Yesterday’s Starfield Direct was huge, in every sense of the word. I think it’s fair to say that most of us have been cautiously optimistic about Bethesda’s big ol' space RPG, but it’s getting to the point where it’s difficult not to explode with excitement over it. I mean seriously, just look at it.
One thing is for certain, Starfield is going to have enough content to last us until the end of our lives. Or until The Elder Scrolls VI comes out - whichever comes first. There’ll be over 1,000 planets to explore, which have been created using a combination of procedurally generated content and hand-crafted stuff.
Take a look at the new story trailer for Starfield below.
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Honestly though, above all else, the little feature which has got me the most intrigued is the fact that NPCs will be able to call you by your actual name (or whatever you decide to input into the game, anyway). This was confirmed by game director Todd Howard himself, who mentioned in an off-hand comment in the first five minutes of the presentation that one of the robotic crew members can address you directly (one robot buddy can be heard greeting the director as “Captain Howard”).
Presumably, the same will go for the game's other robotic companions, but whether human NPCs will also be able to do this is another matter (it’s a lot easier to get text-to-speech to work with a robot voice than it is a realistic one). Either way though, the possibilities for chaos to unfold here are endless.
A Skyrim mod which also allows NPCs to say inputted names out loud previously had players putting in things like “xX_dragon_killer_420_69_Xx”, and I’m sure that no one is going to need any encouragement to call themselves certain rude things just to hear the poor little robots repeat it back. I for one can’t wait to see clips of the silliest possible names flood the internet on release day.