While some cheered when Todd Howard said Starfield will have more than a thousand planets in last year's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, others feared it showed a focus on quantity over quality. Then it's nice to get what you might call a clarification.
Todd Howard joined this week's episode of Kinda Funny Xcast and said only around 10% percent of the planets in Starfield will have life on them when Parris Lilly asked what kind of detail we should expect on each. Before that, Howard elaborated:
"Obviously, it's procedural, so there's no way we're going to go and handcraft an entire planet. What we do is we handcraft individual locations and some of those are placed specifically. Obviously the the main cities and other quest locations, and then we have a suite of them that are generated or placed when you land depending on that planet."
That's not to say the other 900+ planets will be boring and empty, as Howard reiterates every planet will have resources and some cool-looking locations. He also says having too many abandoned bases or planets with life on them would make it "feel too gamey".
How does this sound to you?