Todd Howard Says Starfield's NG+ Idea "Got Lost on a Lot of People"

"It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind?"

Bethesda

Bethesda is known for its ambitious projects, games that leave a deep impression on players and make them come back again and again. Starfield was a bit of a flop in this sense, I feel, with more complaints than praises, although the intention for you to start over here was clearer than in any other game from the studio: when you complete it, there's a New Game Plus option that changes some stuff. Spoilers ahead.

Entering The Unity and starting NG+ allows you to start over without your loot but keeping the skills to explore a new version of the universe, which can become quite bizarre the more times you re-enter it. Starting again but more powerful sounds exciting, but Bethesda's boss Todd Howard thinks most players misunderstand the idea.

"The Unity was our way of doing New Game+. It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind?" he told GamesRadar+. "How do you feel about your own life choices? Would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that."

The move was inspired by Edge of Tomorrow, a 2014 movie where the protagonist is stuck in a time loop during an alien invasion. "So we create this feeling of, 'hey, you have to leave everything you did behind', but as a gamer, you're like, 'I just want to go through the magic gate and get more power.'"

Surprisingly, the new Free Lanes update introduces the Quantum Entanglement Device, which allows you to "bring your favorite items with you into your new playthrough."

"If you decide to enter the Unity now, you can do it in a way that you feel that you can still continue your character and have some of your stuff – it's stuff that you earned, after all," commented Howard.

This is meant to encourage players to start a new game so that they can understand Bethesda's great ideas better.

"The attachment that players felt to the things that they had gathered up to that point meant that they didn't want to part with their items," added creative producer Tim Lamb. "It was a bridge too far – a sacrifice too meaningful. There's so many exciting things that can happen in our New Game+ loop that we wanted to give a bit of encouragement."

The update also brings X-Tech to upgrade weapons and gear: "We don't want to ask the player to put in a lot of work for a reward they are searching for, only to say, 'no, it's gone now.' So once these things started coming together, we knew we absolutely had to do something like this."

I guess the studio gave up on players figuring out its grand plan on their own. Hopefully, the change will pull more big minds into the game.

Don't forget to subscribe to our Newsletter and join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

Are you a fan of what we do here at 80 Level? Then make sure to set us as a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our content in your feed.