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Todd Howard, Bethesda's director and executive producer. Todd is white male in his 50's, has short hair, and is wearing a navy blue T shirt
Screenshot via Boomberg (YouTube).

Todd Howard suggests Starfield was originally far more punishing: ‘We nerfed the hell out of it’

All for the sake of the gameplay.

Starfield has been arguably the biggest release of September and one of the biggest this year. One of the points made by its critics was the fact it’s relatively easy and not really challenging, but it turns out, it was way harder at first.

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Todd Howard, Bethesda’s director and game producer, was a guest of The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook Podcast on Sept. 25, where he revealed a bunch of details about the making of Starfield. One such insight was that the game was much harder originally, but the developers “nerfed the hell out of it.”

When Howard claimed that, he was talking specifically about the game’s environment system. Those who have played Starfield know each planet has a different biome, and Howard admitted these biomes originally required unique suits and were far more dangerous for the players. The devs decided to tune them down in order to enhance gameplay and allow players to focus on other things.

Although it’s somewhat natural to hear how some features have been cut out of Starfield. The game is arguably Bethesda’s biggest one in terms of how much there is to explore. On top of that, there are new mechanics added, like ship fights in space and so on. With all that in mind, it makes sense the developers needed to make a few cuts here and there so players don’t get lost in all the content.

Still, many believe the content could use some polishing, as they see Starfield’s gameplay a bit repetitive and too similar to other Bethesda games. The game is getting overall positive reviews, though, it recently became the studio’s worst game on Steam.


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Image of Mateusz Miter
Mateusz Miter
Freelance Writer at Dot Esports. Mateusz previously worked for numerous outlets and gaming-adjacent companies, including ESL. League of Legends or CS:GO? He loves them both. In fact, he wonders which game he loves more every day. He wanted to go pro years ago, but somewhere along the way decided journalism was the more sensible option—and he was right.