Bethesda fans can hardly wait to sink their teeth into the massive world that Starfield is promising them, but they may need to start planning for a subsequent playthrough. With fewer games launching with this particular feature in the past few years, knowing that we don’t need to wait for a software update to add this feature in will allow us to keep the adventure rolling with our created character, kitted out to the max while exploring the massive world before us.
In an interview with GQ Magazine, Todd Howard spoke with GQ’s games columnist Sam White, who not only broke the news of a “unique and exciting twist on New Game+ to incentivize continued and repeat play” but also gave players a bit more information to look forward to, especially if they were disappointed by the overall progression and skill tree system of the most recent Elder Scrolls title.
While many players personally loved Skyrim, I was bored of it rather quickly and found its new skill tree system to be a massive step down over 2006’s Oblivion. It seems, however, that the team took players’ feedback to heart and ramped the roleplaying aspects up to 11, bringing back much of what players loved from the previous Elder Scrolls installment.
As games continue to advance, it seems that there are parts of them that continue to regress. This includes launching with missing features that are later patched in, sometimes months after the game has been on the market. With Starfield launching with New Game + off the bat, this means that adventures hoping to conquer the galaxy will not need to wait until Bethesda has prepared the final frontier for them to explore.
However, in an RPG, why does New Game + matter, and what “unique take” will it offer? While its implications are currently unknown, we’ll only need to wait until September 6, 2023, to start our journey and discover all of the secrets of Outer Space and what this new form of New Game + will have in store with us. It seems that Starfield is poised to be Bethesda’s biggest and most polished launch yet, and the wait to get into early access feels almost like torture.
