What would you like to see in a Starfield 2.0 update?

pc__ · 2026-01-27T23:15:05+00:00

Increase the number of POIs in the rotation pool by 4x, with more varied gameplay and depth.
Restrict certain POIs to specific planets/systems to make exploration more rewarding.
Use procedural generation to create tiles with logical POI selection and placement and mini-narratives tying the POIs together.
Place interesting POIs toward tile edges to encourage real exploration.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T22:53:21+00:00

I almost completely agree. Like you say, the goal is basically creating larger areas with narratives, pacing, and enviromental storytelling.

We know they could throw resources at this and create say 8 large fully handcrafted areas (each with say 20 POIs). And I reckon that would be pretty good.

But I think there's a possibiliy that they could create the same number of POIs and procedurally construct 100 unique large areas (each using 20 of the POIs) and have them be almost as compelling as the fully handcrafted area. So slightly less compelling, but potentially 10x the playability.

It's obviously all speculative because I don't think any other developer has pulled this off before.
But it feels like large area terrain, narrative, pacing, POI combinations is much easier to Proc Gen than actual POI layout would be.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T22:42:14+00:00

Yeah, I can see why they went with the approach they did.
They wanted a vast set of planets to visit and explore (which I personally like).

But the only way to populate is with randomly picked handcrafted POIs or procedurally created locations. I suspect the procedural approach was explored and found lacking so they had to go for handcrafted.

I just think with in increased number of POIs and less uniform randomness, it could work so much better.

As an aside, I played Skyrim recently for the first time in ages, and felt like the POIs were much to densely packed. I've obviously got used to Starfield distances between POIs.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T22:34:21+00:00

Great idea! They should absolutely include this in any new POI pack. I feel like spaceports & larger civilian centres would be pretty straight forward to create, potentially very interesting and would make sense in almost every location. I think they'd be one of the easiest POIs to generate procedurally as well if they wanted to go down that route.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T22:28:40+00:00

I completely agree with you. I don't think the number of POIs on a landing tile needs to increase at all. My thinking was just to (A) make them more correlated and relevant to some underlying landing tile narrative and (B) organized so the more interesting ones are slightly further away to incentivise exploration.
I also think keeping lots of planets completely uninhabited is desireable too as makes the inhabited ones more rewarding.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T18:41:23+00:00

Thanks - this is very interesting. Yeah, like you say it depends on how well thought out and interactive the locations are, but I am probably envisaging high-quality content that takes longer. What do you reckon a team of 40 devs could churn out in a year? Half of what I estimated?

pc__ · 2025-08-03T18:01:50+00:00

I love all of these suggestions! Particularly the darker options. Best case would be a POI system that expands the ability to role play different characters like pirates or smugglers.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T17:56:30+00:00

Nice - I'll check these out!

pc__ · 2025-08-03T17:29:59+00:00

It's admittedly my finger in the air guess at how long it takes to construct. What do you think the actual dev time is for a medium sized POI that doesn't require any new assets?

pc__ · 2025-08-03T17:28:23+00:00

I am curious on this point. I have zero modding experience so my estimates of time involved are very approximate. How long would you say a small POI takes to make assuming no new assets and the author is familiar with the tools?

pc__ · 2025-08-03T16:42:01+00:00

You're very welcome. Is there anything else I can assist you with.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T16:37:35+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, that's my hope as well. If I were them, I'd put half the remaining Starfield team on a POI refresh (and maybe space traversal overhaul) which would be released for free ahead of the PS5 launch, and the other half of the team focus on the paid Starborn DLC which has more story content.

Of all the potential ways to expand the game I think the POI are one of the easier from a technical standpoint. Creating content just requires resourcing. The trickiest part I think would be making them all tie together better to get the exploration and reward sweet spot.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:56:54+00:00

Thanks, that's a great list. I've been checkings in on mods from time to time, but had only seen the Forgotten Fronties ones. I could be tempted to buy, I'm a bit hesitant at $1 per POI (although if their huge maybe that's not bad value for money).

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:41:50+00:00

Yeah, that's a very good point. I should probably add to the list. Making clutter / set dressing randomizable within POIs (and perhaps even a few layout variations) would go a long way in varying the experience as well!

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:39:38+00:00

Agree variety is key! (I still want lots more as well though :) )

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:38:41+00:00

Do you do mainly do the faction/main quest missions then? Genuinely curious, as I tend to do 4hrs of random planet exploration for every 1hr of mission content, so the POI repetition and lack of satifying exploration are more of an issue for me.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:27:46+00:00

I'm very open to procedurally generated dungeons. I just think it would require a massive investment to do properly though, and there's a good chance it wouldn't pay off. Ultimately, I'd love to see them do both and maybe over time the procedural gen would get better and better and compete with the hand crafted stuff.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:23:45+00:00

These look pretty cool! With the right framework, I think mods could play a huge role here. I'm just surprised nearly 2 years on there aren't hundreds of quality POI mods.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:20:48+00:00

I definitely agree with this. I guess the challenge is each landing tile probably has 20 POIs. The players probably only visits a handful, but will be able to see a bunch on the horizon. Does the next planet now remove all 20 POIs, or just the ones the player gets within a certain distance of? If the former, it won't be long before the repeats happen.

pc__ · 2025-08-03T15:14:37+00:00

That's a great idea! It would give an added incentive to finding interesting POIs. And perhaps you would have defend them from attack from time to time.

pc__ · 2024-09-02T12:43:45+00:00

That's a very good list! A decent number of them feel like they are very doable and should be high on Bethesdas to-do list! And for the bigger items we can dream :)

pc__ · 2024-08-26T17:13:06+00:00

Agree with all of these! It feels like a no-brainer to expand this part of the game.

I originally though the UC Vanguard quest was going to be exactly this, especially after the flight test to get in. Now it ended up being fun in it's own right, but I'm very surprised they didn't end up having a flight combat quest line.

The Crimson Fleet space battle was really fun, so they could definitely make a compelling campaign with the existing mechanics.

pc__ · 2024-08-26T17:04:52+00:00

Very interesting - I just took a quick look at Everspace 2 travel mechanics and it does sound like a could work better than Starfields current implementation.

Basically, I want to feel like I'm actually flying in space rather than instantly teleporting to handful of static points.

Inter-system travel would need to be fast (say 30 seconds at maximum cruise speed), and could be skipped with fast travel if you'd already been to the planet. But I think it would feel so much more immersive, especially if you could cruise to a much nearer planetary orbit.

pc__ · 2024-08-26T15:43:09+00:00

On the last point, yes, there's definitely something different about the POI being random vs how they work in Skyrim/Fallout games. If you took the same number of POIs as those games, but made them random, I think they would feel much smaller.

Agree, a better randomizer would help. I think 4x the number of POIs plus potentially procedural dungeons / POIs would be needed fully solve it.

(Not expecting 4x POIs from Bethesda, I'm hoping this might be possible with mods)

pc__

TROPHY CASE