After being officially revealed at their latest E3 conference after the acquisition from Microsoft, the footage shown in the original trailer for Starfield seems like it’s going to be one of the most promising games from Bethesda to date. However, they’ve been very quiet about what’s coming to the game. Despite the few times they’ve briefly spoken about the game running on new hardware and technology, which is also going to be coming to the next Elder Scrolls title and is slated to be worked on by the developers after Starfield.

While the game is going to take a step away from their previous games, ditching the Elder Scrolls high fantasy and Fallout’s post-apocalyptic settings for a more grounded science-fiction game, players are wondering what’s coming to the game, seeing that there’s plenty of information about the title that hasn’t been revealed yet. Bethesda isn’t ready to let players in on what they’re going to be seeing in the game just yet though. Instead, they’re working on a new way to clue players in on the content of Starfield, while still building hype for the game in a surprisingly unlikely way.

Posted on Bethesda’s Youtube channel, the first episode of Into the Starfield has aired. This small behind-the-scenes video has Todd Howard and two other members of the Bethesda team discussing Starfield, and the nature of working on Bethesda games.

“I think the one thing people underestimate about video games is that it’s just playtime,” Todd says at the beginning of the video. “The one thing games can give you, that nothing else in entertainment can is a sense of pride.” Todd continues to go into detail, stating that when it comes to large games like Skyrim and the upcoming Starfield, is that the game players are engaging in, is going to be experienced in different ways based on the person playing. The games are meant to be big, and while players can spend hours or even years playing them. “It’s the paths you didn’t take, that make the game special,” Howard mentions in the video.

This single philosophy is the driving force of the video, being that the experiences had in Bethesda’s other titles can be played in a variety of different ways. Something that may happen to someone in their playthrough of the game might not be possible in another version of the game played by another player. With this philosophy in mind comes the talk about what makes a Bethesda game, and how the team has grown to evolve that philosophy. Angela Browder spoke briefly about this, stating that there’s always been a core team of developers who have been working on these titles from the beginning, and how new people, who have grown up playing those games, have come in to work with the same people who have made the games they cherished as children. The new people that come in, know what makes a Bethesda game since they’ve spent so much of their time playing them, and when it came time to work on these games, they were able to help evolve these core philosophies on the games, to add onto and evolve that core philosophy, and implement it into the new titles, Starfield included.

During the video, they discuss the worlds created in their titles. From the high fantasy of titles like The Elder Scrolls to the post-apocalypse of titles like Fallout, all of these games, have come together to make worlds that players will spend hours, or even years playing. With the immense longevity of games like Skyrim, Bethesda’s games have started to have two lives. In the video, Matt Carofano talks about this phenomenon. “We create this game, and we put everything we can possibly put into it, tell the stories we want to tell, and build this world that’s sort of a setup, and when we hand it off to the players, they make it their own.” With the concept of the two lives, players experiences in the worlds provided by Bethesda will show them their own version of the world, once they’re done with the game, they can then use the tools provided by Bethesda to make their own version of the world, and create new experiences for players to have in the game world.

They continue by talking about how everyone working on the game comes from different areas, building the world based on their experiences, and how they would discover that the world works. These human experiences help shape how the game plays when players pick up the game to play it. Todd mentions specifically that moving into concepts such as creating the food the people eat in the world, their history, their entertainment, or even the toys children play with, and the bedtime stories they’re told. “It is a universe, not just a game,”  Howard says.

Something that was brought up in the video and could hold some information about what players can expect to see in the full game, the “step out moment” This was something mentioned by Todd Howard in the video, he mentions that when Bethesda is working on their large games, they always include what’s called a “step out moment”. This is where the player is first brought into the world, being shown the world of the game. It helps create what the developers describe as an emotional trigger; something to force the player’s undivided attention to the world and help build that connection between the player in and the game world.

“I like to say that Starfield has two step-out moments, that’s cryptic,” Howard says. This single comment can help clue players in on some content that could be coming to the game. Speaking speculatively, with Bethesda’s knack for using their step-out moments to showcase the world of the game to the players it’s no surprise that having two in the game is going to be part of Starfield. With the game taking place in the stars and on planets, players’ first steps into the planet, as well as their first flight out of the atmosphere, are most likely going to be both of those moments.

Especially with the mention of players wanting to explore the stars, and how the developers talk in the video about how Space is the big frontier for exploration, something along the lines of a step-out moment taking place as the player flies into the stars seems very likely to happen. This could reveal that space travel and exploring space between worlds is going to play a more front and center role in the game, rather than just a means of travel for the player.

Regardless, it seems like Starfield is coming along smoothly, and while Bethesda’s track record of having very buggy games could spoil the fun when the game comes out, there’s one thing that the company is very good at, and that’s developing a world and stories for players to experience and explore.