Bethesda Game Studios has released its first new IP in over 30 years with Starfield, a bold sci-fi RPG that has released to mixed appeal. In its debut release, Starfield hasn’t clicked with fans as much as worlds like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but designer Bruce Nesmith believes the game is a strong foundation for a future sequel.
Nesmith explained the issues with creating new franchises for a studio like Bethesda. With the studio spending decades evolving their existing RPGs, Starfield was a new challenge that should result in “one hell of a game” in the future.
“When we built Skyrim, we had the tremendous advantage of Oblivion, which had the tremendous advantage of Morrowind. All that stuff was there for us,” Nesmith explained. “All we had to do was continue to improve and add new stuff in. We didn’t have to start from the ground up. If we’d had to start from the ground up, that would have been another two or three years of development time.
“I’m looking forward to Starfield 2. I think it’s going to be one hell of a game because it’s going to address a lot of the things people are saying, ‘We’re quite there. We’re missing a little bit.’ It will be able to take what’s in there right now and put in a lot of new stuff and fix a lot of those problems.”
While games like Fallout have decades of history to take from and a tonne of past mistakes to learn from, a universe like Starfield has to essentially start from scratch. Nesmith likens the experience to games like Mass Effect or Assassin’s Creed, franchises that has rough starts but resulted in amazing sequels.
“If you look at the first Dragon Age, the first Assassin’s Creed, the first game in a lot of IPs, they tend to show off flashes of brilliance amid a lot of other things that don’t quite catch everybody’s eye,” the Skyrim developer explained. “No, they’re not quite as hot and popular. It takes, sadly, sometimes a second or third to version of the game in order to really enrich everything.”
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Nesmith explained the issues with creating new franchises for a studio like Bethesda. With the studio spending decades evolving their existing RPGs, Starfield was a new challenge that should result in “one hell of a game” in the future.
“When we built Skyrim, we had the tremendous advantage of Oblivion, which had the tremendous advantage of Morrowind. All that stuff was there for us,” Nesmith explained. “All we had to do was continue to improve and add new stuff in. We didn’t have to start from the ground up. If we’d had to start from the ground up, that would have been another two or three years of development time.
“I’m looking forward to Starfield 2. I think it’s going to be one hell of a game because it’s going to address a lot of the things people are saying, ‘We’re quite there. We’re missing a little bit.’ It will be able to take what’s in there right now and put in a lot of new stuff and fix a lot of those problems.”
While games like Fallout have decades of history to take from and a tonne of past mistakes to learn from, a universe like Starfield has to essentially start from scratch. Nesmith likens the experience to games like Mass Effect or Assassin’s Creed, franchises that has rough starts but resulted in amazing sequels.
“If you look at the first Dragon Age, the first Assassin’s Creed, the first game in a lot of IPs, they tend to show off flashes of brilliance amid a lot of other things that don’t quite catch everybody’s eye,” the Skyrim developer explained. “No, they’re not quite as hot and popular. It takes, sadly, sometimes a second or third to version of the game in order to really enrich everything.”
Starfield 2 will be “one hell of a game” claims designer as Bethesda learns from its mistakes
Skyrim lead designer and Starfield systems designer Bruce Nesmith is looking forward to Starfield 2 as the studio continues to learn.
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