Starfield is a 'bit more hardcore' than previous Bethesda RPGs, says Todd Howard

(Image credit: Bethesda)

We've learned more about Starfield in the past 24 hours than we did over the three years combined. At E3 yesterday we finally got our first look at the Starfield teaser trailer, which gave us lots of interesting details to puzzle over (including, possibly, a hint about the Elder Scrolls 6).

And in a new interview today with The Telegraph, Bethesda's executive producer Todd Howard revealed even more information about the space RPG.

"It's also a bit more hardcore of a roleplaying game than we've done," Howard said to The Telegraph. "It's got some really great character systems—choosing your background, things like that. We’re going back to some things that we used to do in games long ago that we felt have really let players express the character they want to be."

Howard also confirms that, like Skyrim and Fallout, Starfield is a first- and third-person game, with players being able to choose which perspective they want to play in. And in the same fashion as Skyrim and Fallout, there's a larger story in Starfield and the freedom to put that aside and occupy yourself with other activities. "And if you just want to pass the time and go watch the sunset and pick flowers it's rewarding in that way too."

Howard also talked about how the look of Starfield's technology is futuristic but not so much as it would be unrecognizable to players. "So if you look at the ship – you can probably design a much sleeker ship 300 years in the future, right? But this has touchstones back to the current space program," Howard said. "So in your mind, you can draw this line between them."

And there will be aliens in Starfield. Not just alien critters or creatures as seen in the concept art, but actual alien races, which Howard (unfortunately) did not provide more detail on. But it sounds like it won't just be other humans you'll be meeting and interacting with as you explore the galaxy in Starfield.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.