any kind of hand crafted quest. Exploration is the one thing nagging at me the most. Other than scanning a planet and gathering some very limited resources, what is there to do?

I feel like exploration is something they screwed up. Honest question: I'm only 30 hours in and have only done a handful of main story missions, but do we ever get new activities/things to do while exploring planets? Or is it just scan some stuff while walking miles with very little to do (maybe kill a few aliens along the way) until I get to a mining facility where I can loot the same kind of stuff every time?

 

[Jigsaah]

I just played through part of the Ryujin questline...I've never been so bored in my life. It's to the point that I can only really deal with this fast travel simulator for an hour or two before I need to move on to something else to avoid falling into a coma.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

I can't wait for the 60 fps expansion pack for consoles.

 

[Comandr]

This feels ironic for me. Given how much the game seems to guide you to pursuing the story - various factions and locations walled off until you reach certain story milestones. Given how unrewarding it feels to explore various planets you’ve selected from a menu, this feels like one of the shortest Bethesda games I’ve played in recent memory. Was about 46 hours for me to complete the game and then briefly dabble with NG+. Then my interest in continuing to play just … disappeared. Like tears in the rain.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

Shouldn't have regressed in its design then.

 

[KungFucius]

This is my issue though ...the possibilities feel really limited outside of any kind of hand crafted quest. Exploration is the one thing nagging at me the most. Other than scanning a planet and gathering some very limited resources, what is there to do?

I feel like exploration is something they screwed up. Honest question: I'm only 30 hours in and have only done a handful of main story missions, but do we ever get new activities/things to do while exploring planets? Or is it just scan some stuff while walking miles with very little to do (maybe kill a few aliens along the way) until I get to a mining facility where I can loot the same kind of stuff every time?

I didn't find anything. Exploration was awful. The scanning was fucking awful. Why the fuck do you have to scan 8 of the same tree/ animal. By same I mean same thing you scanned 7 of on another planet and couldn't give a fuck. They should have made the game 3-4 planets and made them interesting and some quest specific moons or whatnot. Exploration was really the only thing holding Skyrim and FO4 together and they ruined it. I just finished it a couple of hours ago.

 

[dotnotbot]

I'm sorry Todd but judging by common opinions on your game this plan won't work.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Then why is it one of the most shallow "RPGs" in recent memory?

 

[Roberts]

This is my issue though ...the possibilities feel really limited outside of any kind of hand crafted quest. Exploration is the one thing nagging at me the most. Other than scanning a planet and gathering some very limited resources, what is there to do?

It's all really about how your idea of exploration syncs with what the game can offer you. From my own personal experience, I did:

- Most of the main quest line to the point where I got most of its benefits.
- Faction quests. Vanguard being the best and Ryujin being the least interesting one. Each takes about 6-7 hours.
- Exploring the galaxy and finding hand-crafted cities and settlements. That leads to side quests, some of them really good, like Crucible, Mantis or The First Contact where each immerses you into the game for another 1-2 hours.
- Like you said, travelling the systems, scanning, checking out the sights and taking screenshots.
- Building an outpost and then a few more.
- Fiddling around with your ship design.
- Just having fun and boarding all kinds of derelict ships and bases when you feel like shooting some pirates and other scum. I love landing on a base or an abandoned spaceship and read logs to try and figure out what went wrong there. There is tons of lore if you are willing to read.
- One of my favourite things to do is to disable enemy ship engines and board it. Super insignificant in the grand scheme of things but never gets old.

If all this doesn't seem interesting to you, then I can totally understand not being impressed.

 

[violence]

Wow, apparently I've already played 45 hours.

 

[adamsapple]

I can see that happening very easily in this games case.

 

[Wooxsvan]

Played it for 120-130 hours and need a break but I will definitely come back. Especially if they add new stuff via DLCs.

