Starfield was 'now or never' for Bethesda according to Todd Howard

Starfield is an all-new project for a studio that already had a lot on its plate, but there's a practical reason why Bethesda decided its next destination would be outer space.

Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard talked about his studio's slate of recent and upcoming projects in a new interview with IGN, where he admitted that he can't say the lengthy gap between Skyrim and its direct followup "is a good thing." However, when it came time for Bethesda to settle on its next project, the developers feared it might never again have this good of an opportunity to move in a different direction.

"We wanted to do something else for a long time, and play in a new universe. Well, if not now - I'm going back in time, we started right after Fallout 4, so 2015 - if not now, when?" Howard asked. "It felt like if we didn't do it then, the 'when' could be 'never.' So we felt pretty good with where Elder Scrolls was as a franchise - particularly with Elder Scrolls Online - that, hey, now is the time to do Starfield."

Granted, "everything takes longer than we would like,' Howard said, but the studio wants to make sure it gets this foray into a new universe right. Its little corner of the universe is called the Settled Systems, by the way - get used to the name because you'll be spending a lot of time there.

Just as importantly, it looks like Starfield may give you Mandalorian style weapon mounts for your sci-fi armor.