Most of Starfield's marketing has been based around its size. It's a scale that's difficult for us to imagine. We understand file size and runtime, but in order to capture the magic, Starfield hasn't leaned on those recognisable terms. Instead Bethesda has talked about having 1,000 planets to explore, a huge universe to build rockets and wander around in, and journeys that will be different for each and every player. Right from the moment the 1,000 planets were mentioned, there have been two schools of thought on the matter: those who can't wait, and those who don't even want to start. The prospect of a game too big to ever really finish doesn't work for me these days, but I have the perfect solution: Starfield needs to let me stay right where I am.
A similar, and yet completely different, article from my colleague Andrew King helped distil this idea for me. Andrew wrote about how seeing the cruise ship in the game's most recent trailer finally brought the size of the game home to him in ways he could finally take hold of. For myself, during that very long Starfield showcase my emotions went from intrigued, to bored, to wondering if I should jump out of the window to get out of watching it on a Sunday night for work, to interested in the roleplay mechanics, to bored again, to 'sure I guess I'll play it'. Nothing about the game grabs me enough for me to think I'll finish, but I'm hooked enough to start, and after that it's the game's job to keep me going.
The story might be good enough to sustain me, but I'm sure the game's real trick will be in the branching side quests. With those roleplay mechanics leaning on Dungeons & Dragons' style feats and backgrounds to help you navigate through each faction, I'm hoping to be absorbed by the worlds Starfield offers - maybe even all 1,000 of them. But mostly, I want to stand still.
There's a lot I like about Starfield, or at least about the picture marketing has painted of it. There's the aforementioned roleplay, but also the complete control you have of your ship and the more hopeful, vibrant tone it strikes rather than the militaristic coldness of many sci-fi games. We've seen that done in cartoonish ways in games like Journey to a Savage Planet or No Man's Sky, but most sci-fi games (whether set on Earth or across the moons of the sky) tend to be serious and apocalyptic with high-stakes violence. Starfield is a game of wonder, and that's a welcome break.
But wonder is less wonderous when stretched across 1,000 planets, and I wonder if this hope requires you to keep moving. Does each side quest force you to jet off from hither to thither and back? Or can you simply sit in the universe? If there's the opportunity to put down roots on a planet and explore it fully, absorbing all of its moments together, then I will have found what it is in Starfield's vast universe that works for me. When you watch a sunset over a mountain, the feeling of bliss that washes over you is not because you can go to that mountain, but because there's a feeling of comfort in being so small in the world sometimes. Starfield's huge size and hopeful tone suggest that we are not the ultimate hero, and the game needs to match that.
I know that in order to complete the game and progress the story, I will need to move. And move I will. The ability to stay still doesn't mean never taking a single step, it means taking a breath and admiring where you are. If Starfield has a depth that even comes close to matching its breadth, then its hooks will finally sink into me. If it's all about exploring every inch of the universe, grabbing a snapshot, and jetting off somewhere else, it will feel a waste of its size and power.