Exploring Starfield’s planets was previously a lot harder, Bethesda has revealed, before the developer decided to dial back some “very punitive” atmosphere effects.
The Bethesda space RPG’s many planets still feature environmental hazards, such as extreme temperatures and radiation. But the impact these have on your character is now fairly minimal – whereas previously this system would have seen players having to swap spacesuits to meet local conditions.
Bethesda boss Todd Howard revealed the change during an episode of the Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, which is well worth a watch. In it, Howard discusses the challenges of creating interesting planets, fun space combat, and what changed during Starfield’s development.
One example of a change was how tough it was to survive on some of Starfield’s many explorable worlds, Howard said.
“So the way the environmental damage works in the game, on planets and your suit, you have resistances to certain types of atmosphere effects, whether that’s radiation or thermal, etc. And that was a pretty complex system, actually, it was very punitive,” Howard revealed.