Bethesda Head Todd Howard Says Upcoming ‘Starfield’ Has Over 250,000 Lines Of Dialogue, More Than Double The Amount In ‘Fallout 4’
Tyler Valle
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In Bethesda’s latest attempt to build the hype around their upcoming sci-fi title Starfield, director Todd Howard has announced that the game will feature the studio’s most robust dialogue system yet with over 250,000 lines of character dialogue.
Source: Starfield (2022), Betheasda Softworks
The infamous Howard provided this latest insight into Bethesda’s next game in a recent video published to the studio’s official YouTube channel on October 13th.
Offering a comparison between the number of dialogue lines featured in Skyrim (60,000), Fallout 4 (111,000), and their upcoming game, Howard revealed that Starfield’s expansive number of speech options were made to give the game “a classic Bethesda style dialogue with your looking at the character and how they emote and give a series of choices there.”
Source: Constellation Questions: Talking Starfield with Todd Howard, Bethesda Softworks Youtube
It would appear that Bethesda are returning to their roots, or rather, their 2006 Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion roots.
This change is sure to be welcomed by fans who were critical of the dialogue system in Fallout 4, particularly as it would shift the camera away from the NPC towards the player, limited their dialogue options to four choices, and broke immersion by featuring a voiced protagonist.
Source: Constellation Questions: Talking Starfield with Todd Howard, Bethesda Softworks Youtube
Along with this impressive amount of dialogue choices, Howard also noted that Bethesda had been taking their time developing a new persuasion system for Starfield based on the related minigame in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
“It feels like it’s part of the dialogue, but you’re spending points to persuade them,” he explained. “It feels natural, not like I’ve entered some other mode where we’re not… I’m not doing regular dialogue. I’m in this mode of persuading you to get what I want.”
Source: Starfield (2023), Bethesda Softworks
First announced at E3 2018 ahead of its full reveal in 2021, Starfield is set to be one of the largest games that Bethesda has ever developed.
According to Howard during an interview with IGN, Starfield will be 20% longer than any of the studio’s previous titles, with over 1,000 planets to explore and a main story alone supposedly requiring over 30 hours of playtime to complete.
Source: Starfield (2022), Betheasda Softworks
As of writing, the Microsoft exclusive does not have an official release date outside of a general 2023 window.
However, Bethesda has already announced that the game will be launching day 1 on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, as well as PC.
Source: Starfield (2023), Bethesda Softworks
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