It took Gamescom to make me finally believe in Starfield

I’ve tried really hard to be excited for Starfield. I’ve watched every dev stream, read as much news as I could, and discussed how it will rock the gaming landscape with friends. But I just couldn’t muster the excitement I felt I should have—the excitement other people have. As a lifelong Bethesda fan, I should be salivating over this new IP, poised to jump into another of its beautifully crafted, living and breathing worlds. But I wasn’t. Well, not until the Starfield Gamescom 2023 presentation.

The media presentation, taking place ahead of public viewings the rest of the convention, was introduced by none other than Bethesda head honcho Todd Howard, who was briefly preceeded by Xbox boss Phil Spencer. The presentation showcased the “beginning” of Starfield. In other words, it quickly skimmed through gameplay footage of the first few missions.

Starfield starts with you, a miner, going into the depths of the earth on a mission to extract mineral deposits. But during your shift, you come across a mysterious aritfact that, when touched, causes you to have visions that could inspire Pink Floyd to write a new hit. In this sequence, it’s not the LSD-like fever dream that stands out most, it’s the mines themselves. As the camera spanned through the caverns, I watched how the light of the miners’ lamps shimmered off the stone walls and how each of these was detailed down to singular grains. I studied the fabric of Lynn’s (a fellow miner) suit as she spoke and how the shadows cast on her danced as she moved, and marvelled at the settling dusk that fell off the machines working in the ground. The devil is in the details after all.

After the unfortunate incident with the artifact, you awaken a bit forgetful and then have the opportunity to customize your character. As we’ve seen character creation a few times before, the presentation skimmed over this pretty quickly: blue fauxhauk, female. Cue me carefully examining the details on the face and getting increasingly excited about spending time creating my stargazer.

The initial mine mission is first-person, but after you choose your character it changes to third. It’s up to you whether you keep in this mode or flick back, but I personally will want to get a good look at the character I’ll likely spend hours making. 

The beginning of Starfield is certainly a good showcase for some of its main pillars. Upon waking, you’re told that a sample has been taken of the artifact and, after speaking to a man called Barrett and going toe-to-toe with some space pirates, you’ll realize that having helter skelter-like visions isn’t normal. In fact, both you and the artifact are pretty special and you should go see The Constellation, who will be keen to meet you. At this point, I’m itching to meet them too.

Before you can make your introduction, you need to travel there and that requires some space manouvers. Watching that blue-haired hero step upon the star ship gave me the same feeling the first time I watched Alien (without the Xenomorph hunting me down of course). It felt like science fiction come to life, but not in a corny away. The scuffs on the pearl white walls and the various knobs, screens and trinkets make the ship look like a real, lived in space. Albeit a futuristic one. Again, the devil is in the details.

I couldn’t help but marvel at the dashboard as the presentation character piloted the ship. Yes, they may have been in a space dog fight, but I was too busy looking at all the different buttons and gauges and feeling like a kid the first time they get in the cockpit of a plane at an airshow. And that’s only from watching someone else do it.

Again, as the player selected a planet to land on, I was mesermzied by how quickly they jumped between solar systems and planets. The presentation ended once the player landed with The Constellation, so I still don’t know what exactly they want with me, but now I’m excited to find out.

Starfield truly looks like a sci-fi adventure come to life and I don’t know why it took me so long to see it. Especially when all it took was some good lighting and a couple of scuffed walls.