One of the biggest stories from this year’s E3 2018 presentation was the unveiling of Starfield, the upcoming sci-fi title from the team at Bethesda, representing thei company’s first brand-new IP reveal in 25 years. The game’s provided trailer was sparse on details; even now, players know almost nothing about the title. However, fans do at least know more about its intended direction, as Bethesda director Todd Howard has provided some insight into Starfield’s next-generation design principles and touched on the possibility of a current-generation release.
Speaking to Eurogamer during Gamelab last week, Howard said that the Starfield development team is still trying to determine what sort of hardware would be best to run the game. This apparently means keeping next-generation hardware in mind, but not necessarily closing the door to current-generation technology.
“We’re pushing it,” Howard said. “[We’re] thinking very, very far in future so we’re building something that will handle next-generation hardware. That’s what we’re building on right now, that’s where our mind is, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t exist on the current systems as well.”
Howard also provided more insight into the game’s history, stating that Bethesda had begun discussion on Starfield as far back as 2004, with the original intention of creating the company’s own post-apocalyptic universe prior to Bethesda buying the rights to Fallout from Interplay in 2007.
“We had made a list of what we might want to do in the future and an epic science-fiction game has always been on my mind,” he said. “OK post-apocalyptic was our first choice, sci-fi was our second at the time – we were going to do our own post-apocalyptic universe if we didn’t get Fallout.”
Howard has indicated that not only is Starfield in active development, it also exists in a playable form, though it may be some time before players can actually see it running. With that said, there’s really no timetable for when fans can expect to hear more about the game — we’ll just to wait for more updates from Bethesda.
Source: Shacknews Starfield Being Built With Next-Gen Hardware In Mind, Could Still Release on Current Consoles