At today’s Microsoft and Bethesda Games Showcase, Bethesda revealed a new gameplay video from Starfield, which reminds fans of another sci-fi exploration game: No Man’s Sky.
Hello games’ randomly generated space exploration game No Man’s Sky was released in 2016. While the game’s initial reaction was not favorable, continuous content updates have managed to improve the game’s fortunes. Sean Murray, the designer of No Man’s Sky, warned earlier this year that the game isn’t close to being done, even after 19 significant upgrades.
Starfield’s debut gameplay trailer featured a figure in a spacesuit exploring an undiscovered planet while harvesting minerals with a laser – gameplay mechanics that are crucial to No Man’s Sky’s loop. We also witnessed space travel and battle, a plethora of customization possibilities, and a plethora of dinosaurs, all of which are similar to Hello Games’ offering. No Man’s Sky began trending on Twitter shortly after Starfield’s demo presentation, with some players praising the game’s likeness to No Man’s Sky and others criticizing it for being too similar.
While the two games have some visual and gameplay similarities, they are clearly aiming for completely distinct goals. No Man’s Sky has quintillions of procedurally created open-world planets, whereas Starfield will have roughly 1,000 completely explorable worlds, according to the latest news. Starfield also looks to place a greater emphasis on fighting than previous Bethesda titles like Fallout and Skyrim.
Starfield is shaping up to be a massive experience, even without the number of explorable planets. Today’s presentation also provided us a first glance at all of Starfield’s personalization features, revealing that players will be able to build their own characters, spacecraft, and outposts.
