This month, Bethesda Softworks’ YouTube channel released three videos, each focusing on one of the cities that will be appearing in Starfield. Here’s a breakdown of each, and some of the factions and theories that the new videos confirm.

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Cities In Starfield

Each of the three recent Starfield videos released by Bethesda focuses on just one city, but it’s likely that each location spotlighted in a trailer was chosen because it represents a larger faction or significant portion of Starfield’s society. At Brighton Digital 2020, Todd Howard expressed his hopes that a greater use of procedural generation could allow Bethesda to make more realistically sized cities in Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 than in previous Bethesda RPGs.

Whether that goal has been achieved has yet to be seen. The trailers released over the past week used concept art released around E3 2021 as background, and it’s hard to actually tell how Starfield’s concept art will translate into the game’s world.

Nonetheless, the new videos did solidify some important details. Bethesda had mentioned Starfield having multiple factions like Skyrim did, but so far only one faction, Constellation, had been revealed. The release of the first video, focusing on the city of Akila, changed that.

Akila City

Bethesda’s design director Emil Pagliarulo provides the narration for all three videos. His summary of Akila City reveals a lot about Starfield’s universe.

Even this brief summary of Akila City reveals a lot about Starfield’s setting which, until now, was only speculation. First, the existence of a civilization spanning three different star systems gives players a sense of the scope of the game’s universe. It seems likely that there will be at least one habitable world in each of those systems, making it possible that each of Starfield’s major political factions will control around three visitable planets or space stations.

The trailer confirms the existence of one of those major factions, the Freestar Collective. Based on its description in the Starfield trailer and its visual design, it seems likely that the Freestar Collective is poorer when compared to some of its rivals. The space-western feel of its capital implies that both its design and its philosophy were based on stories about the American frontier.

The Ashta are also the first confirmation Bethesda fans have received that Starfield will include alien races at all. One piece of concept art appeared to show some animals that looked like giant alien crabs, but the confirmation that the Ashta are plaguing Akila City is the first real indication of the role animal-like aliens could play in the game.

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Neon

Pagliarulo goes on to describe Neon, a city built on a giant fishing platform.

Pagliarulo’s description of Neon reveals some interesting additional details about the game’s universe, and potentially even Starfield’s gameplay. It seems likely that Neon will be the only visitable location on its otherwise “nondescript aquatic world,” which may indicate that some of the game’s cities will also be the only visitable locations on their planets.

The existence of the Xenofresh Corporation also implies the existence of independent companies colonizing certain planets without having to align themselves with any major governmental factions. Just as Akila City is hounded by the aliens outside its walls, Neon likely has a dark underworld, suggesting that Bethesda’s optimistic vision of the future may be more complicated by Starfield’s factions than the game’s marketing has let on so far.

New Atlantis

Starfield’s optimistic “NASA-punk” philosophy, however, comes back in full force with Pagliarulo’s description of New Atlantis.

This leaves the Freestar Collective and the United Colonies as the two major governmental factions confirmed so far, and Constellation and the Xenofresh Corporation as the two other factions revealed by Bethesda. If the image of New Atlantis’ space sport depicted in the Starfield concept art is representative of its size in-game, and the city is explorable beyond that, New Atlantis could deliver the larger city Todd Howard hinted at. Either way, its description makes it likely to be one of if not the biggest city in the game.

“What you’re looking at here is the space port for the city of New Atlantis, the capital city of the United Colonies, or U.C., the most powerful, established military and political faction in the game. The city is a true melting pot and its residents come from every race, creed, and ethnicity. In a lot of ways, New Atlantis a true reflection of the future of our world.”

For now the reach of the United Colonies, and how that reach will translate into the actual explorable area of Starfield’s universe remains to be seen. While the three videos released this month were all short, however, they confirmed many details that had only been speculative until now.

Starfield releases November 11, 2022, on PC and Xbox Series X/S.

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