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Everyone and their mum knows by now: there will be a whopping 1000 planets in Starfield. As soon as Bethesda's Todd Howard made this claim, it was loaded with meaning, except that meaning ended up differing a fair bit from one gaming community to another. Now, there's bound to be some amount of skepticism around the given statement, but today we'd like to present a decidedly positive outlook on the matter.
The team here at 2Game is, in fact, rather excited at the prospect of such a massive array of explorable planets. In fact, depending on how Bethesda handles them, this is stellar news for Starfield at large. There are a few arguments at play here, however. Some are obvious, others not so much!
If you're interested in hearing why we believe this is generally good news for one of the most exciting games of all time, just scroll ahead a bit and see what we've got to say. Who knows - we may well convince you yet!
1000 Planets in Starfield: What Does This Mean?
First things first - context matters. Though they've been memed to death by now, each and every one of Todd Howard's statements make perfect sense when considered alongside verifiable facts. It seems like a reasonable assumption that Starfield won't have exactly 1000 planets that players will get to explore, but that this was a rough estimate with the actual number hovering around the value to some extent.
But, whether there are 1000 planets available in the game or "just" 100 of them - that's arguably irrelevant. The number is downright immense either way, and the only question that truly matters is: how do all these playable areas translate into actual gameplay? Is exploring them fun? Is there anything to do with them, or are they just a repackaging of resource nodes? Will players only ever care about 10-15 of them?
Our take, in the grand scheme of things, is that this was necessary for the game to feel right. It's clear what sort of fantasy Starfield is selling here: the exploration of space. The cutting-edge, tip-of-the-spear traversal that comes with the territory. We're huge fans of, say, The Outer Worlds here at 2Game, and it's a phenomenal RPG in its own right. It does not, however, deliver the spacefaring experience many are looking for.
Almost overwhelming, but not quite
The simple truth of the given statement is that - of course - most of the game's planets are bound to be barren, uninteresting wastes. Procedurally generated and with a point-of-interest plopped down now and again, by the looks of it. That's precisely the sort of thing one would expect to find in outer space, however. There's nothing wrong with generating a planet purely to be used as a resource node, especially in a game that lends itself so well to such a concept.
Most importantly, Bethesda's Radiant Quest system is going to shine in this game the most. For the first time in the history of Bethesda RPGs, a single quest, dungeon, or boss fight could be generated on the fly in full. Hell, give it a whole city's worth of one-off dungeoneering: the game is almost certain to support these systems to an unprecedented degree.
In previous Bethesda outings, Radiant Quests could only ever use pre-existing architecture and locations. Now, however, with the growth and evolution of the engine's base-building systems, this is all primed to change. Of course, we'll need to wait and see how things mesh over the coming months. We're positive, however, that the developers have got a few things in mind to make good use of "barren" planets.
Just the right number of planets, or still too many?
Letting players immerse themselves into the role of a space explorer is hardly a novel concept. Games have been doing this for as long as there have been games, in fact. Starfield aims to take this fantasy to the next level, and keeping the game focused on just a dozen planets or so would restrain it far too much. Quite simply, there needs to be negative space in an experience such as this, FPS or not.
Here's the kicker, though: you can rest assured that the game won't ever truly push you into exploring nothingness to no avail. Sure enough, Starfield's going to have a story. Multiple stories, even! Players who don't want to play the role of a first-come, first-serve space pioneer won't truly need to do so. Just follow the objectives and you'll be golden - we know how Bethesda handles its RPGs, after all.
By opening up so many planets, however, Bethesda is accomplishing two incredibly important things:
- setting up the sense of the space explorer fantasy
- allowing players to live out the space explorer fantasy
The first of these two features will absolutely be crucial for the experience. The second, however, will only truly be explored on a case-by-case basis. And while some might already despair at the notion of having so many explorable spaces, this feels like a necessity for the type of game Starfield has set out to be.
Don't forget about the mods, either
So, the most likely end result is the following: a game with a few hand-crafted planets (such as the showcased metropolitan super-city), a likely substantial number of planets with hand-crafted locations and points of interest, and an effectively unprecedented number of potentially interesting locations, depending on the extent of Radiant Quests' involvement. This doesn't sound all too different from just about every other Bethesda RPG, truth be told. Except, of course, at a much grander scale.
What's particularly noteworthy this time around, however, is what the modders end up doing with these systems. Time and again, mods and community creations have been used to highlight Bethesda's genius, and we've no doubt that something similar will happen with Starfield, too.
Starfield Nexus will pop up effectively on launch day. By the time the official mod tools are released, there will already be a wealth of interesting mods and content expansions. Once the Creation Kit is out, however, we'd be surprised if the community doesn't end up revamping very many of the game's 1000 planets. So, it's hard to be worried in our book. We can't wait to see how it all pans out in practice!
Closing Thoughts
The topic of having 1000 planets in Starfield has been hotly contested by now. Some are excited by the prospect, while others may be horrified by the notion of having quite as many playing areas available in a game. As we've shown here, however, the scale does make perfect sense for a game such as this.
After all, this is a sprawling, sandbox RPG set in space. The final frontier! There are really only two ways to go about handling its exploration. Bethesda could either take notes from the likes of The Outer Worlds and Mass Effect and heavily limit the amount of exploration available to focus on its narrative, or well and truly lean into what it does best - delivering playable sandboxes.
Having so many planets that are still capped, unlike in No Man's Sky, offers a potentially perfect balance between the two approaches. And, that's without taking into account the sprawling modding community that's bound to flock around Starfield for years to come.
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