The designer of Diamond City, Little Lamplight, and Starfield's Neon thinks Bethesda's galaxy was just too big: 'I would have done a handful of planets with bespoke layouts'
Nate Purkeypile worked on Starfield for a year before leaving Bethesda.
In a recent episode of The Examined Game podcast, veteran Bethesda environment artist Nate Purkeypile revealed his thoughts on Starfield's design. Purkeypile, who worked on the game's environments including Neon, Little Lamplight, and Diamond City, expressed that he would have approached the game differently. He stated, "I would have done a handful of planets with bespoke layouts."
This sentiment echoes Obsidian's method in The Outer Worlds, where each planet has unique layouts. Purkeypile criticized the current approach, noting that while the major cities are expansive, the rest of the world feels sparse and disconnected. He argued that procedural generation, when not used to create truly unique content, doesn't amount to genuine procedural gameplay.
He envisioned a world where major cities contrast sharply with procedurally generated planets, a concept he later saw in Fallout 3 remaster.
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