Starfield will have four major cities for players to explore, including New Atlantis, which is the biggest that developer Bethesda has ever made.
Speaking to IGN, Bethesda veteran and Starfield director Todd Howard said that New Atlantis, capital city of the United Colonies, is not just the biggest in this game but bigger than anything in Skyrim, Fallout 4, or any of the developer’s previous games.
Fans had a brief preview of New Atlantis during Starfield’s gameplay reveal (at around six minutes in) at the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. “It has all the services you would expect, and you can work on your ship there, the factions touch that,” Howard said.
“But that’s also the headquarters for Constellation, which is the faction that you join that is the last group of space explorers – kind of this NASA-meets-Indiana Jones-meets-The League of Extraordinary Gentleman [group].”
Howard explained that Starfield’s main quest – which he also said would be longer than any previous Bethesda game at between 30 and 40 hours long – will mostly take place in partnership with Constellation, and thus through New Atlantis. The city will feature much more than that, of course, as plenty of side quests will also start and take place there. As the capital city of the United Colonies faction, it will seemingly also serve as a starting point for that questline too.
During the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, Howard revealed the game will have more than one thousand planets for players to explore, what feels like just as many customisation options, and Star Wars-esque dogfighting in space.
Players are also speculating whether our own Solar System will be a plot point in the game but Bethesda has at least confirmed some story details thanks to a new trailer, though fans will no doubt continue analysing and speculating about Starfield until it is finally released in 2023.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
