Unveiling the Cosmic Mystery: Discoveries Reveal Life on 90% of Starfield Planets!

According to Todd Howard, the game director at Bethesda, only a small percentage of the planets in Starfield will be inhabited. With Starfield being an ambitious project, Howard and Bethesda have made big promises about the game, including the availability of over 1,000 planets for players to explore. However, only a fraction of these planets will actually support life. Despite this, Howard believes that even the desolate planets will offer something of value for players to experience.

Realistically, it would be impossible for Bethesda to manually create 1,000 unique worlds for Starfield. Instead, the planets will be procedurally generated, with some handcrafted elements incorporated throughout the game. Howard has already stated that Starfield will contain more handcrafted content than both "Skyrim" and "Fallout 4" combined. Even the planets that do have life will primarily be procedurally generated. This has raised concerns among players about whether visiting these planets will become repetitive or monotonous.

In a recent interview on the Kinda Funny Xcast, Todd Howard was asked about the activities available on the 1,000+ procedurally-generated Starfield planets. Howard, known for his indirect responses, offers some insight that may change how potential Starfield players perceive the question.

According to Howard, Bethesda approaches the game with a scientific mindset. Not every system will be teeming with life, resulting in only 10% of planets being capable of supporting life. However, this doesn't mean that the remaining 90% of planets are devoid of value. These planets play a vital role in bringing Starfield to life and contribute to the overall scale of the universe, even if players choose not to explore them.

There will still be incentives to explore the desolate planets in Starfield. According to Howard, these planets will offer valuable resources to mine and potentially feature procedurally generated or hand-crafted locations to discover. He also references a quote from Buzz Aldrin, who described the Moon as "magnificent desolation," suggesting that these lifeless planets may hold beauty and deeper significance.

However, whether Starfield players will genuinely find reasons to venture to these desolate planets remains uncertain. Many gamers are already aware that the answer to this question is likely to be negative. Starfield is designed to provide a wealth of curated content, including a vast campaign, numerous side-stories, and plenty of other engaging elements, ensuring that players will have ample content to keep them occupied for hours on end. It is therefore not surprising that Bethesda may have chosen not to focus on making these lifeless planets (or even most of the inhabited ones) more enticing to explore. Ultimately, the decision to visit these desolate planets will be left to the players themselves.

Starfield launches on September 6 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.