Bethesda’s senior vice president of global marketing & communications has some simple but good advice for those who are about to start playing Starfield.
If that job title sounded intimidating or complicated, you’ll be surprised to learn I was actually only referring to one of Bethesda’s most famous public facing figures, Pete Hines. As you can imagine, Pete has been playing Starfield for years, long before it was complete. So, he is intimately knowledge with Starfield’s game design, to the point that even the most dedicated streamers will need weeks and months to match him.
As reported by Dexerto, here’s a direct quote from Pete on what beginner Starfield players need to do:
“My one piece of advice for folks is: do not ignore your activities. It feels like throwaway stuff that the game is giving you, but there is some amazing stuff in there.”
So, to elaborate, when Pete refers to ‘activities’, he isn’t just referring to the parts of the game which are explicitly tutorials for new gameplay elements and modes. Pete points out that there are things you can do in Starfield, that won’t feel like real questlines. However, players should follow up on those things, no matter how insignificant they seem, because they will bring players to finding ‘amazing places’ and ‘amazing stories’.
But really, this idea shouldn’t be that alien to most gamers at all, at least not for gamers who have already played a game like (wait for it) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did not invent the idea of points of interest, but Nintendo used the idea so clearly in their marketing that it’s an easy way to explain it for other games as well.
So given Starfield is also an open world game, Bethesda have also seen it fit to seed different points of interest throughout the game. Unlike The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we know there is some degree of procedural generation in Starfield. Because of that, we don’t quite know if these ‘activities’ are mapped out in specific parts of the game, or if they will appear randomly, adding an extra level of challenge for completists and especially speedrunners.
In the end, Pete wants us to play Starfield in a way that attempts to push our freedom to explore, and do what we want:
“We encourage you to play this like any (Bethesda) game: Do what you want, go where you want, test the game. Be the kind of person you wanna be in this world and see what happens.”
Starfield will be releasing on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S and Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
