Starfield looks absolutely out of this world in new gameplay deep-dive

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the Starfield

The closer to today’s Xbox and Bethesda showcase was, of course, Starfield. The upcoming spacefaring RPG is hotly anticipated, and today Bethesda showed off a lengthy look at some Starfield gameplay.

The Starfield gameplay starts with the player and their robot companion venturing out onto a planet. After gawking at some local wildlife and mining some ore, they infiltrate a base and take on some space pirates.

The gunplay looks surprisingly action-heavy, with futuristic but chunky versions of weapons ringing out as they blast their way through.

Space quest

Then, once the action subsides, we get a look at New Atlantis and some of the social areas the player can explore. The narrative seems to center around some mysterious alien artifacts, and the quest to discover what secrets they hold.

Of course, there are factions to deal with and NPCs to talk to. Bethesda showcased close-up looks at plenty of NPCs, who you’ll probably have to ally with or against throughout the course of Starfield‘s story.

This kind of role-playing obviously entails some on the player’s part too, so Bethesda also showed the character creator and skill system. There are plenty of options for making your own astronaut adventurer and customizing them to your heart’s content.

Life on Mars

The customization extends out even more, as Starfield also has outpost building that looks similar to Fallout 4‘s base building. Bethesda’s Todd Howard confirms that you can have companions you meet take up life in these outposts and run them while you’re away.

But isn’t the sky the real home for a space-faring adventurer? Alongside your character and outposts, you can also customize your ship in Starfield. Bethesda showcased a look at the schematics-style building for Starfield‘s ships, which are also fully pilotable.

Soon after, the gameplay took to the vacuum of space. So yes, you can make your ship and then fly your ship in Starfield.

The vast expanse

As one last note, Bethesda showcased the size of Starfield. And yes, it’s absolutely massive. The range of Starfield extends from a city and one planet out to all the planets in a system, and then out again to even more systems. Thousands of planets are waiting to be explored in Starfield, according to Todd Howard.

It seems absolutely massive. But today was honestly a pretty promising and fairly extensive gameplay showing for Starfield, which was probably the most hotly anticipated game in today’s Xbox showcase lineup. While it may have been delayed, hopefully the extra time has been worth the wait—now we just have to see if the final product can pull it all off. Starfield is coming to Xbox consoles and PC in 2023.