I kind of understand people who were underwhelmed by the game and it has flaws, alright, but holy moly it’s the most immersed I have been playing gane in what feels forever. The world is so huge and the possibilities are basically endless so I’m glad they will keep on supporting it.

ya pretty much the same. i cannot remember a game that iv sunk 100 hours in so quickly

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Outpost building ridiculously barebones. Settlement building in FO4 was a much better feature.

 

[TGO]

 

[sendit]

I can see it. I’m still playing it. 200+ hours.

 

[GigaBowser]

deep dive promos footage

Spoiler

actual game

 

[TheloniusFabdul]

That's funny considering this is the first Bethesda game I've ever dropped before completing it.

 

[TheAmazingSpiderMan]

This guy is definitely Phil Spencer’s younger bro, I’m convinced. Everytime he opens his mouth I don’t believe a word he says.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

Makes sense.

 

[LectureMaster]

Well let me predict: planet vehicles coming in to facilitate your grand exploration as first paid DLC.

Why make essential QOL features available in base game if we can monetize as DLC that player will have not choice but buy?

 

[Slicker than your average]

Guys we made the game shit and boring on purpose. Trust us.

 

[Dice]

If you want to make something last a long time...

What you should do: Make it extremely polished so that even the simplest actions are highly enjoyable.
What they did: Made everything half baked, so all it does it remind you of games that did the feature/action better and increasingly frustrate you that for the 100th -> 1000th -> 10,000th time you have to manually work around poor design decisions that were solved for all gaming ages ago.

What you should do: Make everything you do feed back into itself in a rewarding loop that empowers and expands the way you experience the things you do.
What they did: Made everything repetitively stack while only ever needing the first 3 stacks, often clearing the objective before you can even experimentally try out what more they gave you.

What you should do: Make the experience feel good by offering characters and environments that develop on what you did before and feel like your character is growing in connection, status, and respect.
What they did: Made everyone and everything in the universe stay on the note which it started, made your actions only noticed or remembered by the quest-givers, and companions that usually reprimand you for daring to play the game and make choices.

What you should do: Make good maps and navigation options so that as the player grows more familiar with the places they visit, they can easily recall and locate areas to return to them either for fun or to get certain resources.
What they did: Scattered hundreds of worlds across a map of unlabeled stars with no location list, have the player collect loads of data for what each planet contains yet only display that information again if the planet is physically visited again rather than building a database for the player.

What you should do: At very least live up to the standard of your past games and the other studio currently making a game under one of your franchises.
What they did: Fell far below their own base level of quality of life that everyone expects, which was already pretty much a 20 year old standard, and embarrassingly much poorer than what ZeniMax Online Studios has built.

What you should do: Be completely open with gamers about how development is going, what your challenges are, and what you are doing, taking feedback from them to heart (Example: Baldur's Gate 3)
What they did: Hyped up the game as their ultimate masterpiece slowly, carefully crafted over the last 20 years when it was clearly completely redesigned 20 months ago, many of the remnants of what was scrapped still left behind.

Having a lot of ambition is fine but ambition in itself does not make a top tier game that lasts a long time. Ambition will not mask to players what it is that you did. Ambition will not create your reputation for you. It seems like somewhere along the line the corporate culture of asslicking became their perception of how reality works outside the offices.

 

[Humdinger]

Intentionally designed to be passed off to the mod community, so they can fix it for free.

 

[Ozzie666]

This will give the mod community plenty of time to make the game what it was hyped to be.

I do wonder if they release any DLC, if it will be included on gamepass or not. Or if the poor steam user base is going to have to carry this game.

 

[Pedro Motta]

Banking on years of paid DLC to recoup the hundreds of millions lost by releasing it on GamePass.

 

[Gobjuduck]

game is great, can’t wait for more story content.

 

[WildBoy]

I'm sure people will love playing a loading simulator and visiting the same copy-pasted mining facitlies and whatnot for 5 years. Todd can fk off and his Starfield.

