Modders are already having a field day with Starfield, including improving the UI and letting you exit your ship while in space, but all of that is happening outside of official channels. Now, game director Todd Howard has confirmed that Bethesda is actively working on official mod support for Starfield, with expectations for it to launch next year.
Howard confirmed the news in a recent interview with Famitsu, where he emphasized that the implementation of mod support will be similar to what’s been offered for previous Bethesda titles. “You will be able to do almost anything, just like in previous works,” he said (via Google Translate). “We love it too, so we’ll do it in a big way.”
For previous games, Bethesda has released the Creation Kit for modders, which is, essentially, a replication of the tools that the team uses to build its games. This level of support has enabled the creation of total conversion mods for both Skyrim and Fallout 4. The studio has even gone a step further than most, adding official mod support to the console versions of its games, though it has been limited in the scope of what is available compared to the PC version. Whether that’s something the team is considering for Starfield has yet to be confirmed.
Official mod support will help to extend the longevity of Starfield — not that it really needs it. The base game already has hundreds of hours of content to churn through, with at least one expansion called Shattered Space on the way and plans for plenty more. However, there is no timeline for that extra content, and nothing beyond Shattered Space officially confirmed at present.
The full Famitsu interview goes into more detail about the game’s development, including the approach the team took to building out what you can do and why a universe was the next logical step after The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
