According to a former Bethesda developer, Starfield almost had a management system. It was cut due to scheduling conflicts, but the mining resources and shipbuilding mechanics were originally going to link up. Starfield would have become a “strategy game/resource management game” on top of an RPG, as you’d need to send materials to factories to build spaceships. I love the sound of this, but fully understand why it had to be cut. Starfield is a huge game, so sometimes you’ve got to decide what to keep, and what to throw away.
With the Starfield Shattered Space release date almost here, Bethesda’s newest RPG is back in the limelight. The new pre-DLC patch is here, and we can expect plenty more when we delve into House Va’ruun soon. Before that, a former Bethesda designer has talked about what was cut from Starfield, and we could have had a deep management mechanic.
Ex-Bethesda systems designer Bruce Nesmith – who worked on Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Starfield – sat down with the podcast Kiwi Talks for an interview. Nesmith discusses his time at Bethesda, working with Todd Howard, and even the growing anticipation for Elder Scrolls 6. For my money, though, what he has to say about one cut Starfield feature is by far the most interesting.
“In Starfield, there was a whole [mechanic for] building ship components from natural resources. There just wasn’t room in the art schedule or programming schedule for ways to make it work sufficiently with the design to put it in the game.”
“We wanted to have a complete set of being able to mine materials [and] send them (automated) to a factory on another world. That would then build spaceship modules that you could then build your own spaceship with. We wanted to have an entire economy working with that as a foundation, and become a strategy game/resource management game on top of the role-playing game. But it was just too much, and it had to be pulled out [of Starfield].”
An economy of shipbuilding sounds like a really interesting Starfield mechanic, but I understand why it was cut. We already have mining, outposts, and ships in the game, but bringing each together would be a lot more work. You can build and buy ships with credits and mine for resources with outposts or manual labor, but extrapolating that to entire spaceships requires a massive economic overhaul. I always felt it was a bit weird you couldn’t use mined resources in shipbuilding, but scrapping the connective feature makes sense.
If you want to read more of what Nesmith has to say about his time at Bethesda, there’s a lot to check out. He thinks Starfield would’ve been better with fewer planets, and understands that Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed incredibly early to avoid fans’ “pitchforks and torches.” I’d also recommend checking out all the interviews of Kiwi Talkz host Reece Reilly, as they always have great developers on the show.
With Shattered Space firmly close by, you’ll want to download some of the best Starfield mods to keep you busy in the Settled Systems. We’ve also listed all of the Starfield guns you need in your inventory.
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