According to one of Bethesda Game Studios’ defining figures, New Game+, or NG+, around its latest game was not properly understood.
Starfield’s latest Free Lanes update brought a number of changes, large and small, to BGS’s somewhat notorious space RPG, and one of the most notable ones lies in how the game’s NG+ mode works. The main story in Starfield revolves around collecting strange space artifacts from all across the galaxy, and once you gather them all, you complete the final mission, which gives you the chance to enter The Unity, the multiversal nexus. If you choose that route, the game begins again in a new version of the universe where your character keeps all their powers and abilities but loses everything else, while character relationships also reset. Strange things can begin to happen, although unfortunately it depends a bit on luck just how strange they get. In a game that often felt a little unambitious and a little dull, this was one of its best ideas, even if the execution left room for improvement.
Todd Howard, Starfield’s director and executive producer, spoke to GamesRadar. Howard cited Edge of Tomorrow as an inspiration. The Free Lanes update also adds a container that allows players to store up to 50 items. The reason for the shift is that Bethesda felt too many players were turning down the opportunity to explore the multiverse and NG+, and in doing so were missing one of Starfield’s central ideas.
“I’m still used to saying this is a spoiler, but I don’t think it is anymore. The Unity was our way of doing New Game+. It was our way of asking you this weird, deep question that I think a lot of people missed. It asks whether you’re just a power gamer who wants to collect everything, or whether you’re willing to leave this world behind. What do you think about the choices in your own life? Would you leave it all behind and start over? That pain, having to give up all your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on, is supposed to make you feel all of that.
It’s one of my favorite movies. So we create this feeling of hey, you have to leave everything behind, but as a player you’re saying I just want to go through the magic gate and get more power. If you decide to enter now, you can do it in a way where it still feels like you are continuing your character and keeping some things, because after all, you earned them. Take the Trackers Alliance or other quests. You finish them, and that’s that. That’s still rewarding, but for someone coming back to the game for a few hours, the update might only serve them for those two or three hours. We want to do more things that update the game in a way that affects the next 100 hours. You can tell us if we did our job right”, Howard said.
Creative producer Tim Lamb says this is balanced by adding more upgrade potential to existing items. “Players were so attached to the items they had collected up to that point that they didn’t want to part with them. It was a bridge too far, too much of a sacrifice. There are so many exciting things that can happen in our New Game+ loop that we wanted to provide a bit of encouragement. That’s why we’re introducing X-Tech so you can further upgrade your weapons and gear. We don’t want to ask players to put a lot of work into a prized reward only to say, no, now it’s gone. When all of these pieces came together, we knew we absolutely had to do something”, Lamb added.
It is hard to imagine players complaining about being allowed to keep their most valuable gear, although we are not entirely sure that was ever the real issue with Starfield’s NG+ mode. The bigger problem is that it can take four or five full playthroughs before the truly weird stuff starts happening…
Source: PCGamer, GamesRadar
