Former Bethesda Developer Says Starfield Would Have Been Better With Fewer Handcrafted Planets

Former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile told The Examined Game he would have designed Starfield with a handful of handcrafted planets rather than 1,000 procedurally assembled ones. He called the repeated dungeons and content 'space quilts' that made the world incoherent from an environmental standpoint.

Starfield Design Critique
Bethesda Developer Insights

Nate Purkeypile, a former Bethesda developer who worked on Starfield, told The Examined Game he would have swapped Starfield’s 1,000 procedurally assembled planets for a few bespoke ones.
He criticized Starfield’s repeated dungeons and content as “space quilts” — chunks rearranged in slightly different ways — and argued this made the world incoherent from an environmental standpoint.