Bethesda’s “Starfield Direct” shows off a massive, galactic-scale space RPG

It's been about a year now since we got our first glimpse of Starfield's "No Man's Skyrim" gameplay. Today, ahead of the game's planned September 6 launch, Bethesda's 45-minute Starfield Direct presentation offered a deep dive into the game's galactic scale and many of the systems that will power exploration on and between "over 1,000 planets."

The presentation began with game director Todd Howard talking up Bethesda's first completely new universe in 25 years. Howard said Bethesda wanted to keep the company's trademark "feeling of being who you want to be and exploring a new world" but take it into space.

Art Director Istvan Pely was on hand to talk about the game's "NASA punk" aesthetic, which he said was intended to evoke "the romance of the golden age of early space flight." That means a sort of retro-analog touch to the ships where everything feels used, worn, and "lived in."

A character-building exercise

The game's core plot—at least early on—seems to focus on Constellation, a legendary group described as the "last true explorers in the galaxy." This rogue's gallery includes a number of archetypical characters ranging from a space cowboy to a theologian to a businessman who's funding everything.

Individual members of Constellation can serve as crew members on your ship, unlocking unique quest lines and granting their abilities to help complete those quests. You can also pick up new crew members from spaceports or simply meet eager crew additions when exploring inhabited worlds. And Bethesda promises that the friendships you make with crew members can even "blossom into romance" (looking at you, Mass Effect fans).

With Constellation's help, you'll hunt down pieces of a mysterious artifact that seems to hint at the existence of a previously unknown intelligence. But that core questline will be dotted with Bethesda's usual character-based quests driven by individual NPCs you stumble across throughout the galaxy.

The story unfolds across a galaxy divided into three main groups. The United Colonies consider themselves "the true children of Earth" and are centered on the city of New Atlantis, which Bethesda calls "the biggest city we've ever made." Outside of the colonies, the Freestar Collective presents more of a frontier, offering a sci-fi take on an Old West aesthetic. There will also be unclaimed systems full of hostile factions like the Crimson Fleet, which bristle under the control of the Colonies.

For Starfield's character creation engine, Bethesda says it scanned faces from a variety of age groups and ethnicities to make a system that the developers themselves used to create every character and NPC you see in the game. After choosing from one of 40 preset characters to start, you can modify everything from piercings to teeth settings to skin blemishes using a series of sliders.

Beyond physical traits, you'll also be able to pick a background for your characters with options ranging from cyberneticist to chef. These can come in handy at unexpected times during missions; maybe someone is asking for a specific dish during a particular quest. You can also pick from a number of optional "traits" that each come with their own pros and cons—being "hero worshipped" means that fans may give you gifts, but it also will annoy you with non-stop praise and commentary.

Completing in-game challenges grants the usual array of points that can be applied to a wide-ranging tree of skills to let you customize your play experience. Specific builds highlighted in the presentation include using a boost pack to fly over enemies and shower them in explosive mines; buffing up "neurostrikes" to punch through combat; building up stealth skills to pickpocket your way through challenges; or talking your way out of scrapes with charisma.

A "realistic" galaxy

While Bethesda said it was going for "a balance of fun and realism" with their space simulation, a lot of the presentation seemed to lean towards pride in the "realism" side of that equation. That includes planets with variable gravity based on their size and density, plus atmospheres that accurately refract the light coming from the sun as they orbit.

It also means creatures that feel natural to that planet's unique environment—which can be scanned à la No Man's Sky or even harvested for useful resources in some cases. And then there's the zero-G combat, where projectile weapons actually thrust you backwards when fired.

Not every planet in the game will be inhabited, Bethesda notes, meaning some are useful mainly for resource extraction. But on the ones that are inhabited, the focus on free exploration should provide plenty of opportunities to stumble on hostile engagements or settlers in need of assistance wherever you wander. The idea, Bethesda said, is that even if two friends visit the same planet, they "might have a different story to tell."

In between the planets, you'll fly a ship and engage in combat that is less about aiming and firing and more about a "complex dance" in space, Bethesda promised. That combat will include the ability to shift your ship's power system between the grav drive—which lets you jump away to warp speed more quickly—or towards your weapons and shields, letting you be ready for unplanned hostilities.

Bethesda also highlighted a targeting control system that lets you pick out the specific systems on enemy ships you want to take out with your firepower. Or, if you want a more personal touch, you can dock and board ships to take out the crew from within, then add the captured ship to your personal fleet.

Ships can be heavily customized at spaceports using a snap-together system that's somewhat reminiscent of Kerbal Space Program. A small ship that starts out as a maneuverable, speedy fighter, can be bulked out with additional modules that turn it into a massive cargo freighter, for instance. And these additions affect not just the ship's stats but the interior spaces that the crew uses for storage and living space.

The full presentation is worth a watch for more information on everything from outposts and habitat modules that you can set up on planet surfaces to one Bethesda developer's penchant for stealing sandwiches and stashing them in a gravity-free room in her ship. The overall impression after taking it all in is of a project that is on a much more massive scale than any previous Bethesda RPG. Whether that overwhelming scale will prove as engaging and interesting to explore as the company promises is an open question—we'll get our hands on the game later this year.