Of all the showcases from the last week, Xbox and Bethesda’s is certainly in the running for being the most concise, yet informative show of the lot. While Sony’s State of Play did begin the week with a bang, packing a lot into just 30 minutes,Summer Games Fest felt a little bloated, using some of its 2-hour runtime to advertise a variety of energy drinks and upcoming movies. Xbox and Bethesda’s showcase was the perfect in between, being around an hour and a half in length and containing a slew of new game reveals as well as updates on anticipated titles - one of which is Bethesda’s Sci-Fi RPG epic,Starfield.
Ending out the whole presentation on a high note,StarfieldandBethesda’s infamous Director Todd Howardtook center stage. Over the course of about 15 minutes, Howard took viewers on a pretty in-depth dive intoStarfield’s core mechanics, all while mixing in quite a bit of gameplay footage. Along with the game’s ship customization, combat encounters, and dialogue sections,Starfield’s character upgrades were also shown off, with the footage revealing some skills and giving fans a good idea of what to expect from this RPG’s progression system.
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Starfield’s Five Skill Trees
Just likeBethesda’s previous RPGs,Starfield’s upgrades will be split into a few distinct categories, five to be exact. These categories are titled “Physical,” “Social,” “Combat,” “Science,” and “Tech.” Each of these categories will contain an array of skills, each of which affect the player’s attributes, and grant them special abilities.
Though the specific descriptions of each category haven’t been officially confirmed just yet, it’s fairly easy to guess what type of skills each of these categories will cover. Physical will probably revolve around endurance-based attributes like equipment load, while Social will likely affecthow the player can interact with NPCs, such as persuasion skills. Combat is pretty self-explanatory, likely including most of the game’s shooting and melee skills. Science and Tech sound pretty similar, probably covering the game’s puzzle mechanics and technical skills, but players will have to wait to find out just how the two categories distinguish themselves from one another.
In theStarfieldshowcase, Todd Howard explained the general progression loop of the game. As players level up their character, they’ll unlock a skill point, which can then be used to unlock an ability in one of the aforementioned categories. Once an ability has been unlocked, players will then be able to rank that up, either by using the ability repeatedly or by completing specific challenges. This general formula will be pretty familiar to fans of theFalloutandThe Elder Scrollstitles, but the ability to rank up individual abilities is a neat addition toStarfield.
Every Starfield Skill Revealed So Far
Currently, only a handful ofStarfield’s skills have been revealed so far, all of which belong to the Combat skill tree. The “Ballistics” skill was one of the most detailed abilities shown during the showcase, with all four of its ranks being revealed. The first rank sees a 10% increase to all ballistic weapons, the second sees a 20%, the third sees a 30%, and the fourth and final rank sees a 40% damage increase to all ballistic weapons. It’s currently unknown how the player will level up this ability up to rank three, but to achieve rank four, players will need to kill 250 enemies with ballistic weapons.
The third rank of the “Demolitions” skill was also revealed, which gives explosives a 30% damage increase and increases their radius by 30%. This can be obtained by killing 125 enemies with explosives. The final rank of the “Heavy Weapons Certification” skill was shown,giving the player 30 damage resistancewhen aiming down the sights with a heavy weapon. This will be unlocked when the player has taken out 250 enemies with a heavy weapon.
The fourth rank of “Rapid Reloading” was revealed, giving players a chance to reload their weapon twice as fast as normal, which is unlocked upon the player’s 150th reload. “Sniper Certification’s” first rank was shown, giving scoped weapons more stability. The third rank of “Targeting” was confirmed, greatly increasing a weapon’s accuracy and range when not using the sights, whichrequires 125 kills without aiming. A few other skills were named but weren’t given any details, such as the “Particle Beams,” and “Marksmanship” skills.
Starfieldis scheduled to release in early 2023 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
