Bethesda Softworks
presently afterStarfieldreleased last summertime , my initial give-and-take with Quaker and colleagues about its hereafter be given to skew positive . Within six months , we hoped , Starfield’sempty cosmoswould no longer be quite so empty thanks to the same roaring modding prospect that ’s made game likeThe Elder Scrolls V : Skyrimso timeless .
Regardless of whether or not we were being affirmative at the time , our predictions mostly fell flat .
Bethesda Softworks
Yes , a decently - sized modding community rapidly emerged in September and has since continued push outnew technical feature and subject replacement modsfor the PC version ofStarfield . Starfield Nexushas over 6,641 item-by-item mods as of the time of writing this clause . But six month have now passed sinceStarfield’srelease with no further mention of the prospicient - awaitedStarfieldCreation Kit 2 , which , minus a few whisperings aboutclosed world Kit tests on r / Starfield , still feels lightyears by .
As in retiring Bethesda titles , the Creation Kit 2 will be a necessary tool for longevity , allowing microcomputer users the ability to bring forth mod that populate both the Xbox and microcomputer versions ofStarfieldwith brand name - new quests , country , NPCs , item , starship , armed combat encounters , and total sprawling storylines .
Yet , with so much turbulence surroundingStarfield’sreputation amongst buff — including a few of the most popular modders of preceding Bethesda gamesrenouncing their supportaltogether — I ’m at least a little bit concerned about whether or not it ’ll terminate up achieve the longevity it was seemingly contrive around .
Dwindling player counts
Much of my initial excitement aboutStarfieldwas , admittedly , shore up up on the assumption thatallBethesda games eventually surrogate vibrant modding community . I reckon modders would ineluctably come in in and fix the parts ofStarfieldI disliked while replete in the rest . I imagine that a reasonable figure of people involved with the game ’s product also operate around that basic laying claim , deal that mods are what make Bethesda game so timeless . But what happens when there just are n’t enough players or fans concerned in maintain a plot likeStarfieldalive ?
It was once unthinkable that the most anticipated Bethesda game of all meter could , for instance , lose 97 % of its total playerbase on Steamwithin its first six month . That assign it well underneath theconcurrent exploiter counts forThe older Scrolls V : Skyrim , which still stands as the most commercially and critically successful Bethesda RPG ever made , even though it was released almost 13 years ago . That ’s part thanks toSkyrim’srobust mod scene ( which has its ownWikipedia page ) , whose members constantly create raw stuff and nonsense deserving checking out . That includesThe Forgotten City , an honor - winning biz that was born out of a massiveSkyrimquestline .
Since no official modding tools exist forStarfieldyet , it ’s extremely plausible that its modding scene will need more time to mature before anyone can say whether or notStarfieldis a washout . Plus , player count figures can be misleading when withdraw out of context . Starfieldis a unmarried - player game that only has a primed amount of material in it , and clearly , its concurrent player counts will ebb away and run over fourth dimension .
But at the same prison term , Starfieldis facing something of a “ chicken - and - egg ” trouble . By dispersing its base content across the intergalactic Settled Systems and handing thespian starships to explore it with , it was clear designed with the expectation that players would inherently want to fill that quad with their own musical theme . That becomes a moot breaker point if the population itself is uninspiring and fails to get enough resource to take the vacuum , ultimately collapse into itself like a black hole rather than lighting the path forward for the biz and its rooter .
For citation , Skyrimlaunched with a tight write up , more content , and a bigger world thanFallout 4 — which dabbled with a fully - voice friend and an urgent yet preposterously disjoin account that still asked players to work up their own settlements by hand in a mostly desolate barren . later , Fallout 4’squirky personality , long - escape lore , and elaborate settlement - construction arrangement are much more defined thanStarfield ’s . This all feels like a deliberate originative regression , where Bethesda has gradually moved toward filling its games with emptier spaces for the originative community to fill in the gaps .
That persuasion is already reflect inStarfield’scurrent discourse , where — especially in light of Bethesda ’s loose post - launch support — many already feel it leaves too much room for content and features that do n’t yet exist . Meanwhile , providingtoo small support in occupy that outer space , wee its overpowering emptiness and overall lack of identity element off - putting to raw and returning thespian .
Starfield’s universe will probably still get filled soon
WhileStarfield‘s six - month day of remembrance feels deflate , I ’m not entirely confident that all Bob Hope is lost for the space game ’s future . After all , it ’s only March .
Modding is a fundamental part of modern Bethesda RPGs by design , and the studio consciously makes exploiter - generated content loose to produce by continuing to support the hyper - modular yet controversial Gamebryo engine — which the studio apartment would likely not do if there was n’t a bigger plan in place . After all , Phil Spencer has previously statedthatStarfieldis meant to be sustain for at least a 10 . Even after Bethesda split its core team in half to ramp up reinforcement forThe Elder Scrolls VI , the 250 - person team still working onStarfield’supcoming expansions , piece , and Creation Kit 2 is nothing to scoff at .
Besides , Starfield ’s over 1,000 procedurally - mother planet are still potentially exciting to search on newspaper , thanks to its mystifying attainment organisation and high - octane first - someone flash . business organization aboutStarfield’sweak lore and unimpressive place travelaside , these worlds could still hypothetically bring home the bacon tons of blank space for Maker to invent their own space - bound adventures , eventually making it the unmarried most modernistic - well-disposed Bethesda title in the story of the future .
I think it ’s fair to assume Bethesda desire to fill in some of that empty outer space with its own elaboration packs ( likeShattered Space ) before giving modders the full gamut of creative instrument . And ease up another six calendar month , who jazz ? Maybe we ’ll all be playing a whole differentStarfieldthat feels exactly as vast and exciting as we hopedit would be during its hype hertz last summer .
