In the above image, a vehicle in Starfield is clearly visible. I saw this vehicle in one of the random settlements that appear in the game. It is clear that we can have vehicles in Starfield, but should they just be props in the game or should they be something more? That is the question here in this entry.
The issue that many people have with Starfield is that the game does not have vehicles that the player can use. This has been a sticking point for many players, especially those on Steam, who are a very active minority who are constantly trying to critique this game. Those who are more generous to the game tend to congregate on Reddit. While there are many complaints that abound about this game, it is clear that the game has one particular issue that people have been clamoring about for many months. That issue is the inclusion of ground vehicles into the game. As of right now, it seems the game is simply too big for one player to handle. This is of course, the complaints of a certain group of players, who want the game to be more like Skyrim. However, Starfield is a new game and people should respect that.
The man behind the game, Todd Howard, was probably right in saying that they didn’t need ground vehicles in the game. The game is just not designed in that way. Currently, a lot of planets in Starfield have tons of foliage in them. This is great aspect of Starfield and truly separates it from older games. The older games usually had variations on a color, rather than being planets with multiple biomes. The inclusion of multiple regions on these planets makes them more interesting and allow for great amounts of player interaction with those areas. However, many players have been complaining that these procedurally generated planets are simply too big in size.
The issue of size when it comes to the vehicle question in Starfield is an interesting one. We have a game that more variety in its environment than most video games on the market. You can have snowy forests and also tropical ones. There are also barren planets that are mostly one biome and others that have incredible savannas and gorgeous coastlines. However, Starfield is something of a victim of what is known in the video game industry as feature creep. It seems that Bethesda was more interested in throwing everything at this game than being conservative and making a more traditional game. Of course, this is the studio that made The Elder Scrolls Arena in 1994; they are known for being experimental and ambitious. I believe that makes Starfield a truly unique game. It is not just trying to be a traditional game but something that you truly live in as another character.
However, that means playability is an issue with those who just want an experience that does not require tons of effort and investment.
I think that the main issue with vehicles in Starfield is that the planets are largely made by computer not the human. The plants, animals, and buildings were all made by human hands, but the way that they are represented in the world is done by the computer. To have vehicles in Starfield would mean that the game would have to change the way that environments are made in the game. The game’s environments are not built around having vehicles in the game. There are tons of areas on Jemison for example, that are full of foliage, and I believe the team at Bethesda was not going to spend time trying to program many physics into this game. The vehicles that would be in this game would collide with these trees and even animals and that takes a lot of time to program correctly. They obviously wouldn’t want the vehicles clipping through the environment as this game is pretty high budget. With this game already costing tens of millions of dollars, it is not surprising to me that they decided not to include them. They already were putting many features into the game. Putting in vehicles would have probably put a great strain on their resources.
However, incorporating vehicles would be quite a task in this game that the player uses because they would have to redesign the game and its structure. When you look at the way in which Starfield was marketed to gamers, it is clear that the game was meant to be used by people who are walking on the planets not using vehicles to drive around in the game. A great comparison to make with regards to this issue is Mass Effect, especially the original game, this game, which was made in the mid 2000s by BioWare, and then released out onto consoles in 2007 is one of the most influential science-fiction video games. However, Mass Effect was always advertising the game as something that was made to use the Mako vehicle. This vehicle was highly prominent in how Mass Effect was presented to the public. While the player can walk on these planets, it isn’t the main aspect of how these planets are supposed to be experienced in the game. This way of experiencing planets in Mass Effect would remain consistent throughout the series all the way up to Mass Effect: Andromeda, which did see a change towards a more Starfield style gameplay but was still heavily reliant on the way how it was done in previous games.
Starfield is probably going to have vehicles included in the game at some point. However, I expect that their use will not as freewheeling as one would led to believe. Of course, there will be modders who are going to try their hand at loosening some of the restrictions and make it more like a No Man Sky type game. There are already mods that have allowed for players to free roaming space travel as well moving ships across planets. I believe that inclusion of vehicles will probably stick out like a sore thumb, but I expect that the people making the game will probably do a competent job at trying to implement it into the game. While it may not be the most useful feature in the game, I think that it would add some complexity and help to alleviate some of the issues that players have with this game.
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