Ex-Bethesda designer, Bruce Nesmith, has hope that Starfield 2 will be “one hell of a game” and likened it to the original releases of Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed. He left Bethesda in 2021.
Speaking to VideoGamer, Nesmith believes Starfield’s biggest problem — making a livable universe that players want to explore — will be mitigated in its sequel, explaining that Bethesda’s IPs often get better over time. The former designer pointed to Skyrim having advantage thanks to Oblivion and Oblivion having an advantage thanks to Morrowind. Starfield, on the other hand, is a new IP that the team had to start from the ground up.
In the end, Nesmith seems confident that Bethesda will make the sequel better than its precursor.
“When we built Skyrim, we had the tremendous advantage of Oblivion, which had the tremendous advantage of Morrowind. All that stuff was there for us. All we had to do was continue to improve and add new stuff in. We didn’t have to start from the ground up. If we’d had to start from the ground up, that would have been another two or three years of development time.
I’m looking forward to Starfield 2. I think it’s going to be one hell of a game because it’s going to address a lot of the things people are saying, ‘We’re [sic] quite there. We’re missing a little bit.”
Now, while we’d like to join Nesmith in this hope, it shows no real signs of improvement with what Bethesda has done — Shattered Space. Smash Jump’s Matt Marston said this: “Starfield: Shattered Space is its own experience. I found it to be both a hit and a miss in certain spots as it feels like it’s trying to find itself, rather than knowing what it wants to be. The story was good, but not excellent. Exploration definitely had a few wins, but still felt largely empty and did not reward players enough.”
