Only 10% of Starfield’s planets will have life on them

Starfield director Todd Howard has confirmed that only 10% of the game’s 1,000 planets will have any form of life on them.

The details:

• Howard revealed details about Bethesda's implementation of the game's 1,000+ planets on the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Xcast, explaining that different planets serve different roles during gameplay. Some will have a plethora of valuable resources but will otherwise be barren, whereas around 10% will have some form of life and possibly even notable settlements and cities tied to quests.
• Bethesda has confirmed that the game's planets are procedurally generated, with Bethesda handcrafting specific locations and placing them in specific locations if they fall under the category of a major settlement or are required for quests. When a player lands on a planet, the "suite" of locations will be generated and placed, with the type of locations used varying depending on the type of planet.
• The differences, according to the director, are intended to encourage players to explore the universe. "We wanted to do the planets because we like to give you that choice—where do you wanna go, because we feel like you want that in a game like this," Howard explained. He also stated that he believes most players will land on a specific part of a planet, explore the area surrounding the landing zone, and then leave, rather than explore the entire planet. "It's a difficult design thing," Howard said. "If you add too many things, if it’s generating too many abandoned bases or towers or things to find it starts feeling too game-y in some of those locations so I think we’ve dialed that in pretty well depending on the planet that you’re on."

Other Starfield news:

• Starfield will be limited to 30 frames per second on the Xbox Series X/S for "consistency." The Series X will sport a 4K resolution, while the Series S will have a 1440p resolution, and it appears that a 1080p performance mode will be absent.
• Xbox has claimed that Starfield will have the "fewest" bugs of any Bethesda game to date, with an "awful lot of people" internally playing the game to iron out any bugs before the final release. Fans appear to be concerned about the game's potential issues and have planned a community patch project.