Todd Howard says that hundreds of plans for Starfield "went out of the window"

A spaceship in Starfield docked on a rocky planet
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield director Todd Howard has spoken about plans for the game that didn’t make the final cut, including the idea for a very neat Fallout reference. 

In an interview with The Washington Post, journalist Gene Park mentioned that he’d hoped to find the nuclear wasteland from Fallout 3 on Earth in Starfield, since the planet has a destroyed surface which is completely devoid of life. Spoiler alert: the reference wasn’t included, but Howard revealed: “We talked about it.”

He then confirmed that hundreds of other plans didn’t get included in the game's final version, either: “Oh, we planned, and those plans went out the window,” he said.

“We knew we were going to rewrite parts of the engine, so we started building technology for the planets and the outer space stuff on our previous engine and renderer.” 

In general, Starfield faced some big challenges in its development. It was ported over to a new engine, and the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the developers ended up producing the game from home, too, which was “very, very slow”. 

The response to Starfield has been generally positive now that it's out. Yesterday, the space-exploration RPG hit an all-time concurrent player peak of 330,723 on Steam, which surpassed Skyrim’s record of 287,411. Meanwhile, on its release date (September 6), it managed to hit a concurrent player peak over one million across all platforms - including PC, Xbox Series X|S and cloud streaming.

Modders have been very busy in Starfield, too - we’ve already seen Thomas the Tank Engine added to the game, as well as Todd Howard’s face (who can now be projected from your flashlight). If you’re a Star Wars fan, you can also replace all of the United Colonies’ guards with Stormtroopers. They don’t bump their heads on things, though. 

For more games to get lost in, be sure to take a look at our recommendations for the best open-world games. You can also keep up with future releases with our roundup of upcoming games

TOPICS
Catherine Lewis
News Writer, TechRadar Gaming

Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles. 

Read more
Fallout 76 Wastelanders screenshot showing three characters in Power Armor, standing side by side at the bottom of a sun drenched canyon
Fallout 5 - everything we know so far
Starfield
Phil Spencer isn't ruling out a Starfield PS5 release, could it be the next Xbox exclusive to come to the platform?
The landscape in Atomfall.
Atomfall art director breaks down the survival game's condensed Lake District setting: 'It wasn't so much about how far you travel, but how many things you see along the way'
Starfield
Fan discovery suggests a Starfield PS5 launch could actually happen and I might give the game another shot if it does
The setting for The Elder Scrolls 6. Mountains, grasslands and an ocean in the distance
The Elder Scrolls 6 - everything we know so far
A close up of Darth Revan behind a red lightsaber
Star Wars KOTOR remake - everything we know so far
Latest in Consoles & PC
Nintendo Music teaser art
Nintendo Music expands its library with songs from Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Tetris
Image of Naoe in AC Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows is hands-down one of the most beautiful PC ports I've ever seen
Image of AC Shadows cover art & Steam Deck
It's not perfect, but Assassin's Creed Shadows' performance is impressive - it runs smoothly on the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally
Steam Deck OLED in limited edition white color
With a single update SteamOS could turbocharge handheld PCs – here's how
Samus Aran leaping through space
Metroid Prime 4 tipped to be at the heart of April's Nintendo Switch 2 deep-dive
Nintendo Switch 2
Nintendo Switch 2 expected to have AI upscaling and I can't wait to finally play Tears of the Kingdom with upgraded graphics
Latest in News
Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin Rennovations
Disney’s giving a classic Buzz Lightyear ride a tech overhaul – here's everything you need to know
Hisense U8 series TV on wall in living room
Hisense announces 2025 mini-LED TV lineup, with screen sizes up to 100 inches – and a surprising smart TV switch
Nintendo Music teaser art
Nintendo Music expands its library with songs from Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Tetris
Opera AI Tabs
Opera's new AI feature brings order to your browser tab chaos
An image of Pro-Ject's Flatten it closed and opened
Pro-Ject’s new vinyl flattener will fix any warped LPs you inadvertently buy on Record Store Day
The iPhone 16 Pro on a grey background
iPhone 17 Pro tipped to get 8K video recording – but I want these 3 video features instead