Bethesda Vet: Starfield Not Successful Enough for a Sequel

Former lead systems designer Kurt Kuhlmann says he'd be "very surprised" by a Starfield 2, arguing the original wasn't successful enough despite 15 million players.

Ever wonder what Bethesda's big space RPG really means for the studio's future? If you were hoping for a Starfield 2, one former Bethesda developer has some bad news.

Kurt Kuhlmann, who served as lead systems designer on Starfield, tells FRVR he'd be "very surprised" if a direct sequel ever happened. His reasoning is blunt: "I don't think Starfield was anywhere near successful enough to do a Starfield 2."

On paper, that sounds harsh. Starfield pulled in at least 15 million players since release, scored in the 80s on Metacritic, and hit one million concurrent players at launch. By most metrics, that's a win. But for a lot of Bethesda fans, the space RPG landed as a disappointment compared to the heights of Skyrim and Fallout 4.

Kuhlmann left Bethesda around Starfield's launch for reasons that went beyond the game itself. Even so, he still thinks a sequel could have delivered on what the original promised. "It's, in a way, too bad," he explains, "because I think with the lessons learned on Starfield, a Starfield 2 could have been much closer to the game that Todd [Howard] had [in mind]. You can envision that game, you can imagine that game. That's not quite what Starfield really is."

Todd Howard had been dreaming of a game like Starfield for decades, so it's tough to imagine the final product matched his vision. Kuhlmann describes the game as not "fully coherent," pointing to the outpost system as a prime example. "For what it is, as a standalone system, it's cool, but it's not nearly as integrated with the rest of the game," he says.

That integration problem isn't new. Fallout 4's settlement system ran into similar trouble with the story and missions, which led to it being pushed aside. Kuhlmann questions why the outpost system stayed in Starfield if it wasn't going to be woven into the narrative. "That's a decision above me, it wasn't my decision," he notes, adding that it leaves a massive amount of work sitting off to the side.

In previous comments, Kuhlmann even suggested Bethesda "shouldn't have made" Starfield because "we couldn't really make it" — the ambition was simply too big, even for a studio as mighty as Bethesda. His hope now is that The Elder Scrolls 6 takes those lessons to heart. After all, most people at the studio wanted to make The Elder Scrolls 6 after Fallout 4, according to Skyrim co-lead, but Todd Howard said "No, we're doing Starfield."

So where does that leave you? If you were holding out for a Starfield 2, it might be time to temper those expectations. What do you think — should Bethesda revisit the universe, or is it better off moving on?