I’ve never been a particularly athletic person, having struggled with health issues all my life, and am by no means in peak human condition. I’ve just recently ran my first 5k, and I enjoy lifting weights, but I’m not good at either of those things by any stretch of the imagination. I also have a phobia of most insects and reptiles, which means going outside to be in nature is just as harrowing as it is fulfilling, because I’m terrified of everything, but touching grass gives my life meaning. There are few things that bring me more peace than camping out by the sea, or sitting at the top of a mountain and watching the sunrise with a hot cup of 💜tea. Knowing that the world is bigger than me and my anxieties are small gives me a lot of comfort.
That’s part of the reason I’m so excited for Starfield. My best memories with Bethesda games largely involve playing Skyrim as a teenager, scaling The T🙈hroat of the World and looking out at everything around me, or entering caves and being entirely blown away by their beauty. I love exploring a beautiful, vibrant world in a video game and feeling touched by how much I can see, and how small I feel. To some extent, it’s just like doing that in real life, minus the profuse sweating, getting bitten by bugs, and almost having a panic attack every time I see a snake.
Starfield promises over 1000 planets to explore, which is a ridiculous number. Peop🐲le have been expressing concern that because of the sheer number of planets included in the game, most of these worlds will be empty, with nothing much to do on them but gather resources and maybe build an outpost. You’ll find cities far less often, which means much like in real life, space is going to be mostly empty. I’m not really a fan of that, because I prefer substance to style in my games – I want the quests I do to matter, and I ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚdon’t want to go on a resource-gathering expedition for the sake of it.
What would make this more tolerable is if all of Starfield’s planets are beautiful in their own way. I want to climb onto a big rock and eat a space sandwich while watching the sky change over time. I want to see 🦹huge icy terrains, with Interstellar-style waves that inspire awe and terror. I want to see undulating red dunes, caves full of crystals and strange rock formations, gigantic seas full of strange and terrifying marine life. I want to take in landscapes that I would never be able to dream up, because my imagination is limited to what I can see on Earth. I want Starfield to make me feel terrifyingly, immeasurably small in comparison to the entire galaxy. I want it to give me true existential dread and joy.
Starfield has to make me want to touch down on unfamiliar planets and moons, but it doesn’t have to give me a quest to progress the plot to do that. Giving me beautiful, eerie new things to admire will be enough for me. Let me touch grass, or sand, or water, but let me find som﷽e rare, surprising beauty in the universe. I’ll be happy enough to just sit and watch the sun set.