Todd Howard is the only one allowed to talk about Starfield

Then again, one way of taking Pagliarulo's words is that he's telling all of us to go and ask Todd Howard.

In any case, Pagliarulo's approach hasn't gone without appreciation from the Starfield community. The fact of the matter is that he didn't really have to be seen nice about all the questions he was getting. But, with what he did, Pagliarulo earned a lot of fans and got Starfield some goodwill, which is necessary after the negative press that AMD attracted to it recently.

Then again, Pagliarulo must have learned from his previous brush with fan discontent. In the past, he's weathered criticism from the Fallout community, particularly after a talk he gave on Fallout 4 and Skyrim, where he served as writer and lead designer. In this light, his patient, polite Twitter thread in response to the Starfield inquiries seems not only civil but downright heroic.

The notion that only Todd Howard can legally divulge new information is intriguing, but in truth, this is actually standard in the industry. Several large enterprises, including software companies, have strict policies in place barring employees from commenting on any company information or in-development work that isn't already publicly released. Instead, they direct all inquiries to their PR department. It may be a frustrating reality for fans, but it's an essential part of maintaining the integrity and suspense that often accompanies the release of much-anticipated games like Starfield.

It seems that, for now, the Starfield community will have to be content with speculation and the occasional breadcrumbs of information thrown by Todd Howard. But perhaps it's for the best. Discovering the mysteries of Bethesda's games for oneself is half the magic of playing them.

Of course, if you insist about finding out more about Starfield, you can always check out this fan-made compendium.

Starfield is easily one of this year's most highly anticipated games. But, in a year that's also filled with GOTY contenders led by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy 16, anything short of perfection won't be enough at all. Further mounting the pressure for Starfield is the fact that Bethesda admitted it delayed The Elder Scrolls VI to work on the open-world space RPG. Given that the next The Elder Scrolls game isn't set to come out until 2026, at the earliest, Starfield better be good enough to tide audiences over for at least three years.