Looking Ahead To Starfield

As the months go by, I'm increasingly asked about what my plans are, going into the release of Bethesda's upcoming space opera game Starfield.

First, thanks to everyone who has donated here and on GreslinGames, I expect to have everything necessary to comfortably run Starfield and to get into that modding scene on the ground floor. Thank you all so much: as I've said many times here, every cent donated goes right back into building GreslinGames.  This would have been a lot tougher without your help, and so I greatly appreciate it.

My plans for Starfield are highly speculative right now, because until there's an actual game to look at, we're all just guessing about the opportunities that will be available. The game has already been delayed more than once, now planned for sometime mid-2023.  If we see it at all in 2023, I'll be quite happy about it.

That said, there are some things I'd like to do.  

All indications are that Starfield will be using the next iteration of Creation Engine, which itself is an evolution of the Gamebryo engine that Bethesda has been using since early Elder Scrolls. Each generation, from Oblivion to Fallout 3 to New Vegas to Skyrim to Fallout 4, has followed a trajectory in favor of opening up more of the engine and adding more detailed things for modders to mess with.  

I expect Starfield to do the same. If Bethesda instead closes up the system, that's another story altogether. But so long as they further open up the system, I should be able to port much of PANPC to Starfield and expand on it.

I tentatively have a name for the Starfield port: PAST, or Pack Attack: Starfield Troopers. I will begin with feasibility research immediately on game release, and will likely start prototyping as soon as Creation Kit, XEdit, and the Papyrus compiler are all available for Starfield. My hope is to see all that by the end of 2023.

My personal dream is to work with space dogfighting AI, but right now I have absolutely no idea if that will even be an option in Starfield. But if it is, I'm going to be all over that. It'll all come down to what we get access to.

GreslinGames will support Starfield, while continuing to support Fallout 4 and earlier titles. I don't expect the Fallout 4 community to vanish, any more than the New Vegas or Skyrim communities have vanished. We'll just add Starfield to the stable, continue to update everything else, and keep trucking forward.

That's about all I can promise about Starfield at this point. Until there is an actual game, we're all operating just with rumors and marketing hype, and none of us can make concrete plans based on thin air. Please remember that, whenever you see anyone in the mod community making big promises and grand plans.. until there's a game, it's all talk. We're all waiting, just like you.

But things look good, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Starfield can do. And thanks to all my Patreon supporters, I can now plan to hit the ground with it as soon as the code hits the streets.

Stay tuned for more Starfield support news in the coming months.