Initially expected to release in 2022, Starfield unfortunately caught a delay into 2023, which isn’t surprising considering how little we saw of it. Well, the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase has given us our first proper look at the title. The extended look starts off with the player arriving on “the mysterious moon of Kreet.” A ship lands on the planet, though it’s unclear if you’ll be able to directly control it or not. Our friendly companion Vasco disembarks before us, as they look for an abandoned research facility. Like in previous Bethesda games, you can switch between first and third person. And it doesn’t look like all alien life will be immediately hostile. It also looks like you’ll have some kind of beam similar to No Man’s Sky that lets you mine resources, but only from certain locations. Of course, the gameplay also shows off some combat, with the player facing off against some space pirates. Gameplay seems to be your standard first-person shooter action, but with some sci-fi flavour. And weapons will apparently be modular too, so you can mix things up. One of the best pieces of news is that there’s a new lockpicking mechanic, because it wouldn’t be a Bethesda game without one. It also looks like you have a jetpack, which will help you get around and take on enemies. The trailer then skips ahead a bit to New Atlantis, which is a much more futuristic cityscape area. The player meets some NPCs here, which seem to have some greatly improved facial capture tech compared to previous games. You also appear to be after some ancient artefacts, which will presumably be the main driving force of the game. Todd Howard also treated us to a look at the character creator in the game, which looks to be a lot more in depth than in previous games. There will also be a base-building element, much like in Fallout 4. And you can even build your own spaceship, complete with who operates it. The ship’s customisation again looks pretty extensive, and it will all be important because you can fly it, at least you can while you’re in space. There looks to be plenty of dogfighting to be found in the great unknown, with space stations to dock onto to do who knows what. The game looks pretty huge too, allowing you to land anywhere on the 1000 planets in the game, so clearly someone was inspired by No Man’s Sky for more than just resource mining. And yes, it will be available on Game Pass from day one. It’s great to have finally seen Starfield in action, with years of leaks, rumours, and speculation about the game building up a constant sense of mystery around it. There have been tidbits shared in more recent months, like how the score comes into play, as well as meeting one of the game’s robotic companions Vasco. Starfield will also be an Xbox console exclusive, due to Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media. There were, of course, plenty of other big reveals at today’s event. For one, the showcase opened up with a first look at gameplay in Redfall. While it didn’t get a release date, we did at least get another look at Silksong, which is also coming to Game Pass. And the former lead designer on Inside also revealed his newest game, Cocoon.
