Nate Purkeypile, who contributed to the design of significant locations in Bethesda titles like Diamond City in Fallout 4, Little Lamplight in Fallout 3, and the city of Neon in Starfield, believes the latter game's expansive galaxy was a design misstep. Purkeypile, who left Bethesda a year into Starfield's development and now works on his solo game, The Axis Unseen, suggested that a more focused approach with a smaller number of meticulously crafted planets would have been more effective.
In an episode of The Examined Game podcast, Purkeypile discussed the importance of deliberate design and meaningful points of interest. He expressed concern over Starfield's reliance on a menu-driven system for exploration, stating that if he were in charge, he would not have pursued such a vast, procedurally generated universe. Instead, he would have opted for "a handful of planets with bespoke layouts," an approach he likened to Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds.
Purkeypile drew parallels between Starfield's procedural planets and the mixed reception of Mass Effect 1's explorable worlds. He posited that for a game featuring thousands of planets, the content generation needs to be as robust as that found in No Man's Sky, where unique content is consistently generated, rather than simply stitching together existing assets. He noted that even major cities in Starfield feel disconnected from the surrounding, often empty, landscapes, which undermines the sense of a cohesive world.
This criticism echoes discussions within the gaming community regarding Starfield's exploration loop, where the vastness can lead to a lack of emergent gameplay opportunities that might arise from a more densely packed or interconnected world. The absence of the kind of in-world distractions and side-quest discoveries that players might encounter en route to a destination, such as traveling to Riften in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has been a frequent point of conversation. Purkeypile expressed hope that future Bethesda titles, such as Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6, will adopt a more structured approach to world design to avoid similar issues.