Ex-Starfield Artist Explains Cut of Graphic Violence

Summary

• Starfield's lack of graphic violence was an intentional choice largely due to technical issues.
• It also wouldn't fit Starfield's tone, said Dennis Mejillones, a character artist who worked at Bethesda on Starfield and Fallout 4.

Starfield was originally planned to be much more violent, as revealed by a former Bethesda artist. While Bethesda's first-person shooters are known for their gore, the visceral elements from Fallout did not carry over to Starfield. The decision to minimize graphic violence in Starfield was deliberate, though it wasn't always intended to be this way.

Violence is still a significant part of Starfield's gameplay, with gunplay and melee combat playing central roles. Many players feel that Starfield's combat mechanics have seen substantial improvements over Fallout 4, with detailed attention to shooting and melee dynamics. However, the studio chose to dial back on the more graphic elements of violence.

Dennis Mejillones, a character artist who worked on both Starfield and Fallout 4 at Bethesda, discussed the game's approach to violence in an interview on the Kiwi Talkz podcast on YouTube. He confirmed that Starfield was initially designed to include decapitations and other kill animations, but technical challenges prevented this. The variety of suits and helmets in the game made it difficult to animate such scenes without them appearing unrealistic or buggy. Given Starfield's ongoing technical issues even after multiple updates, the decision to avoid additional graphical complexities seems justified.

Starfield Cut Decapitations for Technical and Tonal Reasons

The decision to exclude graphic violence from Starfield was not solely based on technical difficulties. Mejillones highlighted that the gore in Fallout adds to its humor, which doesn't align well with Starfield's more serious and realistic tone. Although Starfield occasionally nods to Bethesda's more light-hearted and violent games, such as with recent Doom-inspired content, it primarily adopts a more restrained approach to sci-fi. Over-the-top executions might have disrupted the game's immersion, feeling out of place in its universe.

Some fans have expressed a desire for more realism in Starfield, noting that elements like the game's nightclubs seem less convincing than those in other gritty sci-fi games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Mass Effect. Adding humorous violence could have further undermined the game's grounding in reality. Ultimately, Bethesda's choice to reduce the level of gore in Starfield, despite diverging from the studio's tradition in previous shooters, appears to have been the right move.