Starfield employs procedural generation technology to create its expansive universe. With more than 1,000 distinct planets available for exploration, it’s understandable that the developers didn’t manually design every detail of these celestial bodies, as such a task would require an unreasonable amount of work.
However, Starfield sets itself apart from other titles like No Man’s Sky during its initial release by blending procedural generation with numerous areas that are meticulously crafted by hand. Starfield’s Game Director, Todd Howard, has confirmed that the game contains an abundance of content thoughtfully created by the development team for players to explore in New Atlantis, Cydonia, Akila City, Neon, and other locations.
“What we do is we handcraft individual locations, and some of those are placed specifically,” Todd Howard explained to the Kinda Funny Xcast. “I should also add that we have done more handcrafting in this game, content-wise, than any game we’ve done.”
What Procedural Generation of Planets Means for Players
In practical terms, this means that AI generates the planets in Starfield as a player visits them, leading to the possibility that two players might encounter slightly different versions of the same world with different resources, fauna, flora, and structures. Nevertheless, specific locations and questlines that have been carefully crafted will consistently appear for every player.
Although the landscape of a planet might differ between different game saves, the major cities and outposts, which are a hallmark of Bethesda’s games, will still be distributed throughout the game for players to discover.
This approach aims to allow the developers to realize the vast scale they envision for Starfield’s universe while simultaneously offering players a compelling narrative experience.
What is Procedural Generation in Gaming
Procedural generation refers to the process where computers create data automatically using an algorithm instead of manually creating the data. This technique is commonly employed to produce video games or animated film content. It’s used for generating various elements like landscapes, 3D models, character designs, animations, or dialogues for characters not controlled by players. A well-known instance of this is the planet generation in “No Man’s Sky.” In this game, players can explore an astonishing 18 quintillion (18 with 18 zeros after it) unique planets and moons, all created through computer algorithms.
The remarkable aspect of procedural generation is its ability to produce infinite unique outcomes with relatively minimal human effort. (To be more precise, it’s not exactly a small amount of work, but it’s significantly less when compared to the limitless possibilities it can generate.)
Tracing the first use of procedural content generation (PCG) in video games can be challenging, but two early examples stand out: Rogue (1980) and Elite (1984). Rogue gave rise to a new genre known as “rogue-like” games, characterized by procedurally generated levels where players navigate maze-like environments, often called dungeons. While there were earlier games like Beneath Apple Manor (1978), Rogue is often hailed as the progenitor of the rogue-like genre.
In the early days of gaming, memory constraints were a significant challenge, partly driving the adoption of procedural generation. It allowed developers to compress data and reduce file sizes.
Today’s computers don’t face the same memory or hardware limitations, but PCG is often used for data compression. In modern gaming, PCG is frequently employed to create varying terrains, levels, storylines, or other elements that make each playthrough unique.
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