Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard has flattened hope for a major Starfield overhaul by stating that the long-awaited update in development “is not Starfield 2.0”.
This, to recap, is the update the Starfield community has been speculating about for roughly a year, ever after Bethesda assured players it had “a lot of exciting things planned”. This was a comment made in the silence following the somewhat anticlimactic release of Starfield’s major Shattered Space add-on.
Speaking on the Kinda Funny podcast yesterday, Howard said: “Obviously we’ve been working on a lot of Starfield content […] You’ve seen it and I can tell everyone we’re going to be talking about it really soon. We’re moving into a phase where we’re ready to talk about Starfield and really show that in the right way and what’s coming to the game. We’ve been doing a lot of work that we like a lot.
“It is not Starfield 2.0 – I’ve seen some of that,” Howard added. “So for expectation-setting, it’s the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we think you’re going to love this. It’s updates and things that change the game, not in an isolated way, but [in a] sort of meta [way] – using outer space and things in ways that we haven’t.
“If Starfield is something that didn’t connect with you right away […] I don’t think this is going to change that fundamentally”
“But look, if Starfield is something that didn’t connect with you right away, or you bounced off it or found it boring in places, I don’t think this is going to change that fundamentally.”
Podcast host Greg Miller later asked Howard whether the update was imminent, to which Howard replied: “It’s soonish. I don’t want to spoil the day but it is coming soon.” Miller also asked whether the update was a final update for the game, a sort of bow-tying closure, to which Howard said no. “No, we’re doing more Starfield stuff coming up – we’ve been laying that out. It’s something we see continuing for a while.”
Starfield was released in 2023 to middling reviews, leading to a general sense that it wasn’t the post-Skyrim and Fallout 4 homerun Bethesda had hoped to hit. But it still seems to have a healthy audience. In this interview, Howard referred to Starfield as a “Game Pass hours beast”. “We have such a big audience on the game,” he said.
Bethesda Game Studio’s attention has more recently been on Fallout, following the launch of a second TV series that seemed to be received very well. I haven’t finished it yet but Alex Donaldson was very positive, writing in an article that: “Fallout Season 2 has made me excited for the future of the games – is there anything better a TV tie-in can do?“
As far as game development goes, the majority of Bethesda Game Studios’ 500-person workforce (Howard shared this number in the podcast) is concentrating on the sixth Elder Scrolls game. (Note that BGS fairly openly uses external development partners – outsourcers – so the actual number of people working on its games is likely significantly higher). Howard referenced this new Elder Scrolls game in the podcast as well, explaining that The Elder Scrolls 6 marks a return to a more “classic” style of game for the studio – think Skyrim or Oblivion – rather than the “creative detour” represented by Fallout 76 and Starfield.