Bethesda has started speaking up about the minute details to expect from Starfield. This one may have been something gamers had forgotten about, but is definitely going to be something they’ll want to know about.
So, Starfield has crimes, some of which the developers enthusiastically encouraged on the huge Starfield Direct. As reported by Comic Book, it turns out that Starfield has a corresponding criminal justice system.
Starfield lead quest designer Will Shen was on hand when he said this about it:
“Yes, you can elect to go to jail or pay a fine when you’re arrested (or even resist arrest and try to escape).”
Lead writer Emil Pagliarulo added to Shen’s comment:
“Yup. The Settled Systems is more like Skyrim than Fallout 4’s Commonwealth in that regard. There’s civilization, there’s government, and there are laws. And in a couple cases, we actually explore the themes of crime and punishment in our futuristic universe.”
So, maybe the trailer was a little misleading, in making it seem like you could steal all the sandwiches that you wanted from all the people you killed, without having to answer to anyone. But it seems there will be an organization in the Settled Systems that will be responsible for tracking you down for your crimes. Maybe not so much the sandwich theft, as much as the serial killing you had to do to enable said sandwich theft.
Since Pagliarulo brought up The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, you might be wondering, what is the criminal justice system like in Skyrim? The main thing is, you can pay your own bounty, or you can choose to serve time in jail. When you serve time in jail, you will lose part of your experience, particularly in the skills you’ve acquired.
This all sounds bad, but there are some situations where this may be preferable to having to always keep your guard up for your bounty. You can hold onto anything you’ve stolen, so long as you remember to hide it before you give yourself up.
Obviously, on its face gamers shouldn’t like to deal with a punitive system in their game. But for immersive open world games, adding those situations do add to the immersion. They create a richer experience for the players. So, as unlikely as it sounds, a lot of fans are looking forward to finding out what the criminal justice system is like in Starfield.
Starfield releases on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S, and on Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
