A new report suggests Bethesda's Starfield will be able to run on the current generation of game consoles. This seemingly conflicts with claims by Todd Howard - Director and Executive Producer of Starfield - that the design team behind the long-awaited game is devoted to "the next generation" of both gaming experiences and electronic hardware.
Starfield is currently one of the most highly anticipated video games in the world, marking the first new franchise from Bethesda Game Studios in almost 25 years. Little is known about the gameplay or the storyline, beyond it being a single-player game and having a science-fiction setting. Bethesda released the first trailer for Starfield at E3 2018, but the trailer left fans with more questions than answers.
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Todd Howard attempted to answer some of these questions, in an interview with Eurogamer. When asked about what gamers could expect from Starfield, Howard was quick to emphasize Bethesda's devotion to developing unique, high-quality games, while avoiding direct comparisons to either The Elder Scrolls or Fallout.
"It's different, but if you sit down and play it you would recognize it as something we made. It has our DNA in it. It has things that we like."
Howard also said the finished game would have "a lot of new systems we've been thinking about for a while that fit that kind of game really well." After once again confirming that Starfield will not be a multiplayer game, Howard went on to talk about the game's technical specifications.
"What systems we put it out on - what's the hardware requirements - is still to be determined. We're pushing it; we're thinking very, very far in future so we're building something that will handle next-generation hardware. That's what we're building on right now, that's where our mind is, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't exist on the current systems as well.""
This statement seems contradictory, given the nature of gaming console hardware. Neither Sony nor Microsoft has made firm statements regarding when the public can expect them to release the next generation of consoles, though one report suggests the next PlayStation system is at least three years away. Given that the current generation of consoles are nearly five years old, it seems highly unlikely that Starfield might be compatible with both the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One while simultaneously taking advantage of all the features offered by the next generation of gaming consoles.
On the other hand, console hardware has changed considerably since the early days of the home video gaming market. With iterative consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X now allowing console gamers to upgrade their system to accommodate new developments in gaming hardware in the same way that PC gamers upgrade their systems, it is entirely possible that the current generation of iterative systems will be able to run Starfield without issue, albeit at the cost of a slight upgrade.
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Sources: Eurogamer