When players venture into the vast expanse of the universe presented by Starfield, Bethesda's latest creation, most will find that they aren't subjected to an overwhelmingly punishing experience as they traverse diverse biomes. There's a good reason for this. Apparently, the original blueprint, as shared by game director Todd Howard, had to be redefined and streamlined.
In his recent appearance on the Game Maker's Notebook Podcast, Todd Howard shed light on a series of decisions that formed the space exploration we know today in Starfield.
While Starfield offers a delightful canvas of planetary exploration, beaming with secrets and resources, full of different kinds of vibrant lifeforms, the initial design was oriented more towards challenge. The ambitious concept entailed the players to continually account for environmental damage, a facet of the gameplay that revolved around a player's spacesuit's resistance to various atmospheric effects such as radiation and thermal fluctuations.
This design, even though intricate, was a double-edged sword, with Howard describing it as "a pretty complex system - actually, it was very punitive," potentially creating numerous "afflictions" for players. These afflictions, Howard further elucidated, could range from effects like spraining an ankle from a lofty fall to sustaining lung damage due to inhalation of toxic gases, or even grappling with frostbite on cold planets.
