Mechs in ‘Starfield,’ explained

Starfield is set to be one of the biggest games of the year, and Bethesda‘s biggest game since Fallout 4. Apart from starships, the setting seems to include mechs — terrifying weapons of mass destruction. Mechs in Starfield appear to date from the “Colony War” between two of the main factions in the game, the Freestar Collective and the United Colonies. Both these factions are giant organizations and appear to be in an uneasy state of Cold War-style truce when Starfield begins.

In a recent Discord Q&A with Starfield lead designer Emil Pagliarulo, he said that “mechs are leftover from the Colony War.” While both the Freestar Collective and the United Colonies had mechs, it was the Freestar Collective who “really mastered them.” The United Colonies sometimes used mechs, but usually preferred to rely on controlled alien beasts from their Xenowarfare Division.

Both the mechs and the beasts were outlawed with the armistice at the end of the Colony War. Pagliarulo went on to intimate that while mechs are incredibly rare, there might be an abandoned mech battleground hidden somewhere on the map.

Unfortunately, we likely won’t be able to pilot mechs, as Todd Howard recently confirmed that there will be no ground vehicles to help players explore planets. However, even if the mechs cannot be activated, the loot these banned weapons of mass destruction contain may offer us some of the most powerful weapons in the game.

NASAPunk meets Skyrim?

At Gamescom, Howard took the stage to talk about Starfield, saying that It’s kind of that “dream game” where players “explore with complete freedom in the galaxy.” Fingers crossed we’ll have more to do in Starfield than in the limitless but ultimately boring No Man’s Sky. Players want that feeling of freedom that comes with galactic exploration mixed with tight, well-written quests and characters. Realizing this, Howard has promised that the story “goes a lot of places” and that “the game has a lot of surprises.”

A new live-action trailer for Starfield recently dropped.

According to Pagliarulo, the aesthetics of Starfield are going to be “NASApunk.” But this will not be an ultra-sanitized galaxy of professional space exploration. The game will look very “lived in.” As with all Bethesda productions, much of the storytelling will be environmental. As with Skyrim and Fallout 3, we can expect lots of old books and data files lying around, hopefully giving us the details of a lore-rich universe.

Bethesda’s first open-world space exploration game promises a great deal. It remains to be seen if they will deliver the goods we all crave.