I hope, too, that we get to meet characters that make an impression on us just as we make an impression on them. I can already imagine such instances helping to make worlds come alive, and allow us to feel like we're carving out our own stories as we stumble across them. If planets can lead to smaller mini-quests and encounters in locations we have ourselves discovered, I'm all in. 'Whereas before it might be just a person coming up to you on the road, now it's an actual whole location that can be put there.' As Shen goes on to say, as you're walking through a planet, you may come across a 'dynamically placed settlement that is taking you to a dynamically placed dungeon'. 'Now you could say, maybe you're going to an outpost and you actually discover there's a whole group there with a particular problem,' Shen says of the procedural tech Bethesda is using. In this video interview from Bethesda, Shen touched on the planets and revealed that Starfield's random encounters will include entire procedural mini-quests. Over the years, it's become an aspect many love about Bethesda's Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, and Starfield looks set to build on it when it comes to its generous helping of star systems and planets. You never quite know what's around the corner, or beyond the horizon, but you can always bet there are some surprises in store. I've always found that random instances make open worlds like that of Red Dead Redemption 2, for example, feel like living, breathing settings that are ripe for discovery. A lot of the time, these instances felt organic in the sense that you would be running off to do something, and then get entirely sidetracked along the way - whether that be because of a talking dog popping up to divert you elsewhere, or because you stumbled upon an injured fellow in front of a cave who needs your aid. Skyrim is famous for its random encounters, which would often take you off the beaten path and lead you to discover smaller stories that helped to flesh out the world of Tamriel. What has put my mind at ease, if only a little, is some light lead quest designer Will Shen shed on the procedural aspect of Starfield.

Starfield tech