Starfield doesn’t have ground vehicles because they would have changed the game, director says
Starfield director Todd Howard has addressed the space RPG’s lack of ground vehicles and explained that the decision was made so that the developers could focus on on-foot exploration.
As PC Gamer reports, in an interview with Bloomberg Technology, Howard was asked the audience question: “Why are there no vehicles on planets?” To this, he responded: “Once you do vehicles, it does change the gameplay.
“By focusing [on the fact that] once you land in your ship, that you’re on foot, it lets us really, for the players, make it an experience where we know how fast they’re seeing things,” he continued. “In one sense, you do have a vehicle – obviously you have your spaceship, you can go around in space. But then on the surface, you do have a jetpack, which you can upgrade, which is super fun, [and a] new experience for us. And obviously, planets have different levels of gravity which make that unique for many planets.”
In this same interview, Howard was also asked why Bethesda did “not optimize this game for PC”. The director affirmed that, “We did”, and reminded fans that Starfield is “a next-gen PC game”. He continued: “We really do push the technology, so you may need to upgrade your PC for this game, but it’s got a lot of great stuff going on in it, and the fans are responding awesomely.”
Starfield has had a successful start, having accumulated over six million players already, with over one million of those playing simultaneously across all platforms on launch day (Wednesday, September 6). This enormous player count had also cemented it as Bethesda’s biggest game launch of all time.
If you’re looking to upgrade your gaming setup for Starfield, be sure to check out our recommendations for the best Xbox controllers on the
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