Starfield lead confirms full planetary exploration is possible after you've landed

gamesradar.com:

Starfield will let you fully explore a planet as soon as you land on it.

Earlier today, Bethesda's Pete Hines took to Twitter to respond to a query, asking if it would be explore a "whole entire planet" upon landing on it. Hines washed away any doubt, straight-up confirming that yes, anyone who lands on a planet in their spacecraft will immediately be able to hit the road and begin exploring it.

Yup, if you want. Walk on, brave explorer.August 22, 2023

However, don't take Hines's comments to mean there won't be any loading screens or cutscenes during this transition. During the Starfield Direct earlier this year, the showcase appeared to confirm cutscenes for both take-off and landing transitions on planets, meaning you wouldn't be able to just seamlessly fly down to or take off from a planet of your choosing. 

What Hines probably means is that you won't have any gameplay barriers standing in the way of you exploring a planet as soon as you land on it. You won't have to do some menial sort of task like surveying the planet before you can begin strolling around on it, for example.

Interestingly, Star Wars Outlaws offers what Starfield doesn't by way of space-to-planet transitions. The Ubisoft Massive game has seamless transitions between spacefaring and planet exploration, with no cutscenes standing in the way of the transition. Just a fun little comparison for everyone there.

This might be an innocent little detail about Bethesda's game, but be warned, because Starfield has broken street date ahead of launch on September 6 (and September 1 for Starfield early access players). There's already gameplay floating around the internet, so be extremely cautious if you don't want plot points and other details spoiled for you.

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