With over 1,000 planets to land on and explore in Starfield, Bethesda’s developers set their sights on the stars with its latest ambitious RPG. But despite its widespread positive reception, it’s not surprising to hear complaints from the community that many of Starfield’s planets are bland and uninteresting.
In response to concerns about Starfield’s thousand worlds mostly being boring, Bethesda’s managing director Ashley Cheng told the New York Times (via VG247) that not every planet “is supposed to be Disney World,” reasoning that astronauts weren’t bored when they went to the moon, even though there’s nothing on it.
Starfield features a handful of planets populated with towns and cities, all of which are host to a generous variety of characters to interact with, missions to complete, and loot to discover. You can land on any of its thousand-odd planets and explore the surface at will. But being procedurally generated, they’re fairly repetitive and featureless: Many planets have gorgeous fauna and flora, but unless you’re landing for a mission or to collect resources, there’s usually nothing unique to find.
Despite being uninteresting on the surface, Starfield’s uninhabited and barren planets strengthen its narrative. The game excels for its strong story that thrives on themes of mystery and exploration into the unknown.
Chang continued by saying that “the point of the vastness of space is you should feel small,” and we agree. You’ll spend long periods of time exploring barren worlds in the depths of space in Starfield, away from society, and it’s exciting when you finally get to return, hand in your quests, sell your loot, and rest.
Bethesda’s Todd Howard agreed with Cheng, saying he wanted players to have “periods of loneliness” so they get the “feeling of being this explorer.” And Howard is right; there’s a lot to explore. Even though most of Starfield’s planets don’t have much on them, the ones that are populated are interesting, varied, and packed with things to find.
