Starfield Factions Won’t Be Limited Like Fallout, Quest Design Is Inspired by Old-School RPGs

Bethesda has shared some new details on the story, quests, and factions of Starfield in a set of new developer interviews.

Starfield is primarily set in space where there are different planets with cities to explore, but it will be possible to visit the Earth as well. It is called “Old Neighborhood” in the game and some quests will take us back there. The game’s main story has branching paths and multiple factions to join, but the developers have made sure that the player can experience everything that the game has to offer before they can make a decision on which path to settle on in the story. This was revealed in a developer interview by Will Shen, the lead quest designer on Starfield.

The fate of certain characters will depend on the choices made by the players during the story. The companions that the players will encounter throughout the game will have their view of your character based on the decisions that you have made, and they can even help in certain quests to solve objectives or perform various tasks.

Factions are not limited like in earlier Bethesda Games. Players won’t become the head of a faction but they will have a major impact on the direction that the faction will take, and how this affects the world around them. Bethesda has used an advanced procedural system to bring random encounters on planets. This means that there will be areas/settlements and some quests might be found there as well.

In another developer interview, Will Shen shed more light on the quest design and factions. Constellation is the key faction for the story, and Will Shen says that he is excited for the players to experience and meet all the members of this faction. Regarding the quest design, Will Shen has described it as taking inspiration from the old-school RPGs.

“I think for Starfield a lot of quest design was going back to our old-school RPG roots: lots of dialogue choices, referencing the player’s skills and background, a variety of combat and non-combat activities, and highlighting our brand-new setting in a way that signals where to go for what kind of stories you want to experience. We really tried to draw on all of our previous titles to build quests we were excited about.”

Starfield is currently slated to launch in 2023 for Xbox Series and PC. The Xbox exclusivity helped the developers with optimizing the game, especially for the console.