Summary
There are a total of 120 unique star systems that players can travel to and survey inStarfield, but one fan of the game proves that the galaxy’s many stars aren’t just decorations on a skybox. The overwhelming scale ofStarfieldgoes far beyond anything seen from any of Bethesda’s previous open-world titles, with the space-based RPG featuring around 1000 full-scale, procedurally generated planets that players can land on and explore.
Exploration inStarfieldisn’t limited to planets though, and while there generally isn’t as much to do in space itself, players will nonetheless find themselves frequently traversing the blackest sea to get from planet to planet. Every star system in the game features its own type of star, varying number of planets and moons, unique points of interest, and more, but perhaps most impressive of all is the relatively accurate simulation of planetary physics that goes on behind the scenes. The length of a day in the game actually depends on the time it takes for the local planet to rotate on its axis, views of nearby planets and moons will shift realistically as time passes, and most objects in space will slowly move around or past the player if their ship is stationary.
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These details may go unnoticed by some, and while they certainly seem essential forselling the space setting inStarfield, this level of detail is entirely absent in some other space games. A post shared by a player known as OhGodImHerping sheds some light on one detail regarding star systems that most fans have been unaware of until now and shows various images of what one of the game’s stars looks like up close. Though it certainly takes a long time to manually fly up close to the heart of a star system, this player has proven that stars aren’t just dots on a skybox, but rather are fully rendered objects that can be visited.
As immersive asStarfield’s beautiful galaxy tends to be, it’s definitely not always perfect. WhileStarfield’s gravity mechanicsare a great touch, players have pointed out that a planet’s gravity occasionally seems completely unrelated to the planet’s size. This is most obvious with gas and ice giants, which are frequently listed to feature unrealistically low-gravity environments. Perhaps the biggest issue for players though is the repetition of certain structures and features across planetary surfaces, which would seem to be the major downside of a procedurally generated universe when compared to a hand-crafted world.
That said though, there are a number of carefully-designed areas andcities inStarfieldfull of things and people for fans to discover. Some in the community have also proposed the idea of adding in entirely new custom planets and areas in the future via mods.
Starfieldis available on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
