Starfield map will be Bethesda's biggest yet, says Todd Howard

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By Zackery Cuevas
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The bigger, the better.

Starfield
Starfield (Image credit: Bethesda)

What you need to know

  • Starfield is the hotly anticpated space RPG from Bethesda, developer of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series.
  • Todd Howard is the director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios.
  • Bethesda Game Studios was acquired by Microsoft in a recent acquisition of its parent company, ZeniMax Media.

Starfield is the next big project from Bethesda, the publisher responsible for mega-hits like Fallout and Elder Scrolls and will be their biggest project yet, according to Todd Howard, director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios.

At this year's Develop: Brighton conference, Todd Howard shared some details on the hotly anticipated space RPG Starfield. In the interview above, Howard mentions that the size of the map will be even larger than Fallout 76's map, which in itself was four times bigger than Skyrim's map.

Howard goes into detail about how the team at Bethesda will make this possible. According to Howard, the game's landmass is being procedurally generated during development, while distinct landmarks are still being crafted by the team. Cities, in particular, will be larger and feature more NPCs than ever before. He also mentions that they will play a larger role in the game, though what that means exactly remains to be seen.

Howard also briefly mentions a plan to overhaul the Bethesda Creation Engine, which has powered the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games since Morrowind. In particular, he mentions that the AI, animations, and rendering are areas that will receive major improvements.

Starfield still has no official release date, but thanks to the recent Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda, we know that Starfield will be available on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S at launch, thanks to Xbox Gamepass. You can watch the full interview above, which covers Todd Howard's career in greater detail.

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Zackery Cuevas
Zackery Cuevas

Zackery Cuevas is a writer for Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore. I like playing video games, talking about video games, writing about video games, and most importantly, complaining about video games. If you're cool, you can follow me on Twitter @Zackzackzackery.