Ex-Starfield Dev Doubts a Starfield 2 Will Ever Happen

Former Starfield lead systems designer Kurt Kuhlmann says a sequel is unlikely because the game didn't succeed enough to justify it — and it never fully matched Todd Howard's original vision.

Could Starfield ever get a sequel? One of the people who worked on it doesn't think so — and he's pretty blunt about why.

Kurt Kuhlmann, who served as lead systems designer on Starfield, told FRVR in a recent interview that he'd be shocked if Bethesda ever made another one. "If there were a sequel, I'd be very surprised," he said. "I don't think Starfield was successful enough to support making Starfield 2."

That's a tough thing to hear if you put dozens of hours into the game. But Kuhlmann sees it as a missed opportunity, not just a business call. In his view, a follow-up could have gotten much closer to what director Todd Howard originally envisioned. "In some ways, it's a shame, because I think with the lessons learned from Starfield, Starfield 2 could have been closer to the game Todd had in his head," he explained. "You can picture that game, you can imagine what it looks like — but that's not quite what Starfield is now."

So where did the vision slip? Kuhlmann points to outpost building as a prime example of a system that didn't live up to its potential. You can build your own outposts on planet surfaces, sure — but they were never woven into the main story, and to him that wasted a huge chance.

"You can travel across all these planets, land anywhere you want, have complete freedom. Add a great story and characters, plus modular ships — why not? Put it all in," he said. "You can build a base anywhere on any planet. As a standalone system it's cool, but its integration with the rest of the game was far from enough."

He also recalled how Fallout 4 ran into trouble trying to tie settlement building into the story and quests, which led to it being set aside. That raises an obvious question: why keep the system at all? "That was a decision above my pay grade, not mine," Kuhlmann said. "You could argue that if we weren't going to integrate it with the story, we shouldn't have made the system — then it's just sitting there, an isolated system that took a ton of work."

On top of all that, Kuhlmann believes Starfield simply needed a much bigger team to pull off its original vision. "Even with the size of our Starfield team at the time, it wasn't enough to create the amount of content the game's grand vision really needed," he said. "We needed a lot more people."

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Do you think Bethesda should take another shot at a sequel, or is it better to move on? Let us know in the comments.