Bethesda officially opened Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 with a medley of Starfield goodness.
Kicking the already insane levels of hype even higher with an on-stage performance, epic live-action trailer and interview with Todd Howard himself.
Fans were greeted by a brilliant live performance from Starfield composer Inon Zur, known for his work on the Fallout franchise, going all the way back to Fallout Tactics. Zur performed a rendition of Starfield’s theme which ended on a few tricking notes that faded into the live-action trailer.
The trailer was underscored by an orchestral cover of Elton John’s Rocketman, uniquely crafted by Zur for Starfield, though not performed live.
The trailer begins with an opening shot of New Atlantis, the capital city of the United Colonies, located on the planet Jemison in the Alpha Centauri system discussed in the official Starfield gameplay reveal.
A young girl threads her way through the crowd running up to a glass barrier before a gigantic spacecraft. Looking up at the ship with a sense of wonderment, her gaze is met with a member of the crew, a spacefarer possibly meant to represent the player in the actual game. Making their way up to the young girl, he gifts her the Constellation logo patch.
Constellation is an organisation in Starfield based in New Atlantis, committed to the exploration of space and unlocking the mysteries of the universe. This patch will be included in the Constellation pre-order edition of the game.
The trailer brings us into space with some trippy but satisfying transitions, and a brief in-flight fight sequence where the lead character is seen rushing to their station and working with their team to take down an aggressive ship.
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Navigating through the debris, the ship begins to make its way through the atmosphere and land on what looks like a desolate planet covered in red dunes, rocky formations, and strong winds. Our lead character moves through the terrain with VASCO at their side with an unidentified alien fauna gliding above them.
Suddenly, the wind around them picks up and an anomaly in the red sand is observed, as if it were moving on its own accord, leading the duo to a cavernous underground space with large crystal-like formations, and a mysterious element drifting through the air. An alert pops up on the Constellation watch, the very same watch those who have pre-ordered the Constellation edition will be receiving.
Usually, this watch keeps an eye on Oxygen and C02 levels. What the spacefarer has found seems to be an Artifact lodged within this shiny rocky element. Artifacts are fragments of an unknown device and were created by an unidentified, intelligent alien species at some point in the past. They cause localised anomalies in gravity just like the one we’re witnessing in the trailer. Constellation has been studying these artifacts to determine what they do, and where they came from.
Upon physical contact with the spacefarer, we hear a brief static noise and a vision-turned-transition brings us back to New Atlantis and the little girl awaiting the return of the Constellation crew. Now proudly donning the colourful logo.
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The ending shot pans into the evening sky where we can actually observe some real constellations such as Orions’ belt in the bottom right.
It’s after this trailer that Todd Howard joins Geoff Keighley onstage for his first ever Gamescom. Sharing that Bethesda has built a 300-seat theatre to show off the beginning of the game, explaining that the player will start as a miner who touches an artifact that affects the player in “some way”. Howard then describes Constellation as “NASA meets Indiana Jones”.
Starfield is Bethesda’s first new universe in over 25 years. Set beyond our universe as we know it, players will be able to create any character they want and explore the galaxy, attempting to answer some of space’s greatest questions.
We are finally in the home stretch for Starfield which releases September 6th on Xbox Series X|S and PC, with five days of early access prior to launch, for those who have pre-ordered the Premium or Constellation editions.
Critics and content creators already have access to the game, with reviews set to release on the 31st of August. Stay tuned to Quest Daily for our thoughts.
