The lack of land vehicles in Starfield was always a bit puzzling for some fans of the sci-fi RPG developed by Bethesda. The confirmation came in June 2023 from Todd Howard himself, who explained:
No. You know, we do design it, I’m sure you’ve seen this with our other games, where we want to design it so it feels good on foot, but we do have the boost pack. You saw some of that in the video and you have skills for the boost pack, so the boost pack almost acts like this vehicle where you can fly through. It’s super fun.
Later, the Starfield director added:
It’s something we considered. Once you do vehicles, that does change the gameplay, so by focusing on foot once you land with your ship, it lets us really make an experience for the players where we know how fast they’re seeing things. In one sense, you do have a vehicle. Obviously, you have your spaceship you can go around in space, but then on the surface, you do have a jetpack that you can upgrade, which is super fun, a new experience for us.
Eventually, modders tweaked the jetpack in an attempt to offset the lack of land vehicles, but it couldn’t possibly be the same thing. Thankfully, Bethesda announced earlier this year that it was indeed working on adding land vehicles with a future update.
In late July, we heard some new rumors about this new feature. The buggies will come in two variants and only carry two passengers, with an optional third-passenger slot for Vasco. NPCs from rescue missions will also be able to ride the vehicles. Both buggies will have weapons, a laser mode with slowdown, and a launcher and will scale based on the player’s certified skills.
The new Starfield land vehicles will be easy to obtain and transport, as they will spawn near the ship when purchased from the ship’s technicians. Unfortunately, the customization options seem limited to colors, as anything with a new part will essentially be considered a new vehicle. Finally, the leaker said that buggies seem to work well, unlike Skyrim’s horse.
Today, actual footage of land vehicles in Starfield leaked on Twitter/X. Its release might be imminent.
https://x.com/bethesdaarabic/status/1822268537156653172?s=46
Starfield is also about to get its first expansion, Shattered Space, while a new ‘Starborn‘ trademark suggests the name of the second expansion.
