More details about the game's plot and mechanics have been revealed by two of Starfield's lead designers.
During a Q&A session on the official Bethesda Discord server, lead designers Emil Pagliarulo and Will Shen (whose answers were then summarized on the Starfield Wiki) answered questions from the community.
A total of 16 questions were addressed, covering a variety of subjects like purchasing homes and finding friends.
The Starfield Wiki contains the complete answers, but some of the most important details are as follows:
- In "all the major cities in the game," players can purchase homes, and "at least one" is awarded for completing a particular task.
- Some items must be smuggled past security ships, such as "harvested organs," which are regarded as "contraband." To conceal them, "special ship modules you can purchase" exist.
- Players who are arrested have the option of choosing between jail time or a fine.
- Time only exists while you are actively playing; you cannot establish trade routes, outposts, or mining operations that will continue to operate when the game is not being played.
- If players decide to enlist in the United Colonies military, there is a mission where they become an undercover agent working for the Crimson Fleet. All of the playable factions "can be completed independently."
- There are some systems in place to reduce the amount of killing if necessary, even though it's "not totally feasible" to complete the game without killing anyone. One illustration is the "Speech Challenge game," in which participants must convince others not to fight them.
- The player's crew can consist of more than 20 named characters.
The main development of Starfield has been finished, and it is now ready to move to the manufacturing stage, according to Bethesda's announcement on Wednesday. Starfield will be released next month.
Additionally, it was confirmed that players can preload the game on Steam beginning August 30 and Xbox Series X/S beginning today.
Starfield was supposed to be released in November of last year, but in May of 2022, it was postponed until the first half of 2023. This March, Bethesda revealed a further postponement; Starfield's new release date is September 6, 2023.