The Starfield. Waiting for the developer to put out a new mainline game is an exercise in patience in and of itself, but Starfield's recent gameplay certainly helped a lot of fans feel optimistic for its eventual 2023 launch date.
Fans on Reddit have been excitedly discussing what was revealed and what they hope to see unfold in the final product. From diverse planets to more immersive roleplaying elements, there are plenty of things fans online are understandably raising their expectations for.
Planets With Environmental Dichomoties
To properly take advantage of Starfield leaning heavily into the sci-fi genre, the many planets that players are going to be able to explore should have things environmentally unique to them. Aside from having different terrains, having different ends of a planet essentially be stark opposites would be thrilling to see.
Redditor LexB777 made a post where they "hope is a tidally locked planet. A scorched desert on one side, a frozen eternal night on the other. Between is a forever sunrise, a ribbon of life." Eloquently and vividly put, planets like this would make the worlds of Starfield feel that much more immersive and rewarding for exploration.
Multiple Biomes On Planets
Expanding on the theme of planetary diversity, something else that would add to Starfield's prospectively rich worlds would be to seamlessly integrate multiple biomes on a single planet. Redditor Artikay thought that "Since you can't fly around in [the] atmosphere it seems like it would [be] pretty easy to have multiple biomes if you cheat a bit and have them on islands so you cant walk between them. Like a forest planet with a polar ice cap."
Starfield did a great job being a blockbuster part of Xbox and Bethesda's presentation, and showing off the potential variety of biomes that any one planet can have would elevate excitement further. It would make the game feel all the more alive and dynamic, while also contributing to meaningful exploration.
Avoiding Too Much Resource Gathering & Base Building
One of the mechanics shown off in the Xbox + Bethesda Showcase was Starfield's resource gathering and base building as part of the gameplay loop. It's important for any game to not be defined by a single mechanic to avoid monotony, but some fans are hoping that the developers strike a tasteful balance.
Redditor Wixbait said, "Hopefully there isn't too much focus on resource gathering and base building," but noted they were "Glad to see more RPG elements coming back." Fallout 4 might have been testing the waters for this, but it comes full circle to the point of honing in on the RPG aspects more than anything.
Maximizing Roleplaying Potential With The Silent Protagonist
2015's Fallout 4 still ranks fairly favorably among Bethesda's best games, but for longtime fans, it marked the first major dip in quality compared to what came before it in New Vegas and 3. More specifically, many thought it was a noticeable downgrade in the RPG department. Redditor MAJ_Starman believes that "if the protag is silent the potential for replaying as different characters is gigantic. Not to mention the roleplaying flexibility."
Having the protagonist fully voiced in Fallout 4 seemed to severely limit the player's choice, among other progression mechanics, and something as simple as Starfield's character becoming voiceless again raises hopes that the game will put the "roleplaying" back in RPG.
A More Immersive Crime Faction System
A feature that helped make other Bethesda games feel more alive and dynamic was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's "crime faction" system that measured the character's notoriety or hostility. Some eagle-eyed Redditors took notice of something in the gameplay presentation that could hint toward this system in Starfield, with bonsly24 hopeful that "Bringing it back as a more d game mechanic is cool though, and hopefully points to it being more than just a 'are they hostile' system."
The game will have a slew of factions with specific allegiances, and a more sophisticated version of what Skyrim used would pave the way for many ways to shape the protagonist's role in the world. On top of implementing an exciting risk/reward element to the gameplay, it's something that'll also further deepen the roleplaying aspect.
Optimized At Launch; No Modding Required
It should be a given at this point, but several cases in the past have shown that even a triple-A blockbuster launching in a stable state isn't guaranteed. While Cyberpunk 2077 was a special case, other Bethesda-brand blunders have become synonymous with the developer's past releases.
Redditor Naryu_ was thrilled with the recent presentation for Starfield, but understandably underlined that excitement by saying "I just hope I don't have to wait for Starfield unofficial patch in order [to] play Starfield." For longtime fans of Skyrim on PC, that last point was referencing the fan-made mod titled "Skyrim Unofficial Patch" that fixed a host of bugs that Bethesda left even after its post-launch cycle ended.
Improved Player Choice
On top of things like influencing the outcome of a game's story, player choice in all aspects of an RPG's interconnecting mechanics is vital to the genre and creating an immersive experience. It's a broad feature, but it's nonetheless important to longtime Bethesda fans and Redditor LaughDull967, who said that they "just hope they let you have meaningful choice," while noting the developer's weaknesses in this area saying "They sort of go for the 'you can choose any color you want as long as it’s black' kind of choice... you can level up your speech, and maybe you talk your way out of a fight occasionally, but mostly you still need to fight your way through everything."
Because of how important player choice is to an RPG, it's also easy for it to underwhelm players. Games like Fallout 4 merely gave the illusion of choice to some players, with even non-genre games (like later Telltale Games titles) succumbing to this.
More Creativity In The Weapons Featured
As a sci-fi action RPG, Bethesda should also get inventive with the weapon variety available. Both fantasy and sci-fi genres invite a great degree of imagination in how players fight the creatures and villains thrown at them, and fans like Redditor Doomedtacox are among those hoping for more to get revealed.
They said they "really hope we get some combat that isn't just bullet-based guns, like lasers, flamethrowers, pulse rifles, etc." More should be shown in this department as Starfield gets closer to release, with laser-based weapons seeming like an obvious type to expect. In the same comment thread, other s pointed out that they saw "lasers" on the character creation screen to add credence to this.
Gunplay With More Physical Impact
In another ironic Bethesda staple, one of the few places fans felt Starfield needed some polish in was the gunplay. This has never been the developer's strong suit, with Redditors like EpsiasDelanor itting as much. They did note that they were otherwise extremely impressed with what's been shown but said "Yeah, gunplay seems to need more work, it was lacking punch. Also, enemies seemed ive."
It's nothing new, as players have noticed this as far back as the early Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Even Skyrim had loose, fairly clunky combat for as acclaimed as it was. They typically got by on being just fun enough to keep players entertained while the story, open world, and character progression carried the rest of the experience. Hopefully, Starfield (and The Elder Scrolls VI, by extension) gets polished enough to make combat have a more cathartic physical impact.
Quality Over Quantity
A big selling point made in the presentation was how many planets would be explorable in Starfield. There's set to be over 1,000 planets in-game, but that might be something to avoid taking at face value given No Man's Sky's 2016 launch.
Redditor Jippynms expressed concern, saying their "fear is that the game will feel empty with no purpose for exploration or no real deep systems to keep you motivated." Most of these planets will likely be desolate for resource purposes, which makes things like combat, quest design, resource gathering, etc. on more narrative-focused planets key to keeping players engaged in a substantive loop.
