Bethesda's Todd Howard says Starfield is more like Red Dead Redemption 2 than No Man's Sky

Starfield
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield has more of a Red Dead Redemption 2 vibe than No Man's Sky or Mass Effect, according to Bethesda's Todd Howard.

Talking to IGN, Howard was asked if games like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, No Man's Sky, and Mass Effect served as any sort of inspiration for Starfield, and Howard instead pointed to Rockstar's open-world Western opus.

"Well, clearly, those other games that are science fiction, I think you might look at and say, 'Okay, this is science fiction. It's like that.' I think the minute to minute, obviously on the ground, it has similarities to Elder Scrolls and Fallout and the things that we've made and how it feels in your hands or some certain mechanics.

"But believe it or not, it's the games that put you in a world, that transport you to a place. So I think it also as a flow, probably has more of a feeling of a [Red Dead Redemption 2], right? Like I'm living the Western fantasy. So in this, you're living this science fiction explorer fantasy, and sometimes that's being on a barren planet and nothing is going on."

This is the second time this week Red Dead Redemption 2 has been invoked in the context of an big upcoming game, with Star Wars Outlaws' creative director saying the comparisons going around online are "great."

It also makes sense from a marketing perspective to compare your game to one of the most acclaimed IPs of all time, but we'll have to wait until Starfield's September 6 release date to see if its massive universe stands up to Rockstar's sandbox.

In the meantime, here are the best games of 2023 to play right now.

Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

Read more
Starfield
10 best games like Starfield to get swept up in when you're ready to leave Constellation
Atomfall
Atomfall devs don't mind Fallout comparisons "because it's got that post-apocalyptic quarantine zone atmosphere," just like Bethesda's RPGs do
House Va'ruun worshippers in Starfield Shattered Space
Ex-Starfield lead looks at the open-world game boom and says "you can see Dark Souls and Elden Ring being a secondary trend: let's make third-person action combat really hard"
Exodus
Former Mass Effect veterans' new RPG Exodus puts us in the shoes of an organization that has "inspiration from the Jedi"
Starfield
Bethesda breaks silence as Starfield fans hope for an update: "We have a lot of exciting things planned for the game this year"
Mass Effect 2 - Garrus
Games like Mass Effect to get swept up in
Latest in RPG
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot showing Astarion, a pale male elf with short curly white hair and red eyes, looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face
Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion actor comes face to face with what might just be the best merch to come of the RPG yet – a 5-foot Funko Pop figure of his character
The Witcher 3 screenshot of Geralt
Avowed and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 tap into the same thing that makes The Witcher 3 so compelling – and it's something I'm always looking for in RPGs
Atomfall
Atomfall boss "very familiar" with Baldur's Gate 3 director's frustrations with publishers, as he recalls horror advice that games are "faster to make" if you "make fewer bugs"
Official art for Hopetown, featuring a group of miners looking towards the camera.
The battle to steal the Disco Elysium successor's spotlight continues as former and current ZA/UM devs reveal teasers for their new RPGs simultaneously
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy is the star of Sony's leaked AI-powered character prototype, which allows users to ask questions to an unsettling, emotionless version of the protagonist
Atomfall screenshot
Fallout: New Vegas is a big inspiration for Atomfall, which is why you’ll be able to kill every NPC in post-apocalyptic Cumbria
Latest in News
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Dark Souls 2 fans remind Death Stranding 2 director Hideo Kojima that he won’t be taking the DS2 acronym that easily
Minecraft Diamond Armor
Minecraft Pocket Edition got its name because one of its devs was a big "Nintendo nerd" who wanted to pay homage to the Game Boy Pocket
Death Stranding 2
Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding's themes of connection came about because "I thought I lost everything when I became alone nine years ago"
Monster Hunter Wilds trailer screenshot showing a young woman with long blonde hair tied back into a ponytail smiling slightly, pumping her left fist in the air
Monster Hunter Wilds' infamously confusing menus spare no player, not even Gemma's voice actor herself: "This is honestly what I’m struggling with the most"
Death Stranding 2 kiss
Hideo Kojima says "it was very difficult to direct" Death Stranding 2's big kiss scene, but Norman Reedus thinks "it was niiice" locking lips with Léa Seydoux
Ms. Marvel alongside the mutants of Age of Apocalypse
30 years after the original Age of Apocalypse, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan will travel to the alt-reality to save X-Men history