Starfieldmight actually be shaping up to be the game fans are desperately hoping it’ll be. After a few stumbles withFallout 4andFallout 76, Bethesda seems to be putting everything it’s got intoStarfield, and the latest gameplay deep-dive was the perfect example of that. Lasting an impressive 45 minutes,Starfield’s recent gameplay breakdowndetailed the game’s major systems in most of their glory, while also leaving plenty of teases and hints of things to come.
One by one, a number ofStarfield’s lead developerstook turns presenting their own slice of the sci-fi RPG. Ground combat, space combat, ship customization, crewmates, story, and much more each got their own time in the spotlight, with the developer clearly laying out exactly what fans should expect and why they should get excited, all while being careful to not overpromise, as Bethesda is wont to do. But of all ofStarfield’s innovative systems, its character customization might just be its most generation-defining feature.
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Starfield’s Character Creator Goes Above and Beyond
As all good RPGs should,Bethesda’s past gameshave usually had some pretty great character creators.Fallout 3, for instance, features one of the most memorable character creators in all gaming. After literally being birthed into the world by Liam Neeson,Fallout 3players start their journey by choosing a name, and then choosing presets for the character’s sex, race, face, and hair.
From there, players can customize a variety of different cosmetic features, such as the face’s shape, eyebrows, eyes, mouth, and cheeks.Fallout 3’s character creator then skips forward in time a few years and players are tasked with choosing their character’s primary skills by allocating points in an adorable SPECIAL baby book.
Skyrim’s character creatorlacks the same functionality asFallout 3’s, with players not being able to choose a class, but it did significantly improve upon the level of cosmetic customization players could engage in. After choosing their race, players would then be prompted to customize their character’s skin tone, sex, and weight. After that, players could go wild, customizing a slew of different sliders, from facial structure elements like the nose, eyes, ears, and jawline, to skin tones for individual areas of the face.
Starfield’s character creator, on the other hand, seems to be the best of both worlds. Designed to look like the employee records of Argos Extractors,Starfield’s character creator starts by getting players to choose a preset profile. After that, players are given four separate categories for customization: body, face, background, and traits. The first of these, body, gives players a circular chart used to determine the character’s weight and stature, two different walk styles, and a skin tone slider.
The face categoryfollows in the footsteps ofSkyrimcloselybut improves upon it by giving players more options than ever before, even including teeth customization. But despite adding more customization options than ever before,Starfield’s character creator also seems like its most straightforward, assigning everything to just one or two easy-to-interpret sliders.
But the real innovation inStarfield’s character creator comes with its background section. After choosing what their character looks like, players will then choose from one ofStarfield’s many backgrounds, detailing how their character has lived before this point. TheStarfieldgameplay trailer showed 16 individual backgrounds on screen, but there was room for at least four more. These backgrounds range from Beast Hunter to Diplomat to Professor to Gangster.
Along with some story details, these backgrounds also grant the player three Skills that they start the game with. Bethesda also teased that these backgrounds will be integral to some ofStarfield’s quests, with background-exclusive missions and objectives popping up throughout the game. The final point of customization is Traits, which are a set of three completely optional modifiers that can affect stats and gameplay. Out of all the improvementsStarfieldhas to offer, its character creation may be its very best.
Starfieldlaunches September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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