Setting Expectations for Starfield: What Does Bethesda Have in Store For Us?

Being one of the most hotly anticipated role-playing games of all time - courtesy of Bethesda's unique pedigree - everyone's got some kind of expectations for Starfield by now. A massive, sprawling open-galaxy ARPG in the vein of Skyrim? Something like the (contemporary) Fallout but without being a post-apocalyptic hellscape? Heck, even if we just consider the game for what it is at face value (a new first-party Bethesda RPG), the hype gets immense by default.

Is there a good reason for this, though? Should you be excited about a new Bethesda IP, or should you wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 or Fallout 5 instead? Hard questions, for sure, and we can't promise that we'll be able to give you a satisfying answer for you, specifically.

What we can promise, though, is that you already know what you're getting with Starfield. And we're 100% positive that it's going to be an absolute banger. Here's why!

READ MORE: The Best Bethesda PC Games of All Time

Setting the Right Expectations for Starfield

It's important to understand right off the bat that Bethesda has wanted to make Starfield for a very, very long time now. The simple truth, as it were, is that the process of developing such an improbably massive space-based RPG to any semblance of quality wasn't feasible for a good chunk of that time. Having a dream is great, for sure, but being realistic and open about the said dream is even better.

Keeping that in mind, we believe it's important to posit a simple statement that may or may not end up being true: elements of what Starfield is supposed to be have been present in many older Bethesda games all along. In fact, even going further back than Morrowind itself, Bethesda Game Studios has been making huge open-world adventures where the world twists, turns, and - sometimes - churns around the player. And, for a more concrete and less ephemeral example, the BGS titles from Skyrim onwards share a huge number of similarities with what gameplay footage we've seen of Starfield itself.

This, combined with the fact that Starfield runs on good ol' GameBryo at its core, leads to a simple statement...

We Know Precisely What Sort of Games Bethesda Makes

Indeed, we know what we're getting with Starfield. A game about the exploration of desolate space and 24th-century frontiersmanship. Where players can explore hundreds of landable celestial bodies or focus, instead, on what few settlements exist in the vastness of the biggest expanse there ever was, will be, or could be. It's no accident at all that Starfield's first official gameplay showcase looked an awful lot like Fallout 4 in moment-to-moment gameplay.

Fallout 4, which - in turn - looked fairly similar to Skyrim. Skyrim, which looked remarkably similar to Oblivion. We can go on, but surely you've caught the thread we're hanging onto here. Bethesda Game Studios knows what it's about, and its audience knows as much too. There's a very good reason why The Elder Scroll games stand effectively alone in their particular niche. What other engine could run such a huge sandbox in real-time, after all? And which other game studio knows this particular engine to such an extent?

Delay after delay, Starfield has remained one of the most hotly anticipated games of the current era. Make no mistake - this situation isn't even remotely similar to the likes of Cyberpunk 2077. Whereas CDPR found itself in a situation it had never been in before, BGS knows precisely what its player base wants. It's a good thing, we belive, that this jives with what BGS most often delivers.

Expect a Space-Bound Skyrim, But Better

Naysayers may complain, but the simple fact of the matter is that Skyrim is popular for a reason. Even a full decade following its seminal release, it's yet to receive a full, proper competitor. It's 2023, and only just now do we have full-fledged - potential! - alternatives with games such as Obsidian's Avowed. Still, that's one game that is going to attempt to pull off something similar, with everyone else either hunkering down to focus on a smaller-scale simulation or, perhaps, to deliver a more linear and less free-form role-playing experience altogether.

Nothing wrong with these things, mind - we're big fans of smaller-scale productions like ELEX 2, for example. Was it ever going to compete with a game such as The Elder Scrolls or Starfield, for that matter? Goodness, no. And if you're wondering why this comparison is even being drawn in the first place, it's because Gothic had a genuinely good shot at being an Elder Scrolls competitor back in the day.

No such competition remains for BGS. Instead, the studio is doing its own thing. And, really, even though that thing has been done over and over again in different settings, universes, and time periods, it just works. Phenomenally well, in fact.

Is Familiarity a Good Thing, Though?

Bethesda Game Studios' first-party RPGs are in a class all of their own. Millions of players worldwide enjoy the studio's many RPGs on a daily basis, and judging by everything we've seen and heard about Starfield so far, the game has a good shot at being the crowning jewel for the studio.

We don't know the specifics - of course. Or how much content there is, how moddable this iteration of GameBryo might be, how interesting the story and the characters are, or - perhaps - how well it will hold up to the test of time. We do know, however, what kind of game Bethesda makes. And we do know that Starfield was one of BGS's strongest inspirations for the longest time.

Keeping all of the above in mind, we cannot wait to see how Starfield plays in practice. Or, for example, what the modding community makes of it. We're in for a very exciting time, no doubt on that front. And, from the looks of it, BGS and Starfield may pave the way for 2023 in much the same way as Elden Ring did for 2022. Stay tuned!

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