Exclusive: Todd Howard Unveils the Surprising Reason Starfield Ditches Land Vehicles!

Highlights

Bethesda decided against including land vehicles in Starfield due to concerns about pacing and how it would change the gameplay experience.

Adding vehicles to Starfield, along with the utilization of procedural generation in the planet creation and continuous spawning of points of interest, would create a sense of emptiness in the game world. Although modders may eventually introduce vehicles, the inclusion of official modding support and the development of intricate additions such as vehicle packs will probably require several years.

Bethesda's Executive Producer Todd Howard has addressed the absence of land vehicles in the highly anticipated game Starfield. In doing so, he has shed light on the game's extensive development process, which sets it apart from previous projects undertaken by the company.

Within the realm of Bethesda's open-world RPGs, it is not uncommon for certain gameplay elements to be perceived as lacking by a portion of the fan base. Starfield, despite its immersive spaceship building and customization features, has already triggered disappointment among players who were hoping for the inclusion of land vehicles.

After addressing concerns about optimizing Starfield for PC, Howard revealed that Bethesda had considered the idea of including land vehicles during the game's development. However, the studio decided against it due to concerns about pacing and gameplay. Howard explained that the addition of land transportation would significantly change the gameplay in a direction that they did not want to pursue. The main challenge was predicting the speed at which players would experience the game, and land vehicles would introduce a major variable to this equation. As a result, the idea of including vehicles was eventually abandoned.

It is possible that the Bethesda official's comments were referring to the fact that Starfield uses procedural generation to populate its planets with points of interest (POIs). While the overall topography is the same for every player and includes some handcrafted locations, the game actively generates POIs at regular intervals to ensure that players always come across something interesting while exploring. Introducing vehicles with this specific implementation of dynamic content may make the game world feel less populated, which could be what Howard was subtly hinting at.

Starfield fans who wish to explore the numerous planets in the game with vehicles may have to wait a while, especially if they are playing on PC. Based on Bethesda's previous games, it is highly probable that modders will eventually introduce a diverse range of vehicles into the game, much like what happened with Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Although there are already numerous Starfield mods available online, more complex additions such as vehicle packs will likely take several years to materialize. This is because the development of such mods cannot even commence until Bethesda releases the official modding support through the Creation Kit. Currently, Starfield is accessible for PC and Xbox Series X/S platforms.