Starfield was supposed to mark the beginning of a major new Bethesda universe, but one of the developers who worked on the game isn’t convinced we’ll ever see Starfield 2. Former lead systems designer Kurt Kuhlmann says he would be “very surprised” if Bethesda decided to make a sequel, pointing to the first game’s performance as the main reason.

Speaking in an interview with FRVR, Kuhlmann said he doesn’t believe Starfield was successful enough to justify another full game. Bethesda hasn’t announced Starfield 2, but his comments aren’t confirmation that a sequel has been cancelled or ruled out. However, Kuhlmann spent years at Bethesda and worked directly on the original game before leaving the studio following its release.

“It’s, in a way, too bad, because I think with the lessons learned on Starfield, a Starfield 2 could have been much closer to the game that Todd [Howard] had [in mind]. You can envision that game, you can imagine that game. That’s not quite what Starfield really is.” 

Kurt Kuhlmann, Former Lead Systems Designer at Bethesda

Bethesda will likely keep focusing on The Elder Scrolls and Fallout

Bethesda has plenty on its plate already. The studio continues to support Starfield with updates and additional content, while its main development focus has shifted toward The Elder Scrolls 6. With Bethesda’s major RPGs typically requiring years of development, another Starfield would potentially represent an enormous commitment.

One of the problems, according to Kuhlmann, was the enormous scope Bethesda was trying to achieve. Starfield lets players explore planets, build and customize spaceships, establish outposts, follow large questlines, meet different characters, collect resources, and freely travel across a huge universe. Putting all of those systems together while making everything feel connected proved difficult.

Kuhlmann used the outpost system as an example. Players can construct bases across numerous planets, and the game remembers what they’ve built, making the feature impressive from a technical perspective. However, he believes outposts aren’t integrated deeply enough into the rest of the experience, particularly its quests and story.

In Starfield, no one introduces you to the outposts and, for technical reasons, there’s no NPC settlements for them, either. They’re your outposts. They link into resource and crafting systems, but they’re not propped up narratively. 

Kurt Kuhlmann, Former Lead Systems Designer at Bethesda

He compared that approach with Fallout 4, where settlements had a clearer connection to the game’s world and narrative. In Starfield, outposts largely operate as their own system, despite requiring a significant amount of development work.

The size of the development team was another challenge. Kuhlmann said that Bethesda needed significantly more developers to create enough content to properly support the scale it was targeting. New systems also had to be completed before other developers could start building content around them, leaving less time when those systems arrived later in production.

About the Author

Abdul Haddi

Abdul is a tech writer and Editor for PC Guide, specializing in all things tech, gaming, and hardware.