Starfield’s Todd Howard defends choice not to include land vehicles
BethesdaStarfield has massive planets to explore but players soon felt in desperate need of land vehicles to make traversal much quicker and easier. Todd Howard himself has weighed in, explaining the reason to leave them out.
With Starfield featuring a massive open world spanning over 1,000 planets and star systems, you’re likely going to spend a lot of time exploring on foot. Whether that’s finding Skill Magazines or scanning for planetary Traits, you’re going to find yourself bounding across the planet’s surface.
While the Fallout franchise offers little in the way of transportation, the Elder Scrolls series allowed players to ride horses to quickly travel through the wilderness and climb up verticle cliffs. With space travel possible in the futuristic world of Starfield, players are desperate for land vehicles to be added to the game.
“I would love a simple speeder bike or something to get a bit faster to unknown locations. And not mind my O2 all the time,” said Reddit user zybertecq. “Before No Man’s Sky added land vehicles I hated exploring planets, but when they added it I loved exploring. This game is no different in that regard,” explained another.
Bethesda’s director Todd Howard has responded to the calls, defending the choice not to have land vehicles in Starfield.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Howard explained, “It’s something we consider, you know we’re going to do outer space, we’re going to do planets. Once you do vehicles it does change the gameplay. So by focusing once you land in your ship, you’re on foot. It lets us really, for the players, make it an experience where we know how fast they’re seeing things.”
“In one sense, you do have a vehicle, you obviously have your spaceship, you can go around space but then on the surface, you do have a jetpack which you can upgrade,” he continued. “Obviously, planets have different levels of gravity, which makes that unique for many planets.”
Basically, Howard’s reasoning is that the Boost Pack will act as a sort of vehicle when on a planet’s surface, letting you fly short distances to speed up travel.
However, players don’t feel the jetpacks are enough. “The boost pack is great in combat on low gravity planets,” explained Reddit user SirSpaceFace. “Other than that I found them pretty useless.”
Other players suggested Bethesda add a jetpack skill that lets them fly like Boba Fett or Iron Man, covering great distances through the air.
Although we can expect new ships and gameplay mechanics in the upcoming Shattered Space DLC, don’t expect any land vehicles.