It worked for destiny eh

 

[LakeOf9]

I can see it, BGS games have very long tails and Starfield is obviously ripe for modding and expansions

 

[graywolf323]

This will give the mod community plenty of time to make the game what it was hyped to be.

I do wonder if they release any DLC, if it will be included on gamepass or not. Or if the poor steam user base is going to have to carry this game.

it won’t be, they always make you pay for the DLC for games on GamePass

 

[ReBurn]

Maybe they'll develop some more transition animations so people will think there aren't loading screens.

 

[Gavon West]

I can see that happening very easily in this games case.

Absolutely. I know I'll be playing for a very long time. Im sure others will, too. The naysayers are expressing wet dreams.

 

[SportsFan581]

I can see that happening very easily in this games case.

Agreed. Just the nature of how the game is put together literally gives them almost limitless possibilities. They can plop an entirely new planet/city down or add ships etc.

I figure we'll get proper quest lines for the three religious sects before too long.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I just married Sarah. In 5 years it will be time for a divorce.

 

[Topher]

Several of us said we bought the game with expectation in mind. I don't see that changing. Great game and I definitely and going to play it once we get some updates, and definitely with the story expansion.

 

[FlyyGOD]

Banking on years of paid DLC to recoup the hundreds of millions lost by releasing it on GamePass.

So on Starfield's last year of development they knew Microsoft was buying them?

 

[kiphalfton]

They're probably moving on to Starfield VR Edition now.

 

[graywolf323]

So on Starfield's last year of development they knew Microsoft was buying them?

they were already owned by Microsoft during their last nearly 2 years of development so yes?

 

[semiconscious]

What you should do: Make good maps and navigation options so that as the player grows more familiar with the places they visit, they can easily recall and locate areas to return to them either for fun or to get certain resources.
What they did: Scattered hundreds of worlds across a map of unlabeled stars with no location list, have the player collect loads of data for what each planet contains yet only display that information again if the planet is physically visited again rather than building a database for the player...

man, i hated this! no excuse whatsoever for how incredibly clunky it all is...

 

[Heisenberg007]

"I think it starts with the developers," Howard responds. "It has to, right? I think it starts with technology."

 

[M.W.]

Funny, I've been done with it for weeks now.

 

[Dice]

Actually writing out that last post just helped several things fully settle in my soul. I opened it back up to see if I had any more patience for it left and I don't. There are so many amazing games out, this doesn't deserve any more hours of attention. Maybe if they fix it over the next few years it will become tolerable, maybe it will run better on my next PC build, but then other games are still getting better all the time, so this will probably just end up seeming even more clunky and outdated after a year or two. Rangers, Crimson Fleet, and Main story are all yet to be played, yet I feel like I am missing nothing except more underwhelmed "oh, that was all they did with it" feelings and perhaps some more annoyance when my companions would berate me for whatever I would have done on them.

 

[kiphalfton]

Actually writing out that last post just helped several things fully settle in my soul. I opened it back up to see if I had any more patience for it left and I don't. There are so many amazing games out, this doesn't deserve any more hours of attention. Maybe if they fix it over the next few years it will become tolerable, maybe it will run better on my next PC build, but then other games are still getting better all the time, so this will probably just end up seeming even more clunky and outdated after a year or two. Rangers, Crimson Fleet, and Main story are all yet to be played, yet I feel like I am missing nothing except more underwhelmed "oh, that was all they did with it" feelings and perhaps some more annoyance when my companions would berate me for whatever I would have done on them.

No point playing most games at launch, besides being able to talk about it around the water cooler.

Playing Bethesda stuff at launch seems like an especially bad idea, since mod support only gets better as time goes on, and of course there's always the inevitable DLC for all their games (after however many years).

 

[Dice]

Playing at launch was half of the value this experience had.

 

[IFireflyl]

Starfield was an average game. I got my money's worth, but Skyrim is better.