Starfield’s expanded dialogue options signal return to one of Bethesda’s greatest strengths

Expectations are so sky high for Bethesda’s upcoming interstellar open-world RPG Starfield that you’ll likely need to deplete your starship’s entire reserve of fuel just to make the jump to reach them. In particular, one standout feature represents the developer’s return to one of its greatest strengths, after straying so far from it in recent releases.

During the lengthy Starfield Direct showcase, we saw how features like backgrounds, skills, and traits will unlock new dialogue options during conversations. The different traits players acquire from their background or from character creation will provide numerous paths for players to advance in during dialogue. For example, the Neon Street Rat will unlock special dialogue options in addition to better rewards from quests on Neon, but at the cost of an increased crime bounty from other factions.

Other faction-based traits like Serpent’s Embrace will provide similar unlocked dialogue options, and potentially traits like Empath and Extrovert could provide additional options as well, just based on their name. Backgrounds themselves, such as Beast Hunter, Cyber Runner, Gangster, and others will also grant access to new dialogue choices. Ideally, the skills that players unlock and put points into during their playtime like Medicine, Commerce, and Security will also provide extended dialogue options. Certainly skills like Persuasion, Intimidation, and Negotiation will do so.

In their more recent releases like single-player RPG titles Skyrim and Fallout 4, Bethesda has gone with more simplified dialogue, which takes away much of the fun. In Fallout 4 in particular, dialogue came down to effectively four choices: emphatic yes, begrudging yes, no, and ask me again.

In simplifying the dialogue in those games, Bethesda also did away with having stats and perks provide any additional dialogue options. Across the massive list of perks in Fallout 4, only perks in the Charisma category (only one of seven stats-based categories) had any effect on dialogue, and those effects only involved higher odds on speech checks; no different dialogue options at all. Perks, stats, skills, reputation: none of these things provided any new dialogue choices.

For Fallout fans like myself, it was very disappointing after what we were treated to in games like Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. In those games, having different perks, skills, and stats would unlock various dialogue options across the entire game. This could result in a list of upwards of eight different potential responses to specific NPCs, rather than just a standard four. In New Vegas specifically, the developers at Obsidian even went so far as to write hundreds of hilarious lines of player and NPC dialogue for players that had just a single point of Intelligence.

While it’s probably impossible for Starfield to recreate the depth of dialogue choices seen in the older Fallout games, it’s a relief to see Bethesda go back to its roots and move away from the boring, simplified approach to dialogue they took with their most recent major releases. With backgrounds, skills, and traits unlocking new dialogue and paths through conversations, you really feel like you’re playing a character that is learning and truly leveling up as the game progresses.