Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022: Starfield

At the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, Bethesda showed off a whopping 15-minute-long presentation of their upcoming space-faring, open-world RPG, Starfield. In the showcase, we saw multiple story moments, including early exploration of a planet called Kreet and the protagonist joining up with the last remaining explorers in New Atlantis.

The presentation also promised the deepest character creator the company has ever created, both in terms of appearance, gameplay, and progression. We even got to see various Traits that can provide powerful upsides linked to interesting downsides. One example is Kid Stuff, which makes it so that the protagonist has living parents that they can visit but also means that 10% of all the money they receive goes directly to those same parents. Another interesting example is Serpent's Embrace, which provides the player a boost to health and endurance when they gravity jump but also reduces both stats when the player doesn't jump regularly.

As for how characters develop, the player is able to take various skills upon levelling up. However, once they have a skill, they need to repeatedly use it in order to rank up that skill as opposed to pumping more points into it. There are also various crafting systems, allowing the player to craft weapons and ships, even being allowed to staff those ships with NPCs they meet on their adventures. The ships can be further customised, not only in its visuals and gameplay benefits, but even in regards to the layout.

With these unique, player-built ships, there are at least 100 solar systems to explore and at least 1000 planets to land on wherever the player chooses to land.

Starfield is set to release in 2023 for Windows and Xbox Series X|S, being available from day one on Xbox Game Pass.