Starfield Has 100 Planets (10% of Total) with Life on Them
When Bethesda Game Studios Director Todd Howard revealed last year that Starfield would have a thousand explorable planets, some people were skeptical as to what that meant in terms of procedural generation versus handcrafted content. Others were curious to learn more specifics about the composition of these planets.
While the last one wasn't a focus of the recent Starfield Direct broadcast, Howard expanded on it in the latest episode of the Kinda Funny XCast. More specifically, he revealed that around 10% of the explorable planets (so around a hundred) would have life on them, which is in the upper range of what scientists believe could be possible based on known science. That's still a lot, and while it leaves around 900 planets with no life, it is by design as the developers wanted to convey the sense of 'beautiful desolation' expressed by actual astronauts who landed on the moon like Buzz Aldrin.
We wanted to do the 1000 planets because we like to give you that choice. [...]
About 10% of those planets have life on them. In Starfield, we're pushing it to the edge of what scientists think, what planets are in that Goldilocks zone versus planets that have resources. It is a moment when you land on some of these barren planets- and again, we will generate certain things for you to find on them- but if you look at a planet, you see the resources, it has things you want. I love the Buzz Aldrin quote, "the magnificent desolation," I think there's a certain beauty to landing on those and feeling, "I'm one of the only people or the only person to ever visit this planet." It's a difficult design thing. If you add too many things, if it's generating abandoned bases or towers or things to find, it starts feeling too gamey in
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