Could this robot be our first look at Starfield gameplay?

Starfield gameplay might have been shown off for the first time in the game's latest trailer.

In the new episode of the studio's Into the Starfield developer updates, design director Emil Pagliarulo, lead quest designer Will Shen, lead artist Istvan Pely, and game director Todd Howard discuss multiple aspects of Bethesda's upcoming RPG. During the discussion, the group touches on the nature of the the studio's companions and how memorable they can be.

During that conversation, the focus moves away from the developers to show a figure approaching a bipedal robot. Turning to face the player's perspective, the machine asks how it can be of assistance, before turning away again. The subtitles of the voice-acted snippet reveal that the robot's name is Vasco, and presumably it'll be an early game companion, something like Fallout 4's Codsworth.

It's not entirely clear whether this is a gameplay clip or not, even if the voice acting does lend credence to that idea. Both Vasco and the area around them are extremely well-rendered, implying that this almost certainly won't be live gameplay and might instead be cutscene footage, but the style is slightly different from that included in last summer's Starfield teaser trailer.

Back in November, Todd Howard said that Starfield gameplay would likely debut in Summer 2022 ahead of the Starfield release date in November 2022. This sneak peek comes in a few months ahead of that reveal - likely to be around the traditional E3 window in June - but lines up quite nicely for a minor early teaser.

Hopefully, Starfield will be more than 'Skyrim in Space'.