Starfield won't support full pacifist runs, but 'there are some good non-lethal options,' says quest designer
In a Q&A to celebrate Starfield's symbolic «gone gold» milestone (which has been reposted to the subreddit), lead quest designer Will Shen was asked if entirely non-lethal playthroughs will be possible in Bethesda's space RPG. They won't be, although Shen says that Bethesda did consider the possibility of supporting pacifist playthroughs early in development.
«We talked about this very early on during pre-production, whether or not we would fully support a 'non-lethal' playthrough,» said Shen. «We realized that, for various reasons, that wasn't totally feasible.»
Shen didn't go into the fine details of what makes pacifism infeasible in Starfield, but said that «there are some good non-lethal options» in the RPG, even if you're going to have to knock someone off eventually.
«Those [non-lethal options] can be used in certain situations, honestly a lot of situations, though I couldn't comfortably say you can complete the entire game without any killing whatsoever,» Shen said. «The Settled Systems is mostly civilized, but it can be a dangerous place if you're going off the beaten path. And you're absolutely going off the beaten path!»
Starfield's "speech challenge" system is one of those murder-free conflict resolution options, and Shen said that it shows up in «most quests where important characters confront you.»
It's not surprising that you're going to have to dispose of at least a few space assailants during Starfield's main quest. I doubt many have the patience to complete non-lethal runs in games that support them anyway, but it is always fun to know when the path is there.
The question got me wondering how a non-lethal Baldur's Gate 3 run would go, it being the RPG of the moment. You can certainly talk your way out of
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