A Bethesda Game Studios veteran believes the company's core “Big Three” games now include Starfield, which is “simply developing its own unique fan base.”
Speaking to GamesRadar+ ahead of Starfield's Shattered Space expansion, design director Emil Pagliarulo said the studio's sci-fi mammoth “has its own unique personality and now sits right up there with Fallout and Elder Scrolls.” Starfield's changes to Bethesda's formula definitely inspired a lot of heat debate, Let's say, but Pagliarulo believes it still fits perfectly with what the studio is famous for.
“It exists in a unique space,” he explained. “It may not be everyone's cup of tea. What is it? We created a new IP, from the ground up, and an experience that is absolutely unique on consoles. And I'm not saying Starfield is better or worse than any other game. Just different in what we offer: that strange Bethesda mix of immersion, action and RPG.
Pagliarulo still acknowledges that Starfield is “also different from Bethesda's other RPGs” (Skyrim's open-world exploration is now scattered across hundreds of procedurally generated planets, for example), but it turns out that's also what he likes. It helped attract a different crowd. “Starfield is simply developing its own unique fan base. It's big and growing.”
Taking years to work on an entirely new series for the first time in decades, while the cloud of publicity surrounding The Elder Scroll 6 hangs over the studio, was also a risk. But hey, now that it has apparently paid off, the study can balance itself on three stable legs.
“Bethesda used to feel like the Elder Scrolls studio,” Pagliarulo explained. “Then it was the studio you'd associate with Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Now it's Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield. The big three of Bethesda Game Studio.” Director Todd Howard had previously hinted at big plans for Starfield's future, with annual story expansions that could be coming for “a long time,” and Pagliarulo now added that “it's just the beginning.”
The Bethesda veteran also said that Starfield could be “the best game we've ever made.”