Starfield Inspirations Included The Lord of the Rings and Battlestar Galactica

Starfield Game Director Todd Howard was featured in a short video interview published on the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) YouTube channel, where the game designer talked about the inspirations for Bethesda's latest game.

Starfield, I mean, so many challenges. We pushed ourselves kind of in every part of the game. But the biggest challenge was, first, how do we generate these planets? Is that even a good idea? Okay, maybe at the time, no, but we made it work. You know, just, can we even generate a planet? And then once we could generate all of these, the simulation of the solar systems, around you.

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But ultimately, it is; what's fun about that? So there's a technological challenge in making it work, but then there's a design challenge in how do you make that fun minute to minute and then hour to hour for everybody playing it?

When it comes to other media that's inspired us, it goes all the way from The Lord of the Rings. And then in science fiction there were so many: Interstellar, The Martian, Battlestar Galactica, the TV show. The show The Expanse, and there's so much science fiction out there. We wanted something that really felt kind of tactile that you believed how we got there from where we are today in our world to 300 years in the future.

Starfield is about to get its first expansion, Shattered Space, which will be unlocked later today on PC and Xbox Series S|X for $29.99 (owners of the Premium Edition have it included with their original purchase of the game). Here's an overview of what you can expect from it:

A mysterious force is stirring in the city of Dazra on the hidden homeworld of House Va'Ruun. Investigate a terrifying cosmic threat, explore a new planet, and find unique weapons, spacesuits, and equipment in this all-new adventure.

When a distress signal from an abandoned star station triggers a journey to Va'Ruun'kai, the veil of secrecy