Todd Howard says Starfield is hard sci-fi, even if your ship doesn't run out of fuel

Starfield creative director and executive producer Todd Howard says the game is hard science-fiction, at least to the folks at developer Bethesda.

Howard discussed the game's tone in a new video which answers a few questions about the game. Asked about the still-burning hard sci-fi debate, Howard remarks that, "I never quite know. That's always like, what do they think it is? I think it is more hard to us, hard science-fiction, where you can draw that line from 'here's how man explored space' and look at our ships and say that has some visual identity back to that. 

"But it's a trap question because it's a video game," he continues. "A hard science-fiction video game would be – you'd die in space cold. A good example is how we were really into fuel and how the gravity drive works. I'm reading papers on quantum physics, bending space in front of you. You don't actually warp, you bring the space toward you. We were playing that and it became very punitive to the player. Your ship would run out of fuel and the game would just stop. You just want to get back to what you're doing. So we recently changed it where the fuel in your ship and your ship and the grav drive limits how far you can go at once, but it doesn't run out of fuel. Maybe there will be an update or mod that allows that, but that's what we're doing now." 

It's interesting to see how the game's tone and intended experience can influence design decisions around more specific features like interspace travel. Starfield ship customization has also been a focal point of several trailers and showcases, and it seems optimizing for travel time will be key to building your dream vessel. 

In the same video, Howard revealed that Starfield has over four times as much dialogue as Skyrim, and includes his personal favorite speech persuasion system.