In a recent interview, Todd Howard explains how planet exploration in Starfield would have been a lot more punishing before the team decided to nerf “the hell out of it”.
…
“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 said on the podcast. “… And what we did at the end of the day, and it was a complicated system for players to understand, is we just nerfed the hell out of it. It matters only a little bit. It matters more in flavor. The affliction you get is more annoying knowing you have it.”
…
Howard’s comment that Bethesda may address it “going forward” implies Starfield may receive a Hardcore or Survival mode-type difficulty level in the game. It would not be the first time Bethesda added a difficulty mode to one of its games post-release, as Fallout 4 received a Survival Mode a few months after launch. This added a set of features not found in the other difficulty levels, such as eliminating the option to autosave or save manually from the pause menu or stronger enemies spawning more frequently. Should such a mode be added to Starfield, the team could bring back the more punitive system for planet exploration.
Can’t help but feel like that was a missed opportunity. Exploration being risky could lead the player to make meaningful choices with meaningful consequences. It certainly seemed to have that effect in Dark Souls (yes I just invoked Dark Souls please don’t dogpile me).
Everything about this game feels like a missed opportunity.
I’m all for hardcore as long as you can figure out what the affliction is and how to avoid/cure it.
I can’t believe how this guy just keeps opening his mouth and telling us how Starfield used to be fun and interesting, but that they removed all that stuff until all that was left was this sterile Far Cry clone that feels more like a chore than a game.
I’m already mad at how unbearably boring the game is, and the more Todd Howard talks about the development, the more angry I get. It’s callously just rubbing salt in an open wound.
