Reportedly defined as "300 years in the future," the official news of Starfield's launch at E3 2021 provided the hype industry figures and gamers alike were looking for. “And now man lives among the stars: what does that mean?” Bethesda's Todd Howard thought in a video interview attached to begin the title. But until the launch of Elite in September 1984, there were no stars. At least not on personal computers. It was this game that first ventured into the final frontier. Mimicking Ryan Gosling's Neil Armstrong's fetching, but disarmingly amateurish, training phase in First Man, David Braben and Elite co-creator Ian Bell crafted a game based on a crude invention. They built a primitive ship welded with bright sparks of ambition, powered by BBC Basic machine code and optimized through straight-sided vector aerodynamics to open a portal to a new world. From an office behind a British Gas showroom in Cambridge, Braben and Bell blasted off into a cosmic void, some 40 years later, teeming with competing titles from across the gaming galaxy. As the latter, Starfield enters the space race with the weight of expectations that already hangs over the creators of Skyrim and Fallout. Now owned by Microsoft, Bethesda has promised a "Han Solo sim", coming to an Xbox exclusive with a release date quite far in the future: November 11, 2022. Braben, who received the BAFTA Video Game scholarship Academy 2015 in recognition of his contribution to the industry, he continues to be a key commentator here. After all, Elite "changed the world." This arguably spawned the concept of open-world gameplay, acting as a direct incentive for Grand Theft Auto, which Rockstar North founder Dave Jones would have described as "elite in town." The release of Elite Dangerous in 2012 deepened Braben's influential position, providing a platform for a unique perspective on the next generation of titles set in space.
"I've always been a fan of Bethesda games"
(Image credit: Frontier Developments) Speaking to TechRadar online from a Greek island, we asked Braben if he logged on to the E3 launch of Starfield. "I did. It's interesting. I've always been a fan of the Bethesda games. Starfield is a lot like the kind of story-driven adventure we might associate with pantyhose games," he quips. He, before clarifying: "I hope they do it well. I'm sure they will. I think in terms of how the story-driven expedition works, it's probably a really good scenario. Actually, the trailer doesn't really please me." said a lot about the game, which is usually the case with early trailers. That's probably true for some of ours as well. But it was a good trailer, let's see where it goes from there. To truly understand the future of this genre , it's important to look back Braben and Bell met at Jesus College, Cambridge, and found a common interest in early personal computers and the programming techniques that would lead them to cram a 22K game into the 32K capacity of the BBC Micro Elite has sold over a million copies, becoming the first non-American bestseller in the US But Braben's fascination with worlds beyond our world had been established a few years earlier. He “he was very interested in astronomy, the planets and the formation of the solar system. But he also had a great interest in science fiction. I avidly read people like Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Isaac Asimov. There was a wide range of people who wrote in a very creative, very interesting way, presenting very different worlds. I was completely committed to him, completely into the books. “There were hardly any science fiction movies that captured the same spirit. It was all camp and ridiculous or not really involved in what you might consider hard sci-fi that you ripped from the books. Star Wars was the first to present a plausible world. It was an amazing movie. For the first time, the world he had read about in the books appeared on the screen. "
Elite: a space odyssey
(Image credit: Frontier Developments) While Braben appreciated Space Invaders' "proof of concept art" vision and Asteroids' 2D design, comparable games set in the outer cosmos have proven frustrating and difficult to inspire. "We were writing for people with interests like us and I don't think there's any shame in that. It may be a niche audience, but at least it's an audience." David Braben “It's the exploration side,” he says. “It's one of the things that motivates him. Ian (Bell) and I got a little tired of the fact that all the games were more or less the same. There were three lives, an extra life of 10,000, a typical game time of less than 10 minutes. They were so regimented. I think it was very arcade driven and trying to get the next coin. I was like 'if you have a computer at home, why follow this structure?' Looking back, Braben compares the early phase of Elite's success to a quote from the 2018 Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody: "We're four misfits, writing music for misfits." "I'm immensely proud of Elite and also that we stood our ground," he explains, recounting an encounter with Thorn EMI, who turned him down due to a lack of those ubiquitous, "regulated gaming tropes." It may be a niche audience, but at least it's an audience,” he says.
Elite Dangerous Kickstarter campaign raised € 1.7 million
(Image credit: Frontier Developments) In 1994, after his partnership with Bell fell through, Braben created Frontier Developments, a video game company that released Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters. In 2014, after an extended hiatus and funded by a spectacularly successful Kickstarter campaign, which raised around €1.7 million, Elite Dangerous was released. But how had Braben's ambitions changed? “There are so many different aspects to be extremely proud of,” he explains. “The fact that every object in the night sky is in the game and much more, a little further than we can see. It is the joy of exploration. Go beyond the horizon and find something new. In fact, Braben points out that so far only "0,04% of our galaxy has been explored by gamers" and Elite Dangerous, with revenue of €100 million, continues to grow. The May's Odyssey expansion added a range of new features centered around more immersive first-person gameplay. While he admits his frustration with the technical issues that compromised its launch, Braben remains excited about the evolution of Elite and the wired community experience. “It's this incredible richness and dynamic range. You don't see that in games,” he says. However, the last decade has seen a tangible renaissance in this area. A recent Wireframe article chronicled the genre, suggesting that Elite Dangerous was the moment "space got cold again." In 2019, Outer Wilds won the BAFTA for Best Game, EA confirmed a Dead Space remake, while No Man's Sky was hailed as "one of the greatest twists of all time in the Canadian 'industry."
Space games show "how small and fragile Earth is"
(Image credit: Hello Games) Braben praised No Man's Sky developer Hello Games for their continued commitment to the title, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this month. "I love seeing things that spark people's imaginations and challenge ideas. It's really important. Dead Space does it like Elite Dangerous. So you look at the night sky and realize how important it is. Earth is small and fragile.” David Braben “I played a bit of No Man's Sky and it's a very different experience,” says Braben. "I think they've done a lot of work since launch to improve the game and I applaud that," he said, before moving on to a broader question about how to rejuvenate the genre. “I don't think it's technological. I think it's much more social. People saw the success of Elite Dangerous. They saw the money raised for Star Citizen. The focus has changed and people have realized how interesting it is. “I don't really see Dead Space in the same way. It's a really good game and I loved playing it, but if I had been asked to list space games I probably would have put it in a different category. But I like to see things that spark people's imaginations and challenge ideas. It's very important. Dead Space does this, as does Elite Dangerous. So that you look at the night sky and realize how small and fragile the Earth is. There are so many cultural things that we have to consider, as Sir David Attenborough pointed out. It is another way of showing how small we are in the vastness of space. Returning to Starfield and Braben, he believes it's important for Bethesda to acknowledge the challenges that exist in the modern digital world and learn from recent releases, including No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077, that have become targets of media smears. . content. . "It's a risk," he explains. “Some games can become everything to everyone. We also have it with Elite Odyssey, where people expect the interior of each ship to be different. Let's see how Bethesda fares. I don't want to criticize them. I think it's a very good company, but I think they started working so soon that they have a lot of work ahead of them. It's the truth. With games like Starfield getting so much attention, does Braben have a sense of accomplishment for being the first to plant a flag in the ground? "I think there's an element at the right time, in the right place, but I'm glad we kept our guns," Braben said. "People don't notice because...