Starfield is one of the most anticipated games in 2023.
Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, it's an action role-playing video game set around the year 2310, in a vast area outward from the Solar System, within the Milky Way galaxy.
The word "vast" here is an understatement because Starfield features an open world system, which promises more than 1,000 planets and on an unspecified number of moons and space stations that can be fully explored.
As it turned out, a number of gamers who have their hands of the game early on, shared that the explorable areas are actually much less than what Bethesda promised.
After those people shared information, screenshots, and videos, an increasing number of people start debating whether Starfield is keeping its promises before the game's official release on September 6.
And on social media, things are kind of chaotic.
It all began when a user of a Chinese forum leaked that Starfield is preventing players from exploring too far in any one direction after landing on a new planet.
As shared by one of the players, exploring too far will trigger a pop-up message that says "Boundary reached, open the map to explore another region or return to your ship."
Another leak that was posted on YouTube before it was removed following a copyright strike from Bethesda, showed a 10-minute time lapse of a player walking through a desert until they eventually hit a similar "boundary."
While the game should be able to deal with bloating its size from having too much artifacts and game design by generating the landscapes procedurally, and remain handcrafting only the needed content, limiting players to just a few minutes walk means that planets are essentially not fully explorable.
Hitting boundaries within just minutes means that players can only walk a few kilometers before being told to return.
These "invisible walls" keep players from seamlessly exploring planets' surface indefinitely, which is a break of promise.
While fans immediately started to debate the accuracy of the leaks, and began wondering whether the limits are only on the early access of the game, or whether it only applies to certain planets or sections.
Later, it's realized that this might not actually be the case, because subsequent leaked footage appeared to show that planet maps are actually made up of specific regions that players can choose between before landing and exploring on foot.
A Bethesda marketing representative responded to these questions by reminding reviewers with early access to the game to stop talking about these invisible walls.
The complaints might not happen, if Bethesda head of publishing, Pete Hines, hadn’t implied that planetary exploration would be endless.
A fan asked whether gamers will be "able to explore that whole entire planet," to which Hines responded with "Yup, if you want. Walk on, brave explorer."
"Starfield lead confirms full planetary exploration is possible after you’ve landed,” Hines said.
But still, it's worth noting that the 40 minutes walk to reach the invisible wall means that Starfield is already bigger than the entire Fallout 4 map, which takes 35 minutes to reach the end of when starting from the center.
Others also said that with more than a thousand planets to explore, there is no apparent need tor the game to continually populate the emptiness of space with new randomly generated content.
This shouldn't be a deal breaker, to say the least.
After all, Bethesda previously said that out of the many planets players can land and explore, only about 10% of them have some sort of lifeform, meaning that players have little to no reason to 'completely' explore a lifeless planet that has no flora or fauna, or any alien entity.
In Starfield, players take the role of a silent protagonist, who is a member of Constellation, an organization of space explorers.
With a gameplay that allows players to switch between a first-person and third-person perspective at any given time, players can meet other NPCs, and interact with them, and make them join their crew, to later aid them in combat, carry items, during confrontations, or speak to other NPCs on the player's behalf.
These companions have different sets of skills and abilities, which should be helpful as players advance in the game.
Some recruitable NPCs are able to be romanced by the player.
When attempting to land on a planet, players can scan the surface to view its natural resources. Players can then extract and harvest the resources to craft recipes.
Alone or with their companions, players can erect outposts on occupied planets, which then can serve as homes.
In these outposts, the player can install laboratories to research craftable items and upgrades.
