Bethesda Game Studios' upcoming space RPG Starfield will feature the longest dialogue script the developer has ever produced.
Todd Howard, the Starfield game director and longtime Bethesda executive, appeared on stream for the Xbox presentation at the Tokyo Game Show 2021 to highlight the studio's upcoming sci-fi epic, which is scheduled to release late 2022. During the segment, Howard confirmed that Starfield will be completely localized in Japanese with full voice acting alongside another upcoming Bethesda Softworks title, Arkane Studios' Redfall. Howard also revealed that Starfield's script will have over 150,000 lines of dialogue recorded by more than 300 voice actors. For comparison, Fallout 4's script had 111,000 lines of recorded dialogue, while The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had 60,000, easily making Starfield's script the longest in the studio's history.
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Bethesda Game Studios has earned a reputation for delivering heaps of story-heavy dialogue throughout their role-playing games, but Starfield's massive script is set to blow the developers' previous records out of the water. While the dialogue count doesn't necessarily indicate the length of Starfield's story or the size of the game's world, it does confirm that the next Bethesda franchise will deliver the dense, dialogue-centric storytelling that Elder Scrolls and Fallout fans have grown to love.
Other than the Bethesda news, updates from the Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2021 were fairly scarce. The focus remained primarily on Xbox Game Pass, with executives announcing a handful of titles heading to the service, such as 2020's AI: The Somnium Files by Spike Chunsoft and Bandai Namco's action RPG Scarlet Nexus, which was released earlier this year.
Though Bethesda has remained tight-lipped about Starfield in terms of gameplay and story, Howard has previously described the game's tone and aesthetic as "NASA meets Indiana Jones meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." The RPG is set to paint a less exaggerated vision of the future than the Fallout series, opting instead for a more grounded science-fiction story that will carve out its own niche. Starfield will be Bethesda Game Studio's first new franchise in over 25 years.
On consoles, Starfield will release exclusively on the Xbox Series X|S as a result of Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media in early 2021. Howard has previously expressed that he wishes the Xbox exclusivity wasn't necessary, but many in the gaming industry have speculated that Starfield could potentially become Xbox's marquee next-gen title. In a recent discussion between Bethesda's Pete Hines and Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, the executives also revealed that there may still be hope for PlayStation fans looking to someday enjoy the Starfield experience.
Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, Starfield will launch on Nov. 11, 2022 for Xbox Series X|S and PC. The game will be available to download for free on Xbox Game Pass on the same day.
Source: Twitter