Why Bethesda Cut Gore and Dismemberment From Starfield

ign.com:

Bethesda originally planned to include gore and dismemberment mechanics in Starfield but had to remove them due to technical limitations.

Former employee Dennis Mejillones, who was a character artist on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Starfield, told Kiwi Talkz that Bethesda had to cut the feature because the interaction with space suits became too complex.

"There was a lot of implications with the different suits from a technical perspective," he said. "There's a lot that has to go with it. You have to cut the helmet in a certain way and it's got to come off, you have meat caps to the bottom where the flesh is.

"We had systems for all of that and it turned into a big rat's nest. All these things you have to count for now with all these crazy hoses on the helmets and all that kind of stuff that we added. Or now you could change the body size significantly. The character creator had evolved quite a bit."

Some fans lamented that Starfield, which was the first full single-player role-playing game from Bethesda in eight years, didn't have the gore and dismemberment mechanics that were present in Fallout 4. Mejillones said these mechanics make more sense in Fallout than in Starfield, however, given their "tongue in cheek" humor. "It's part of the fun," he said.

Starfield arrived in September 2023 and in the time since has reached more than 15 million players. "Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist," IGN said in our 7/10 review.

Last month, another former Bethesda developer revealed his surprise at the sheer amount of loading Starfield ended up launching with, particularly in the city of Neon. Since launch, Bethesda has worked to improve the game, with 60fps now possible as part of performance mode. Expansion Shattered Space launched in September.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all