I was wondering if this quote would look better in context, but nope:
Verified developer Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka jumped into the discussion to defend the mammoth planet-hopper. “Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design - but that’s not boring,” the developer says (cheers, Destructoid). FalcoYamaoka continues to say that wandering through the alien landscapes is supposed to evoke feelings of “smallness.” The intention is to “make you feel overwhelmed” at the vastness of space.
FalcoYamaoka really just chose to die on that hill, a hill that is most likely on a completely empty planet. It’s possible for them to have 100% achieved their design goal of smallness and making a player feel overwhelmed and for it to still be boring.
I don’t disagree that a true space exploration game should have barren planets (I’d imagine most planets in the universe are barren), but they should be more like set pieces (like how a tree is a set piece in a normal exploration game). And they shouldn’t be included in metrics used to quantify the size of the world.
I was wondering if this quote would look better in context, but nope:
FalcoYamaoka really just chose to die on that hill, a hill that is most likely on a completely empty planet. It’s possible for them to have 100% achieved their design goal of smallness and making a player feel overwhelmed and for it to still be boring.
Yep. It’s a pretty weak excuse
I don’t disagree that a true space exploration game should have barren planets (I’d imagine most planets in the universe are barren), but they should be more like set pieces (like how a tree is a set piece in a normal exploration game). And they shouldn’t be included in metrics used to quantify the size of the world.