Bethesda has numerous intellectual properties, and the Starfield universe is just one of those. Another franchise, which was also popular, was the Fallout series. Did you know Todd Howard almost crossed those assets to Starfield during development?
This was revealed during the Starfield director’s interview with the Washington Post, where he shared a scrapped concept that would incorporate the Washington D.C. from Fallout 3 into Starfield.
If they had pushed through these plans, players would’ve been able to explore the city when they visited the abandoned Earth of that future.
Howard explained that since they would re-engineer the engine, the team had started building the tech to render Starfield’s outer space and planets using Bethesda’s old engine and renderer.
Thus, they had planned to put Fallout’s assets into Starfield, probably as an Easter Egg.
However, the team encountered a backlog in building many of the necessary assets because of the sudden onset of the Coronavirus pandemic. Like almost all companies worldwide, Bethesda sent its developers to work remotely to keep them from being infected.
This strained the ongoing production for Starfield, which Howard described as “very, very slow.”
“Those plans went out the window,” the Starfield director said of the supposed inclusion of Fallout 3 into Starfield.
Despite that, Howard remains proud that they were able to finish the game and overcome all the hurdles they went through.
He mentioned that the staff understood why some people and projects stopped after spending many years on the development.
“We are in a fortunate position to have the support and time to do it,” he said of the production still pushing through after nearly five years of work.
Howard has enough reasons to be proud of Starfield. It has surpassed its predecessors many times over, breaking the 6-million mark in player count barely a week after the full release.
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