Bethesda's Lead Writer Says Starfield Is The Best Game The Studio Has Ever Made

Summary

• Starfield has always had a mixed reception from players and critics.
• Starfield's lead writer Emil Pagliarulo believes Starfield is, in many ways, the best game the studio has ever made.
• Bethesda has been improving Starfield post-release, with the addition of a land-based vehicle and now with the release of the Shattered Space expansion.

The reception of Starfield has always been a mixed bag. Some people are massive fans while others are wholehearted detractors. Either way, the consensus is more or less that Starfield hasn't lived up to the lofty expectations of being Bethesda's next big RPG. The release of Shattered Space to mixed reviews on Steam also probably hasn't been the evolution Bethesda was looking to foster with the expansion.

Starfield's lead writer and design lead Emil Pagliarulo has always been one of the game's biggest champions. In an interview with GamesRadar+ ahead of Shattered Space's release, the Bethesda veteran maintained his stance on the studio's polarising space RPG.

"I think, in a lot of ways, Starfield is the hardest thing Bethesda has ever done," Pagliarulo began. "We pushed ourselves to make something totally different. To just jam into an Xbox, the biggest, richest space simulation RPG anyone could imagine. That we pulled off Starfield makes it something of a technical marvel. It's also, in a lot of ways, the best game we've ever made. But for us, most importantly, Starfield has its own unique personality, and now sits right next to Fallout and Elder Scrolls."

This is certainly high praise considering Bethesda made Morrowind and Skyrim, two genre-defining releases that received near-universal praise.

Bethesda Continues To Improve Starfield

The technical aspects of Starfield are something that Bethesda heavily focused on in pre-release marketing and subsequent interviews. A common counterpoint is that these technically marvellous planets aren't particularly fun to explore and many are completely barren. It's something Bethesda has been attempting to address since release, with the addition of the REV-8 vehicle for rapidly exploring a planet's surface being one such post-release innovation.

In our interview with Starfield's lead creative producer Tim Lamb, he said Bethesda actively listens to community feedback, especially the critique - "We listen to the community, we hear the feedback. But for us, we're our own toughest critics. So, we hear what the community says, we're looking at what we're interested in, and we have plans going forward."

It's unknown if Bethesda intends to create more expansions after Shattered Space which was in active development for over a year.

Starfield

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Starfield is the first new IP from Bethesda in a quarter of a century, launched for the next-gen Xbox Series X|S and PC. Taking place outside our own Solar System, you play a member of the Constellation, a collective of explorers set on discovering new worlds.