In just a couple of days, you’ll be able to start your epic adventure in Starfield. During Gamescom 2023, I was able to attend a special showcase, introducing the opening minutes of the game. If you still have any doubts that this is Bethesda’s most impressive project to date, those worries will disappear after seeing it in action.
Create your hero
Before we started the actual game, we had to design our new hero. Bethesda Game Studios really went all out here and the possibilities are near endless. If you’re a fan of character creation you’ll probably spend your first hour of the game on the customization screen. It’s overwhelming to see the amount of elements you can alter to recreate the hero of your dreams. As you’ve seen on the Opening Night Live, someone managed to recreate Todd Howard, which showcases the power and realism of the character creator. The Starfield presentation had a rather high pacing so we didn’t linger in the character creator for too long. In a couple of days we’ll see how deep the character creation truly goes.
Introducing the core mechanics in the opening minutes
Just like any other Bethesda game, the opening of the game is really memorable, I won’t spoil it for you of course but it’s unique in its own way. It won’t blow you away with giant monsters flying over, it’s a different approach, immediately setting the tone of your adventure to come. Starfield can be played in first-person or third-person and if you thought you had to play through a lengthy tutorial before you can start, we have some good news.
A lot of the core mechanics are introduced in the opening minutes, from gathering minerals that you need for your journey to your first taste of combat. Again, I won’t spoil how you gain access to your first gun but let’s say it’s all pretty immersive and epic. The real surprise however was the fact that you’ll enter your spaceship shortly after the opening scene. This is of course a brilliant move as it’s the best way to showcase the scale of the world. We’ve all seen the trailers and we all know that you can visit the planets but it’s the presentation that finally convinced me of the extreme scale of the world. We only got to see the tip of the iceberg here but man, this is something we haven’t seen before. I knew Starfield was ambitious and Todd Howard has a way of creating iconic worlds but nothing prepared me for this to be honest. Starfield feels like one of the first true next-gen experiences judging on this showcase. Of course, it was al hands-off but since we’re this close to release, I’m convinced the final product will be of the same high quality level.
Early conclusion:
Starfield has big shoes to fill but the Gamescom preview convinced me it will smash it out of the park. This is Bethesda at its best and the scale of it all feels magical. If this one wasn’t on your radar yet, be sure to pick it up this September, I’m pretty sure this will be one of the best games out there.
