Todd Howard says Starfield was "intentionally made to be played for a long time" and Bethesda's looking 5+ years ahead

[John Elden Ring]

In a Game Maker's Notebook interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price, Howard weighs in on the discussion about the ever-escalating scale of games, which was amplified by Baldur's Gate 3 launching back-to-back with Starfield. Price asks if games really are getting too big and wonders who's driving this "need for more complexity."

I think it starts with the developers," Howard responds. "It has to, right? I think it starts with technology. You're seeing new hardware, you're wanting to use it in new ways, you're looking at demos going 'we could do this, we could do this, we could present it in this way.' The scale of games, I think, I'd have to go back and look. How big were things before? The one thing I have noticed is, because more games are played for a long time, they're 'live,' the ability to update them over time creates games that people are playing right now that have been around for a long time, gotten years and years and years of updates, and that creates an expectation. When I'm going into something new, how does this compare with a mature game that I've been playing for a while?

Howard describes the scale of Starfield as "irresponsible," partly owing to its setting. The team was "always trying to fill it given how much space is in space." And to the surprise of no one, just as he's done for the past several years, he also revisits Skyrim.

"Even a game like Skyrim – which if you look at it at launch was still a really, really big game – if you look at it today with add-ons and mods it's a much bigger game. It's still a game that's played 12 years later in large numbers for us. I think if you look at your audience, they get used to a game and they usually want to plus-one it. They want to add XYZ, and the developers, we usually do as well."

Howard reiterates what Bethesda's teased in previous Starfield updates: the studio's actively looking to polish and add features in response to player feedback. But even compared to Skyrim's legendarily long tail, Howard says Bethesda is in it for the long haul with Starfield, both with updates and mod support.

"This is a game and it's intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we've learned from our previous games, from Skyrim, from Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time. So Starfield, I would say, was the most intentional, going into it, that this is a game people are going to play for a long time. How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural – and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.

 

[Sircaw]

All those loading screens make perfect sense now.

 

[anonpuffs]

It's not even gonna make it to 6 months bro

 

[Johnic]

 

[Would_you_kindly]

In a Game Maker's Notebook interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price, Howard weighs in on the discussion about the ever-escalating scale of games, which was amplified by Baldur's Gate 3 launching back-to-back with Starfield. Price asks if games really are getting too big and wonders who's driving this "need for more complexity."



Howard describes the scale of Starfield as "irresponsible," partly owing to its setting. The team was "always trying to fill it given how much space is in space." And to the surprise of no one, just as he's done for the past several years, he also revisits Skyrim.



Howard reiterates what Bethesda's teased in previous Starfield updates: the studio's actively looking to polish and add features in response to player feedback. But even compared to Skyrim's legendarily long tail, Howard says Bethesda is in it for the long haul with Starfield, both with updates and mod support.

Todd Howard says 16 X the detail , it just works , see that plante over there you can explore it completely

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Dunno why they stopped family feud in the UK that was a good gameshow with Les Dennis

 

[Would_you_kindly]

In a Game Maker's Notebook interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price, Howard weighs in on the discussion about the ever-escalating scale of games, which was amplified by Baldur's Gate 3 launching back-to-back with Starfield. Price asks if games really are getting too big and wonders who's driving this "need for more complexity."



Howard describes the scale of Starfield as "irresponsible," partly owing to its setting. The team was "always trying to fill it given how much space is in space." And to the surprise of no one, just as he's done for the past several years, he also revisits Skyrim.



Howard reiterates what Bethesda's teased in previous Starfield updates: the studio's actively looking to polish and add features in response to player feedback. But even compared to Skyrim's legendarily long tail, Howard says Bethesda is in it for the long haul with Starfield, both with updates and mod support.

Insomniac CEO sitting down with that absolute cunt being buddy buddy needs to give his head a wobble

 

[Box]

It's not even gonna make it to 6 months bro
View attachment 2425

This game supposedly has "10 million players"

 

[Would_you_kindly]

This game supposedly has "10 million players"

10 million people started it up when it's 'free' with a gp subscription that has 25 million subscribers

 

[Zzero]

Well Fallout 4 sucked too and it is still played, seven years on. Given the legendarily long tail of other Bethesda Softworks (main team) games it was logical to assume. We'll see if they get there.

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Well Fallout 4 sucked too and it is still played, seven years on. Given the legendarily long tale of other Bethesda Softworks (main team) games it was logical to assume. We'll see if they get there.

Yeah they could release a literal pile of dogshit & people would eat it up Skyrim is absolute shit but it's claimed to be one of the best games ever

 

[Nimrota]

This game supposedly has "10 million players"

Yeah I'm one of the 10m. Uninstalled, Game Pass free trial cancelled. How many are still playing?

 

[Gods&Monsters]

The legs on Starfield are dead already in the first month. Struggling to get 100k CCU while BG3 is still at 250k+

 

[KiryuRealty]

The legs on Starfield are dead already in the first month. Struggling to get 100k CCU while BG3 is still at 250k+

People have finally realized that Bethesda games never live up to the hype.

 

[Yurinka]

Yes, GaaS are intended to be played during several years.

 

[Johnic]

Yes, GaaS are intended to be played during several years.

This is a single player RPG.

 

[Yurinka]

This is a single player RPG.

Yes, one with planned years of post launch with new updates with extra content and features, dlcs and so on until they decide isn't worth it. So a GaaS.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

When I make games I want people to play them as little as possible.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Yes, one with planned years of post launch with new updates with extra content and features, dlcs and so on until they decide isn't worth it. So a GaaS.

They need to recoup the gamepass money somehow, so they sell most of the game as dlc post release.

 

[Old Gamer]

When I make games I want people to play them as little as possible.

No? What you'd want is that people enjoy them as much as possible, enough to want to come back for more.

Padding play time with dumbed down slow traversal and load screens is not how you make people enjoy it longer.