Syndicated

How Starfield Filled Its Galaxy with Alien Life

Some planets also feature multiple biomes to explore, which further complicated things. “We also had to consider which biomes they appeared in – if a creature only appeared in one, less common biome, they would be much harder to find and scan than if they appeared in multiple biomes,” explains Combs. “Having a manageable number of creatures that the player was required to find to complete a planet survey was a consideration. The density of creatures spawned is also controlled by the biome – some have higher density where it makes sense.”

I was curious to know if that placement was based on a lifeform’s evolution trajectory, because by the time we meet these creatures in the game, they’ve already reached their phase of surviving and thriving in a particular hospitable environment.

“We had an amazing variety of creatures created by our artists to choose from — there was not a specific system that determined how creatures evolved,” says Combs. “When placing creatures, there was thought put into which creatures made the most sense for which world: hard armored crabs might make sense for harsh, marshy worlds, for example. A big part of the process was if the creature looked right on a certain planet — ‘does this look like something that would thrive in the savannas of Akila?’ But they are also alien worlds, so sometimes you want a creature that looks alien.”

Piecing it Together

Creating all the creatures in Starfield required a significant amount of thought and effort from the development team. Nogueira shares that, during concepting, they produced dozens of silhouettes to create a diverse pool of alien creatures. Each of these concepts were grounded in realism by studying real creatures from our planet, while taking note of how diverse our own ecosystem is.

[This article originally appeared on Xbox Wire]

Xbox Wire

Posts by this account are syndicated from Xbox Wire.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button