The Elder Scrolls studio Bethesda has been underway on its first new IP in decades with the development of Starfield, an upcoming space-faring RPG with a focus on exploration, combat, and interaction with in-game characters. While this logline would seem suspiciously samey, especially from the people who brought the world Skyrim and the Fallout series, Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard has repeatedly talked up the fresh direction occupied by Starfield, and he did so once again with the premiere of a new video.

As part of a new community-focused Q&A video, Todd Howard explained the “hard sci-fi” and pen-and-paper inspirations of Starfield as well as how these influences factored into gameplay – namely the game’s new dialogue system. Referring to it as a “classic Bethesda-style” mechanic, character interactions were teased to offer a bit more scope than expected, confirming over 252,953 lines were counted at the time of the video’s airing. This is shown to be leagues greater than both Skyrim (60,00) and Fallout 4 (111,000) combined.

Most intriguingly, Howard showed off the first bit of gameplay depicting Starfield’s dialogue system in action, also introducing the mechanic’s new persuasion system in the process. Operating in a similar manner to the reputation system in the Mass Effect games, persuasion is different as players instead utilize depletable points to “persuade” others in contentious conversations rather than as a permanent unlock. According to Howard, this limited availability is aimed to make conversations feel “more natural” than previous Bethesda titles.

The end of the showcase teases many more Q&A reveals planned ahead as Starfield treks toward release. We saw our greatest peek at the game yet during this year’s big Xbox/Bethesda showcase, highlighting numerous features like alien exploration, shooter combat, and No Man’s Sky-esque spacecraft piloting. If that wasn’t enough, the game was confirmed to house over 1000 individual planets to explore and the ability to customize the player character’s appearance, backstory, skills, as well as the very spacecraft they pilot.

Starfield releases for PC and Xbox Series S/X sometime in 2023.

​What do you think? Are you impressed by what you’ve seen of Starfield already, or will you need to see more gameplay to sufficiently get yourself hyped? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow Don’t Feed the Gamers on Twitter and Facebook to be informed of the latest gaming and entertainment news 24 hours a day!​

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